On Slave Forts, Human Nature, Shakespeare and Evil

I was watching Anderson Cooper last night report on Obama's visit to the slave forts in Cape Coast, Ghana, and have a few comments. As I mentioned before, one of the most breath taking moments for me when I visited there was walking out to the ocean side of the fort and seeing the vast fishing community. It was extraordinarily beautiful. What I realized last night was that probably due to security, no Ghanians were allowed to be in the area. I was disappointed to realize that the fishing scene, that has been part of daily life for centuries there, was not part of Obama's experience.





I was very impressed with Obama's comments on being witness to man's inhumanity to man. I remember when I photographed in the concentration camps and couldn't help but wonder how I would have handled myself if confronted with the choices people were forced to make under Hitler. I could see myself being incredibly challenged on all fronts with more questions left unanswered.

Door of No Return, Ghana

I saw a performance of Macbeth last year and in the playbill, there was a quote from James Baldwin which really resonated.
" We would rather believe that evil comes into the world by means of a single man, can be laid at the door of Another; but Shakeskpeare knew, and all artists know, that evil comes into the world by means of some vast, inexplicable and probably ineradicable human fault. That is to say: the evil is, in some sense, ours. And we help to feed it by failing so often in our own private lives to deal with our own private truth."