Historicizing Heritage

A heritage that is not to be celebrated, but is rather soaked in tears, my artifact is gun violence. It’s one thing that makes us unique as Americans; unlike almost any other place in the world, we gun each other down regularly. Every day. Probably every hour.

Indeed, what you call it is very important to how this heritage is understood … Heritage is a productive concept. It produces nations. It produces futures. It produces communities. … I called my artifact gun violence, and a certain kind of community is hailed by that term. I could have brought another artifact that could be exactly the same, but it would be called personal safety. And that would hail another community altogether.

Each heritage discourse aims to unite people through shared values. In this case, we all oppose violence; we all want to be safe. But even as they aim to unite, the fact of differing heritage language – indeed contradictory language (violence, safety) – is witness to deeply fissured interpretations of the second amendment, the originating document of each of these intangible cultural heritage items, and radically distinct futures…. My artifact makes abundantly clear [that] heritage-making is deeply contrary.

When heritages collide could well be the name of our current era.