…it’ll take you to the most unexpected places. These past two days have been extremely informative and exciting; provocative and shocking;\u00a0and most of all, eyeopening.\u00a0This past\u00a0Sunday, as we all gathered together to take a trip back in time to the founding of Londinium, I found myself thinking about the people who walked this same land thousands of years ago. We tend to think about the older civilizations as fairly one dimensional; as a group of warriors that fight\u00a0to defend their land. In fact, most of\u00a0the history\u00a0classes that I have taken really emphasize the\u00a0importance of ancient battles, using them as\u00a0markers in the timeline of the civilization’s evolution.\u00a0But really, this only leaves us gaps in our knowledge, just like\u00a0the gaps in the timeline.\u00a0I guess ultimately, I find myself feeling unfulfilled by this sort of approach to\u00a0history.\u00a0What about the people, what about their fears and hopes, what about their humanity?\u00a0These questions have always run through my head throughout my various history classes, yet\u00a0since\u00a0I\u00a0have been in London, I\u00a0have been pleasently surprised thus far.<\/p>\n
We have walked the streets, learning and interacting with the history that surrounds us. I have really enjoyed seeing where influencial people have\u00a0lived, walking the street where the Great Fire started…essentially being able to visualize life, to compare it to my own, to recognize their hardships and\u00a0their successes.<\/p>\n
This was especially evident on Sunday when my group headed to the Docklands to visit the museum. We were all stunned into silence as we quietly wandered from room to room which powerfully exposed the ugly truth about slavery in England. We read letters\u00a0and\u00a0journal entries illustrating the pain of the enslaved, we saw paintings describing the horrors, we saw the chains that bound them and held them in captivity. Basically, we saw, heard, and touched the brutality of the slave trade in London’s early history and were able to witness that same prejudice manifest itself in today’s society. This very racism\u00a0was clearly seen in the comments folder that was kept inside the museum. This folder held a variety of comments; some appreciated and loved the museum for its accurate portrayal of the events that have evolved into the current lingering prejudices that plague London, as well as comments that expressed downright contempt for the museum. One I clearly remember saying, “this place is a piece of crap and i ain’t coming back”. Though the grammatical errors make this person’s comment particularly ridiculous, it\u00a0shocks\u00a0and angers me to see that people like this still stubbornly refuse to grasp the reality that is present. Here I was\u00a0finally being able to see some kind of progress as to how we approach learning history, and yet simultaneously here was some ignorant\u00a0asshole willing to skip over the potentially difficult, but nevertheless REAL, facets of English history! After this experience, my group rallied together to discuss our reactions, all of us mirroring one another’s disgust. I have to say that the comments in that little binder really struck me and I have been thinking about them ever since we left…It’s funny how one person’s bad comment can really impact an experience. With the walking tour that took place today, however, I am feeling a lot better and and again excited that we took the past and made it our present.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
…it’ll take you to the most unexpected places. These past two days have been extremely informative and exciting; provocative and shocking;\u00a0and most of all, eyeopening.\u00a0This past\u00a0Sunday, as we all gathered together to take a trip back in time to the founding of Londinium, I found myself thinking about the people who walked this same land […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[745,77,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-maddie","category-museums","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}