COVID-19, race and strawberries

We went strawberry picking the other day. It took place at a farm in a nearby town in a rural part of New England.

There were several family members involved, representing parts of three generations. It was a fun activity, especially at a time when many families are separated by distance, the immobilization of the country’s travel industry, and the legitimate fear of contracting viral illness.

We wanted our grandchildren to have the experience — the fun — of picking produce in a bucolic setting, unhurried and unforced. We also wanted them to learn from the effort: to appreciate nature, the nurturing and the taste of natural foods, the realization that their food does not grow at the supermarket. There is an academic syllabus for youngsters in gardening as well: identifying nature’s products, math, colors, planting, weather, learning agricultural words from other languages, respect for the dignity of manual labor.

Once we were organized with directions and baskets, we set out for the berry fields, and proceeded down a gravely path to the patches where we were separated from other pickers by an attendant whose duties included keeping folks in a social distancing environment. The only encumbrance that I observed on the pathway was that of avoiding people who were walking about unmasked.

As we approached the field, I noticed earlier pickers in the distance, bent over, or kneeling, in the sun, reminiscent of history book photographs of enslaved people picking cotton in the 19th century.

I thought of the contrast. It was then that I realized that there were no African-Americans present. For us it was a happy, family experience. For Black citizens 200 years ago, picking cotton, tobacco or vegetables was not a happy, family experience. Indeed, as Frederick Douglass wrote in 1845, in “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,” the laboring in the fields was not necessarily a true family experience, since the youngsters may have been the offspring of the slaveholder. Neither our labors, nor our smiles, were forced; we were free to come and go; able to pick as much or as little as we could afford.

I was also reminded of the heritage of many in our party. We were all descended from ancestors from Western, Southern or Eastern Europe. Many of those ancestors had been farmers before emigrating to the United States. Once here, some of those poor immigrants continued in that endeavor while encouraging their children to obtain a formal education.

As the generations passed, the descendants of those immigrants did pursue and obtain college, and in some instances, graduate degrees. All have traveled, and some have worked overseas, reflective of some of life’s changes in the 21st century. But I still can remember my father telling me: “You may work behind a desk someday wearing a shirt and tie, but it will do you good to get your hands dirty once in a while.”

The fun of this family outing and our exuberance were tempered by the thoughts of the suffering endured in earlier centuries by millions of poor immigrants, the suffering endured in earlier centuries and today by millions of slaves and their descendants, while the current pandemic reminds us of our common vulnerability.