I have finished Servant of the People, and I am sorry that I have. However it is the Spirit of Ukraine which will live in me forever.
Last night and previously I even wanted to go to Ukraine, even now in the middle of a war, to see this spirit personally. That is why these this article by Ta-Nehisi Coates in 2014 means so much to me. I am not the only one.
If I could be anywhere writing about anything, right now, I'd be lost in Kiev. I used to read about certain countries in Europe after they threw bananas at some black soccer player, and say to myself, "I'll never go there." But…knowing that this is not a dress rehearsal, and knowing, too, that questions are burning in me, and feeling that my whole purpose here is to observe, I simply don't much care anymore. …
…I
came to wonder how other societies handled their national crimes. And so
we've spent the past few months thinking of some of the most horrifying
wrongs of the 20th century, and in those wrongs I have seen so much of
myself. It is an odd thing to be raised black, to be raised by the
dictates of white supremacy prevention, and then turn around and see
yourself in people lighter than you. I feel deeply ignorant writing
that. But it's true. The Ukrainian national anthem translates as "Ukraine Has Not Yet Died,"
and I have some sense of what that means.* But then I kind of don't.
Analogy can sometimes obscure as much as it clarifies. Someday I hope to
know more.