The Great Plotnik

Thursday, November 16, 2006

A More Perfect World for Baby I


This photo should be called: Happiness.

What a lucky baby Isabella is. She's got two adoring parents, a raft of devoted family members, and there is every likelihood that she's been born into the best of all times for a little girl in America.

How did she get here, anyway? Her great-great grandparents on her dad's side all were born in Eastern Europe, in a bondage of despair and hatred. Many of her mom's forebears, for no one is sure exactly how many generations, came to America in chains. Though they have been in this country far longer than her dad's antecedents, her mom's family has had to maneuver across a longer and infinitely more rutted road.

I mean, think about that. Imagine your street an African village. A man walks into your house and grabs you and the rest of your family, ties you up, throws you in the back of his vehicle and takes you down to the ferry. Maybe you think you're going to...Oakland. But no. Many difficult weeks later you find yourself a prisoner in a hostile, new land where you and all your descendants will remain.

Or change location. Make your street a Russian shtetl, a tiny village. A different man, along with a bunch of his friends, tear through your village on horseback, brandishing sabres and whips, decapitating and raping every person they can find. After this happens year after year, your parents decide to leave everything they own and flee to another harbor, and another boat, and the next thing you know you too are in a hostile, new land where you and your descendants will remain.

Of course, maybe you're luckier: maybe you came here because you wanted to, and your skin is the same color as others in your new country, so you are not marked. It won't take as long for you to find your way to freedom.

Why does the Great Plotnik prattle on about any of this? Why does it matter? Because, as you may have noticed this past week, he has his new Scrumptious Grandbaby Isabella.

As far as Baby I is concerned, it's all good. She gets to be part of two rich traditions. To tell the truth, Grandpa Plotnik is a bit jealous of the fun she's going to have.

But that's only because the times they are a-changing. Right now, at 9:38AM November 16, 2006, it's possible to feel confident about the future, about the rest of the 21st Century.

But shit happens. Times can change back, too. People in power don't relinquish it without a fight. If a door can open, it can also slam shut.

So TGP asks himself, and he asks Baby I's loving family, and his friends and readers, wherever anyone is at this precise moment: How bad do we want it? How much do we want to see all babies, not just our own babies, but all those other babies too, even the funky ones with the distended bellies and flies whirling around their faces, the babies who will grow up at the same time as Baby Isabella, wax strong with a chance to prosper?

OK, take away 'all.' 'All' is just too hard to contemplate. How about 'More?'

Wouldn't every one of us love to see more babies, let's just say more than now, get to feel as safe and secure as that little Pumpkin in The Great FiveHead's arms above? We're allowed to feel selfish about it. Wouldn't that do more to assure a more perfect world for Baby I than any amount of scared soldiers, or new jails, or walls built high to keep out the Devil?

1 Comments:

At 12:06 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

And THIS one, wow, talk about a Madonna mother face of pure sweet peace and bliss. Mama looks absolutely beautiful.

 

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