Sins of the father

People should not be punished for the sins of their fathers.

We hear this from the white people in South Africa. Americans who descended from slave owners use this line regularly.

The reality is that children pay for the wrong decisions of their parents all the time.

When an abused child has to make his way in this world with a heart covered in scar tissue when famine and global warming are the legacies of the father, the child pays. The innocent are not spared the horrors that their parents leave them in the natural world. The very foundations of several major religions are based on the premise that eve ate of the forbidden fruit and as a result, all of mankind was cast out of the garden of Eden.

Sins of the fathers.

As a society, we try to rise above this and not allow children to pay for the sins of their parents but it's often a fool's errand. With mothers in jail and so many kids who have to face the misery of their lives, caused by their parent's neglect or bad choices we can't always succeed.

In America and countries like South Africa, we are faced with the descendants of slavery and apartheid asking to be spared the retribution of their father's guilt. The descendants of the slaves argue that they are the ones suffering for the sins of the white kid's fathers. And their suffering needs to be addressed first.

So its children should not suffer for the sins of their fathers, especially not the sins of others fathers.

If the current generation has purged their lives of racism and work towards healing the injured, one would think that given enough time the world can be healed.

This is based on three assumptions.

No new racism.
No privilege earned from racism.
Time to heal.

I don't think we have actually purged our society of racism except superficially.

The current generation was born into the privileged life that was created on the backs of slaves. And they have not handed over or redistributed that privilege.

So maybe it's not entirely fair to allow the ruling white elite to collectively wash from their hands the blood of slavery.

M Parak 2017.