Tomorrow is the federal holiday honoring Juneteenth, the celebration of the announcement in Texas on June 19th, 1865, that enslaved Americans were free.
Yes, we as free, responsible citizens must actively work to remember history accurately, and can only do so with the help of responsible intellectual leaders like Dr. Heather--thank you.
'Thousands queue to see the Emancipation Proclamation and General Order No. 3' (WAPO) excerpts
'For the second year, thousands of people marked Juneteenth by queuing outside the National Archive’s East Side Rotunda Gallery to catch a glimpse of the rarely exhibited Emancipation Proclamation and General Order No. 3., which informed enslaved Black people in Texas of their freedom in 1865, and gave rise to the holiday.'
'Two of the most influential documents that discuss the freedom of enslaved Black people in the United States are so fragile that the National Archives normally keeps them in a high-security climate-controlled vault with limited light for preservation. But that could change soon. On Saturday, Colleen Shogan, the Archivist of the United States, announced a plan to display the Emancipation Proclamation and General Order No. 3 permanently.'
'To celebrate Juneteenth weekend, the National Archives is displaying the original Emancipation Proclamation documents for 3 days only.'
“It’s critically important because it’s an addition to the Charters of Freedom and helps us tell a much more comprehensive story,” she said. “It’s important for all Americans to see a reflection of themselves in American History.”
'Inside the East Side Rotunda, Beth Short, 45 and Laura Short, 44, stood with their daughter Ada, 7, peering over the Emancipation Proclamation, which was enclosed in a glass climate-controlled case with a wooden base. The Shorts pointed to parts of the document while Ada’s curious wide eyes followed along.'
'Ada asked about the importance of Juneteenth. Her parents explained it the best way she could comprehend. Beth Short said later that it is key for children to learn history during their foundational years even if the conversation is uncomfortable in the current polarized political climate.'
“There have been struggles of equality and continued struggles that are present and it’s connected. If we don’t have those conversations, we’re just going to repeat them,” Short said.
'Garrett Osumah, 47, stood behind his small young sons as they gazed over General Order No. 3, which was enclosed in a glass case. Even before they got to the Archives, Osumah said, he had given his sons a pop quiz on the documents and the history of slavery during their 22-mile ride from their home in Fairfax.'
'As a Black father, Osumah said he chooses to educate rather than shield his sons from racism in America. He believes his sons need to know how slavery started, how early Americans built a system to perpetuate it despite declarations of equality and freedom, and how that history relates to the present.'
“We have three young Black men,” he said. “They need to understand that these things happened in the world and it’s not just back in the 1800s. These types of things are happening now.” (WAPO) See gifted link below.
This old white guy WOKE up this morning. Started the coffee. Leashed Sophie. As we headed out for her "constitutional" I grabbed the Stars and Stripes. We are flying the flag in solidarity and support for our brothers and sisters.
Sadly, the revelations of the investigation in Minneapolis would probably reveal similar results in many other American cities.
That being said, how can we still be fighting this fight 150+ years later? Why have we allowed it? Why isn't every bigoted politician and preacher shouted down into the holes they crawled out of? Why so little shaming? How long will this take?
Of course. Much work for all of us to do. Perhaps if enough of us get upset and we have that Blue Trifecta next year and if we shout/shut down our own local bigots the world can resume the progress.
If you are not familiar with the names of excellent grassroots and several civil rights organizations that many activist citizens belong to, Elly listed a few good ones today. Let us know if you'd like some guidance. There are quite a number of subscribers so engaged. I suggest that you contact Ellie, she's very knowledgeable.
Ellie has been on my radar for some time. She does wonderful stuff. A good guide.
I am gathering my resources around the "youth vote". There are several groups that are working on voter registration of young people. turnup.us is one that I support.
Younger people mostly support diversity and eschew the MAGA madness. They will tip the scales.
I don't believe there should be a blue Trifecta. We need bipartisan representation, that is how our Republic began and will survive. That being said the other party does not have to be Republican, it can be independents. I am in total favor of a third party. BTW the Republican party was a third party when it became a party in 1854.
I agree. As long as that party isn't an Oligarch funded scam like No Labels.
A center right truly "conservative" (original meaning) party that believed in patriotism, the rule of law (for everyone) and a regulated capitalism would be a healthy counter balance.
I speak as one who is a fan of the Nordic blend of social support and a thriving private enterprise (which excludes health care, education and incarceration).
May the GQP go the way of the Whigs and the Know Nothings!
Blue Trifecta doesn't mean no Republicans, it means control of house, senate and executive. It will require Republicans votes in both house and senate to be effective for the American people. It will mean killing off the filibuster and reforming the court. I have lived in the UK and have a son and his family in Canada. A third, and 4th etc party works there but it is a different form of government.
I don't want to go back to 1854. There will be some form of reformed Republican party I hope, we do need those voices but they have to have some policy base and not just blow smoke and talk garbage.
Not many countries have “welcomed,” (after much gnashing of teeth) so many diverse peoples from all over the world. That we did gave us a special challenge to live up to the words on the Statue of Liberty. We have fallen short. If we took advantage of the strengths of our diverse population, we could truly be the beacon on the hill for the world.
we have to work with what we have, but we have allowed much too much immigration, and that's a big part of what brought us trump (immigration was his signature issue). In the mid-'90s, Barbara Jordan, the Black Texas Democrat who made her name during Watergate, on the Judiciary Committee, ran a commission on immigration reform under Pres Clinton. She recommended cutting legal immigration to around half of what it was then, and strict enforcement of immigration laws--part of the impetus being that big biz uses mass immigration as a way to maintain an oversupply of cheap labor, which keeps wages down.
Had Jordan's recommendations been followed, trump would never have occupied the White House.
Did not know that. Loved Jordan, she was Texas’ best. Repubs will never cooperate on immigration. It’s the albatross they can hang around Dems necks forever. Totally forgetting that it was Reagan who gave amnesty to so many. I felt that that one fact made the problem worse. We need comprehensive reform, multifaceted, and sensible, or scrub the Statue of Liberty’s message.
Actually, we're the ones who are not cooperating with the GOP on immigration. I like to say that just as the GOP is in denial about global warming, the Democratic party is in denial about immigration. (Despite that, I still think Biden is the best President of my lifetime and that he's terrific on everything except immigration.) There was a bill in the House in the last several months that would have established a national, mandatory E-Verify. In case you're not familiar with E-Verify, it's a system which verifies people when they apply for a job to make sure they are legally here. It's good for both American workers, and for legal immigrant workers. It did not pass the House because so many Democrats voted against it, including my otherwise good congresswoman, Katherine Clark.
And at this point, our country is way overpopulated. If every person on Earth consumed at the average rate for Americans, it would take four Earths to support the world, according to people who study sustainability. Immigrants come here so that they can consume like Americans. The average immigrant's greenhouse emissions rise threefold after arrival. In the 60 odd years since I was 10, the number of creatures of all sorts has declined by half or more--insects, which are often the bottom of the food chain, birds, frogs, reptiles and amphibians generally, as virgin land (which holds tremendous amounts of carbon that gets loose as carbon dioxide when developed) has been turned into sprawl.
Between 1990-2020, we added 40 million immigrants, on top of 40 million in native increase, which is equivalent to 4 New York states. The Census Bureau projects another ~65 million immigrants and 7 million in native increase over the next 40 years. From a quality of life point of view, certain things inevitably get worse with increasing population--traffic, noise, the distance to places where one can walk around in nature.
This notion that we can admit everyone who wants to come here is an American Exceptionalism of the left. No we can't! It was obvious to me at age 9 that allowing the population to keep growing would be a disaster. And if the population had stopped growing when I was 9 (1962-63) we'd be a lot better off with respect to global warming, as we are the major industrialized nation with the greatest per capita GH emissions, and 188 million produce far less emissions than 335 million.
Finally, think of the initiative that a lot of people who come here have. Imagine what their countries could be like if they stayed home and worked to better their conditions.
Oh, and, big biz GOPers, such as Reagan, like mass immigration because it keeps wages down. In 1980, meat packers were Black, and they made good middle class wages, having organized for six decades. By that decade's end, meat packers were mostly immigrant, earning barely above minimum wage under atrocious conditions where maimings were common. The same thing happened in other trades and low/no-skilled work. The wages had been pretty good generally since immigration had been quite low since 1924.
I recommend the book, Back of the Hiring Line: A 200-Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias and Depression of Black Wealth. Companies would send boats to Europe in the 1800s to bring back white workers so they could fire their Black workers. The book is highly readable, as the author had been an environmental journalist for three decades. It's also solid, going through the academic economic literature (296) footnotes, and also quoting Black leaders, beginning with Frederick Douglass, whose sons were downwardly mobile because of mass immigration, quoting from Black periodicals, from the author's journalism, and Jordan's commission on immigration reform. It's $14 on Amazon, and may or may not be available at local bookstores where you are.
Bill, your questions mirror mine. The reaction to George Floyd's murder had given me hope. The formation of the Black Panthers and the racial riots of the 60s, and poems such as Marvin X's "Burn Baby Burn" were a direct response to a history of Blacks being oppressed by Whites. I distinctly remember understanding and empathizing with the Black's anger but also fearing it. The Black's response to Floyd's murder was different--a collective wave of hurt. I was heartened that Whites responded with sympathy. But not all Whites. The "far-right Republicans," for example, who voted against Juneteenth last year, citing divisiveness, should be called out for who they really are--racist pigs....
Because sadly there are too many racists in the country. I have never in my long life understood how one's skin color can cause so much upset. Is there a _first_ person in our history that declared such a fear of non white people? Where does this hatred come from?
Well slaves have been around for a long long time. For centuries most slaves were a result of conquest, race, color, sex etc was not really a factor except if you were a slave your child would be a slave. My understanding is that the Portuguese sailors and traders came up with the concept of race and that Black people should therefore be slaves. There are others on this forum which likely have much better data than I do.
Many, many white USians think they are fighting for the soul of America. They believe that soul is white and Christian. They do not see themselves as bigots. Shaming is not going to work.
But the Bible isn't internally consistent, especially if what Christians know as the Old Testament is included. (No surprise there: it contains many books written by many authors over a considerable period of time.) In the 1850s, Southern preachers used biblical passages to justify slavery at the same time anti-slavery preachers were using other biblical passages to support abolition. I don't understand how believing Christians can support someone like Trump, but somehow they justify it for themselves.
None of the REAL Christians (those who follow Christ's Way) can understand so-called Christians' support of trump....
Regardless of the Bible's historical evolution, one of its foundational messages is that Jesus abhorred hypocrisy and what I can't understand is how these people read the Bible and can't see what they're doing. I guess we're shaking our heads at the same thing. Jesus explained it best: "Those who have eyes can't see and those who have ears can't hear."
Why? The same sense of superiority exist today as it did during the slave era. It was accepted knowledge that slaves were an inferior "breed" of humans, and therefore an easy rationalization/justification for maintaining slavery. Human insecurity seems to need to feel superior to those who they think are inferior and or in someway a threat. My sense is that it is this deep insecurity that lies at the heart of all the systemic racism that was been put in place over these many years.
Very simple, Bill. Because the people and the states who were traitors to America, who tried to rip the country to pieces, suffered no consequences after they lost the Civil War. Imagine Germany allowing the Nazi flag to fly or monuments to Hitler to be erected. No trials for treason. No one went to prison for insurrection. They were given reparations instead! Plantation owners were given $300 (about $5,597 in today’s money) for every enslaved person. Since, the South learned that it’s not only fine to continue to worship a way of life that is dependent on the enslavement and murder of people because of the color of their skin, but that the very existence of Black people was (and is) the source of all their problems since. America not only learned this, we have supported it for these 150+ years.
And then years later they erected statues of their traitorous generals. The truth is that the leaders of the Confederacy should have suffered the same consequences as the Nazis. It's easy to second guess history. Maybe it's not fair. But celebrating Lee for decades? Really? At the very least, the leaders of this treason should have been imprisoned for life.
Instead ...the bigoted Politician and a lot of preachers are the shouters....of twisted lies, poisoned darts, prelims to their next assault, and the incessant fictional storytelling.
Here in WV at our wonderful Vandalia Fest we have ‘A Liars Contest’ . Entree #1 wearing the MAGA hat and lips moving J. Q.(ANON) Republican...
Do we just ignore, take the oxygen from them, focus on real issues...GET WHAT’S NEEDED DONE ?
Because the facts presented , the majority of hands raised in AYES (what J.Q.Public wants) , history telling their promise hasn’t and won’t work, people jailed by the train carsfull/fired for NOT following insanity or NOW telling under oath what that insanity detailed ...
I truly see the tide coming in , a deep blue ocean , cleaning up/kicking out/rid of/
Yes, Deborah, thank you for repeating Colleen Shogan's, the Archivist of the United States, quote about Americans seeing themselves as part of the history that is theirs. Just what DeSantis and his gang want to continue to deprive us of -- and how long has that been going on?! FOR CENTURIES!
Another way to say this, given our penchant and reliance upon national polls and national statistics, is that our group, our demographic is in the disaggregate, not the aggregate of all of the metrics. The well-being of my group, my tribe, if we might, is what matters, is that reflection, my truth. If we are below average means something different than if we are above the average. But, if there is no metric/reflection of my group or tribe or meaningful demographic, do we even exist, least of all have a standard against which to be proud of, to pass on to the next generation?
Fred, can you explain your post somewhat more. 'Our group', how do you define it? What is the source of your data? Age/race/education? ___Your post is making a important point or points, but it is too vague for me to understand.
Our group could be White, college educated, Evangelical, males or Black, single mothers, paraprofessional or inner-city small business owners, third-generation Cuban American, with adolescents, and investment portfolios or college educated, Black men, living in rural states, working multiple jobs to stay afloat or .... almost any other combination of demographics (or attitudes or political leanings). A meaningful group of similar if not like people who may be included in one of the national polls (e.g., Marquette, CBS/NPR political leanings) or surveys (e.g., US Census, Health Surveys) intended to capture some set of important information from a representative sample of Americans. Any legitimate sample must be either truly random or clearly representative of any of those traits the survey/poll is gather the data from (e.g., gender identified, education, political leaning, voting patterns) or demographics (e.g., geography, ) and of sufficient size to provide trustworthy information. But, the information is mostly for the aggregate. With some exceptions where the sample obtained (versus the intended representation when telephone or other voluntary responses are sought), few disaggregate analyses will provide meaningful reflections of the traits or attitude for subgroups. Does the sample actually include people like me (my tribe, our group) and can I see how I look as part of that subgroup? If I were do pull out the responses from people like me, will I know something different? If my subgroup wants to see how we are improving or changing in someway important to me (e.g., shared opinions, economic gains, safety, employment, family health) are there enough of us (or any of us) to portray? Are there ANY samples or surveys or polls conducted (rigorously, of course) among people like me that would be relevant. I am pretty sure that most of us (the aggregate) look at poll and survey findings and ask How is this representative of me, my tribe, my subgroup? and likely don't see themselves captured in the telling of stories. So, if I don't see myself reflected in the data, how am I to gauge my group's or my standing on issues or measure of important (e.g., safety, equity, health, wealth, employment, education, standing, quality of life)? Am I even included in your discussion and projections? I still am at-one with my subgroup, our group, the one (or more) that I live and grow or fade and get left behind. I am not the aggregate mean, but the variance, the disaggregate subgroup with important meaning and needs to be measured and represented and focused upon as we examine how well or how not we have improved. Sometimes the subgroup must study themselves in order to engage in a meaningful discussion or Where are we? and How do we get our share of this prosperity?
Fred, I'm lost in your analysis and believe that you took time to carefully explain it to me. I have done solid research as a lay person, assistant, associate producer and producer of public affairs programing for both public tv and commercial tv stations/ It may be that individual polls, the basis on which each was created and an understanding of samples used would be the route necessary for me to understand your point. Thank you for your effort.
HCR, subscribers like you, Lynell, our brothers and sisters. models of courage in the past, at this very moment and the younger ones teaching us a lesson or two, keep democracy marching on -- no matter what!
We should each and all celebrate this day of freedom .
Those who have issues with persons of color have an opportunity to reevaluate past and current prejudices. It is an opportunity for each and all to overcome those wrong thoughts and attitudes that separate us.
It is an opportunity to come together in love and hope and peace. It is an opportunity for us to evaluate ways we can demonstrate respect....ways we each and all can encourage one another.
“How we remember our history matters.” Gratitude Professor, and Fern and all who post and read History and understand we continue to live History every day. The fact that the “United”States of America continues to battle, debate and legislate for Freedom and to enforce the Constitution is more than troubling. Yet the possibility, yes, possibility, that our votes can count and our voices can be heard, gives hope that battles fought for freedom then and now were and are worth the losses and gains and must continue.
If I could watch WWII as a 7-11 year-old, others that age can learn the truths of American history. My father showed me a photo of a Polish child who looked just like me standing alone beside a blackened stick (?burnt sapling) in a field of rubble. The photo was, I believe, in the Richmond, Virginia evening paper, probably early September, 1939. (I have tried unsuccessfully to find it online.)
The Professor provides much more than trustworthy information including the link to the original National Archives` Junteenth military order followed by her signature historical context -- in this case of the absolutely necessary Constitutional Amendments & still necessary enforcement of those Amendments in Minneapolis & elsewhere in 2023.
“Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. Yet those who do study history are doomed to stand by helplessly while everyone else repeats it.” From Tom Toro, The New Yorker. Sad to say
“plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.” Perhaps this has been said here many times. I like to think there is progress, but in the face of recent behavior, I wonder. Is it Groundhog Day? No, it is Juneteenth. So let’s celebrate what we have.
Our history must be remembered - and not with parts of it omitted or “white-washed” or covered-over nor glossed-over and yes, it must be factually accurate!!!
Juneteenth wasn't the end, just as July 4 wasn't the beginning. "How we remember our history matters," and the ongoing academic falsification of the meaning of the Declaration of Independence is like a KKK cross tattooed on our minds.
There were still slaves after Juneteenth, in Kentucky and Delaware.
The Declaration of Independence was Part 2, following the original anti-Lockean independence resolution of May 15 (written by John Adams), which instructed the "total suppression" of royal government:
Thanks Professor for this important reminder that change happens slowly and with much effort. To turn the course of history a consistent and considerable effort of changing the laws as well as the hearts and minds of the citizens is essential.
Absolutely Agreed, that is why we can not become complacent or give up the good fight. I do find I need time away, time in nature and my nightly HCR to be prepared to reenter the fray
Yes. And the national push back against the backlash is limp, weak and shameful. Our politicians and preachers should be throwing rotten vegetables at the bigots they serve with.
Where is the shaming and outrage? The racial gerrymandering, the voter restrictions, the treatment by police are all things that should have been part of our distant past.
Yes, it's painful. And I am disappointed and angry that this discussion has to be had after so many years.
But I guess we should be realistic. Why would a nation where one of its largest religions doesn't believe women are equal to men...why would that nation consider all races equal?
Large segments of our country still believe in 19th century values.
...read Lincoln's Second Inaugural address again, he includes the fact that both sides pray to the same God and read the same Bible...in the end, he called for unity and reconciliation.
A tragedy he was not able to complete his vision due to a bullet by a Confederate sympathizer who believed he would be lauded for killing the President. Instead, the Good Friday shooting followed by the announcements of his death on Easter Sunday created the Christ-like martyrdom of the first assassinated Commander-in-Chief.
I am a big fan of Lincolns presidency. Slow to free the slaves. But still, a towering figure in our history.
As to both sides praying to a God and reading a book of questionable veracity, I suggest that his statement is pure of heart. But how many Bible thumpers really follow the words of Jesus?
Religiosity and its often twisted interpretations are one of the many reasons we are divided. Funny how a faith originally based on love and charity has become one of selfishness, hate and violence.
The hearts and minds are a huge problem. " “It looked like everything worth living for was gone,” Texas cattleman Charles Goodnight later recalled. " And just what was worth living for, that had gone?
Have you - any of you - read "Beyond Power"? Big fat book, full of historical clarity, which has sat battered on my various bookshelves since the seventies. Here's a quote from a reader of the NYT in 1985:
To the Editor:
I wonder if Lawrence Stone and I read the same book. Marilyn French's ''Beyond Power'' is certainly, as he writes, ''a passionate polemic about the way men have treated women over the past several millenniums.'' But that is an extended illustration of its central thesis, not the thesis itself. Centrally, it examines a larger criminality - the unrelenting, millennial pursuit of power, ''masculine'' in character, that has led us to the brink of annihilation. Power is Mrs. French's focus, as her book's title implies; Mr. Stone manages to blur that focus away. In the process he gives us such recherche oddities as ''the noble savage in feminist drag'' -what on earth is feminist drag?"
(Further comment, from me: if "Mr Stone" thought "millenniums" was the correct plural, he has no business casting the first stone :) ) (Whoops, no pun intended - it just slipped out).
(Ha!) No, not dispiriting! I made a quick dive into Goodreads - here are four comments:
"Beyond Power" changed my life
A "must read" for anyone interested in our communal journey as women.
Every page is jam-packed with information and provocative thought. This is a book to read slowly, correlating its offerings with everyday life during the process. It is life-changing.
Best book on feminism I have ever read--changed my life! All MEN should read this book!
Juneteenth wasn't the end, just as July 4 wasn't the beginning. "How we remember our history matters," and the ongoing academic falsification of the meaning of the Declaration of Independence is like a KKK cross tattooed on our minds.
There were still slaves after Juneteenth, in Kentucky and Delaware.
The Declaration of Independence was Part 2, following the original anti-Lockean independence resolution of May 15 (written by John Adams), which instructed the "total suppression" of royal government:
"How we remember our history" definitely matters, because it's been my discovery over 50 years of effort in gathering, analyzing and describing events in American history, that a good 80% of what passes for "official history" is more properly filed under "mythology."
The Minneapolis PD can take a big step in the right direction by getting rid of the Trump-loving leadership of their "Patrolmen's Benevolent Association," the cop union. Particularly that retrograde pig who's the president of the PBA, the guy who came out defending the murder of Floyd as "deserved."
Sad when the police (the protect and serve guys) are the arrogant arses with axes to grind. Your rotten apples need to go, even if they are half the barrel
TC, I grew up in Minneapolis on the South side about 3 miles from where Floyd was killed. The Minneapolis police department has long been exceptionally racist, and the city’s mayors and City Council have long promised to “reform” the police department. Things would get better for short periods; then backslide. I know you understand.
Will this report from the Justice Dept. change things? As an optimistic person, I’d like to say yes...
My stepdaughter, who lived just a block and a half from the corner where Floyd was killed, bought a house recently in the neighborhood I grew up in. I appreciate seeing how diverse that neighborhood has become and how committed so many folks are to celebrating and supporting that diversity. But the scars of more than 100 years of police brutality and systematic racism in the City remain - and one of the major reasons Emkae moved out of Powderhorn was because the crime rate skyrocketed after Floyd’s murder and police no longer responded to calls for help. That bloody police union has never been cowed in any way, shape or form by anybody or anything - not even seeing Derek Chauvin jailed for murdering Floyd. By a team led by a black Muslim state Attorney General no less.
Not a huge fan of union busting but that union needs to be busted and the culture that protects racism and violence dismantled. Huh. Not optimistic about that.
"That union" isn't even a union, in the way I understand unions. It is a fraternity, all for one, one for all, and they are cowing municipalities into treating their negotiations as "personnel matters" that belong behind closed doors, no public input. Personnel matters in my state are defined as actions that concern one employee, to protect that employee's rights.
Contract negotiations are not personnel actions: they are the equivalent of negotiating with equipment providers to get the best value for cost. My town finally got it. The result: better trust of the police officers and less meddling by people who aren't elected and aren't residents. A step in the right direction, but a ways to go. This so-called union does need to be seen for what it is: an attempt to control how a community makes decisions, and a way for incompetent members to avoid responsibility.
This "union" also was hired to provide training at our police academy. This was when we began experiencing a lot of improper interactions with the public. One elected constable decided to take the training and become a certified police officer so he could serve his community better. He was appalled at what the training did: it taught not public service, not how to defuse a tense situation, not how to manage a person in emotional distress. Nope: the focus was on what to do to avoid facing accountability when things went wrong. End of that story. The state took over the training again, and put the focus on preventing escalation of events, and creating positive relations with the public. Things are improving.
My first house was three blocks from the intersection where Floyd was murdered. Given the decades of brutality I witnessed, I was not totally surprised by yet another killing of a Black man. About twenty years ago Hennepin County installed cameras in the elevator in Detox so the cops would stop beating intoxicated people in the elevator.
Always good to have reports from the ground. This time, if we can keep Merrick Garland, you may see a change. He proceeds slowly, but doesn’t walk away.
Juneteenth wasn't the end, just as July 4 wasn't the beginning. "How we remember our history matters," and the ongoing academic falsification of the meaning of the Declaration of Independence is like a KKK cross tattooed on our minds.
There were still slaves after Juneteenth, in Kentucky and Delaware.
The Declaration of Independence was Part 2, following the original anti-Lockean independence resolution of May 15 (written by John Adams), which instructed the "total suppression" of royal government:
Troll liability cases are in reasjng in frequency & sevrity in including criminal liability in the case of a Professional Troll attacking the Head of thr History Dept at the University of Idaho.
Courtesy Request. Cease your commercial Ads.
PS: Pleased to report the Substack Inc Moderation Department has improved.
Bryan, I have made eight reports, all concerning the identical scripts, which were posted by this entity or person. I've seen a couple complaints made to this poster but do not know of any subscribers. in addition to me, who have have reported this unfortunate and frequent distraction. I encourage subscribers to do so. Do you know that all you have to do is click the dots beside 'reply' under the poster's name to make a complaint?
On myriad occasions (at least 20), I’ve reported said offender and added comments encouraging others to join me. Like you, I’ve included the simple how-to — “…” under the specific comment(s). At least a few commenters have confirmed reporting as well.
Fern I respect your opinion and posts. I have gone to Schmeeckle's links and I find his argument intriguing and worthy of consideration and discussion. That he is pushing it by posting identical comments is another issue. We are constantly reassessing history and overlooked contributions to our understanding and thus meanings. We should not be calling a person a troll if they are not really trolling... or maybe I don't know the meaning of troll. Best Wishes.
Oh, please. This is how this guy describes himself: "By accident, I became the leading expert on the meaning of the Declaration of Independence, as I discuss on this Twitter thread:"
Kind of says it all, really. All he needs now is a YouTube video.
I find the ganging up here more off putting, the name calling, more of a turn off than his description of himself, however inflated.
Yeah he should have a NYTimes mag article or a YouTube video. So what? Clearly he wants to make a point and it's interesting and actually valid imo-- connects these ideas that led to the Declaration back even to Cicero.
Steve, I laughed with your clarity as a couple of us were tiptoeing around the obvious. Thank you for the fresh air, and guess who appeared as I was replying to you? Perfection in the midst!
The Author, Substack, Reader CONTRACT defines the rules of this Platform. Troll Ads, troll narcissism, troll misinformation & troll abuse of copy & paste disrupts this Platform & will not be tolerated by this Reader who knows how to enforce 3rd Party CONTRACTUAL rights.
There is a CONTRACTUAL forum for disputes, JAMS SF.
You describe yourself as a *retired* trial attorney"who monitors (amongst other such) social media platforms....as a hobby? You sound like a bully...and may fit the definition of trolling here.
Ulterior motive alert: "Don't allow others to think about the actual congressional anti-Lockean definition of happiness in the original May 1776 independence resolution."
Sophisticated trolls who pretend to be lawyers will also pretend that those who talk about the actual meaning of the Declaration of Independence are deplorable undesirables, so that timid other-directed people will nod along with the pompous, threatening, legalistic Alpha Male instead of thinking for themselves.
Potter, I didn't call Schmeeckle a troll. I counted 10 identical scripts that he posted very near to one another. I reported that series asking that the scripts be assessed as coherent or not because I could not tell and to do so with recognition that the poster was distracting us with posting so many identical posts in close proximity to one another.
You have not refuted the charge of troll in the discussion..which flames. You post ubiquitously here Fern. I do see all the repeat posts of Schmeeckle here. He is pushy about his POV, defends it by saying he wants to reply to the individual. He should stop, enough.
I replied to close to a dozen different responses to HCR's post for today. Each of these responses was history-minded, and many if not most of them referred to HCR's statement: "How we remember our history matters."
I had something relevant to add to each of those comments. I have no reason to think that those commenters are hovering over the day's comments and replies, which means that those people to whom I replied will get separate e-mail notifications regarding separate comments that I made.
People who are complaining about my relevant replies to different people uniformly fail to engage with the content of what I wrote, as if they are thuggish thought controllers who can't bear to examin my argument that the ideology of the Founders was neither "conservative" nor Harvard liberalism.
You seem to have trolls on your mind -- perhaps your mind has a KKK cross tattooed on it?
You had nothing to say about the CONTENT of what I posted.
Your dishonest and absurd reference to "commercial ads" will doubtless be noticed by Substack if and when they check your post and consider your ulterior motive.
You are a troll and a spammer because you have copied and pasted the same comment at least eight times. People only do that when they are using this Substack primarily to call attention to themselves. That's prohibited by Substack's user agreement. Which you maybe should have read.
I replied to close to a dozen different posts. Each of these posts was history-minded, and many if not most of them referred to HCR's statement: "How we remember our history matters." I had something relevant to add to each of those comments. I have no reason to think that those commenters are hovering over the day's comments and replies, which means that those people to whom I replied will get separate e-mail notifications regarding separate comments that I made. People who are complaining about my relevant replies to different people uniformly fail to engage with the content of what I wrote, as if they are thuggish thought controllers who can't bear to examin my argument that the ideology of the Founders was neither "conservative" nor Harvard liberalism.
See my response above re yours. I have no idea how much you have reposted the same comment. I just noticed it here twice and was intrigued to read the links. Interesting. Sorry to see this descend into name calling.. you are (as far as I can see) not a troll.
I replied to close to a dozen different posts. Each of these posts was history-minded, and many if not most of them referred to HCR's statement: "How we remember our history matters." I had something relevant to add to each of those comments. I have no reason to think that those commenters are hovering over the day's comments and replies, which means that those people to whom I replied will get separate e-mail notifications regarding separate comments that I made. People who are complaining about my relevant replies to different people uniformly fail to engage with the content of what I wrote, as if they are thuggish thought controllers who can't bear to examin my argument that the ideology of the Founders was neither "conservative" nor Harvard liberalism.
I believe what you say is important. Since Floyd's murder, and the words of this union president, I have struggled with the visibility of that union and where we are now as a country, because I strongly support unions. SO grateful Garland investigated the Minneapolis police and city and came out with this report. There are definitely some bad people in leadership positions who should not be there.
It never hurts to review the difficulty slaveholding states had relinquishing the free labor to which their holders felt entitled, and it should sadden us all that so much of our society clings to that power differential. But I must admit that I was shocked by the documented brutality of Minneapollis police and the struggle to retain it. And just today in the land of Lincoln there was another mass shooting at a Juneteenth celebration. Somehow, some way, we must find the courage to make this nation safe from racial hatred and reject those who profit from it. I wish I knew how we could cut off the energy that fuels it.
I grew up in the Minneapolis (Mpls) area in the 1950's - 1970's as a middle-class white girl. I moved from the (all white) city to the (kind of - it's complicated) suburbs when I was 12 and lived between an upper-middle-class white suburb (Golden Valley) and one of the "black" neighborhoods - this one in north Minneapolis. Because of my father's job, I was well acquainted with many Mpls policemen. Most, if not all of them (in my experience) were decidedly racist. I think many of my family and lifetime friends will reject and/or deny the DOJ report about the Mpls police department as being accurate but I was not surprised to hear about it. I hope the report results in real, positive change and I also hope the same type of study is done in more cities nationwide and that it results in more dialogue and education aimed at uniting our divided nation. I cannot understand all of the hate in our country.
I grew up in two suburbs of Detroit, the same time as you which were mostly all white. Then I went to college at Wayne State University in Detroit and graduated 1978. I studied and worked in Detroit hospitals because I became a nurse. My eyes were opened to other people of different races thankfully.
Like you said in your last sentence “I cannot understand all of the hate in our country “.
Opal Lee continues to be an inspiring figure in our local communities here in Ft Worth. Hearing her speak on the Tarrant County courthouse steps just after President Biden made Juneteenth a national holiday was witnessing history in the making! Thank you for this information. I hope how we remember our history can continue to be truthful!
Juneteenth wasn't the end, just as July 4 wasn't the beginning. "How we remember our history matters," and the ongoing academic falsification of the meaning of the Declaration of Independence is like a KKK cross tattooed on our minds.
There were still slaves after Juneteenth, in Kentucky and Delaware.
The Declaration of Independence was Part 2, following the original anti-Lockean independence resolution of May 15 (written by John Adams), which instructed the "total suppression" of royal government:
The transparent efforts in former Confederate states and several others to make voting more difficult for "urban" populations, which is to say majority-minority cities, requires us to respond head-on with ways to defend the 13th and 14th Amendments. So sad that they are still so controversial that the conservative Supreme Court majority would like to abandon them or argue away their protection of the civil rights of all people.
Imagine if Allied forces had such a thing to Holocaust survivors upon their release from Concentration Camps. I guess no one gave any consideration, during the war, on how to assimilate the millions of freed slaves? This sounds a few cards short of a 'deck of citizenship'.
Granger's Gen Order #3: “The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”
That sentence reminds me that the Union represented the view not that blacks were equal to whites, only that they were to be equal under the law. The white leaders of the Union believed sincerely in the inferiority of blacks and sought only the upper hand in negotiations with representatives of the former Confederates. In fact over time they lost that negotiation as HCR explains beautifully in How the South Won the Civil War, a book everyone of her subscribers should read.
As a country we remain of two minds on the subject: we are racist to the core but some of us fight the tendency and some of us do not. The first group under estimates the size of the second, and thinks our country is better than it is. The second group denies their membership in it and accuses the first group of being anti-American. That is the state of our national politics and has been since the first Juneteenth.
The history of the event and the efforts to wipe it out are a constant reminder of the state of politics today. Our vote matters, I realize, but our participation and contribution to like minded candidates and causes are what matter now. Vote. Donate. Be mindful.
Vote, donate, be mindful, and, I'd add, run for office. Start at the local level, then the state level, then nationally. And if you don't want to run, find a like-minded person who is willing to be a candidate and support them.
If the intent of the Fourteenth Amendment was to grant all privileges of citizenship to everyone born or naturalised in the United States of America, why was it not assumed that it would grant voting rights to American-born women?
Talia and Judith, suffragists of the time like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Victoria Woodhull; the California contingent like Emily Pitts Stevens, Laura deForce Gordon, Clara Foltz, Georgiana Bruce Kirby; Oregon suffragist Abigail Scott Duniway, all seized on exactly that, and went to the polls that year and subsequently, quoting the Fourteenth Amendment to prove their right to vote. A surprising many were able to do so, which led to court challenges and a smackdown.
The history of women's suffrage with respect to the Black Women vote is important for the American people to know. This is just a tease.
'In the long battle for women's suffrage, and the passage of the 19th Amendment, some leading activists prioritized white women’s suffrage over voting rights for all women.'
'Two of the most prominent women's suffragists, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, were at one time part of the American Equal Rights Association (AERA), a group they formed with Frederick Douglass and other activists in 1866. The organization’s goal was to win voting rights “for both women and African Americans,” says Lisa Tetrault, a history professor at Carnegie Mellon University.'
“There’s tension from the very beginning over the priority of those two demands,” she says. “Black women fall out of this equation.” (historychannel)
Anthony and Stanton were much more racist than we were taught in school, but that was not true of suffragists across the board. The issue and other issues of tactics caused the suffragist split into two camps in 1869: Anthony and Stanton's National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association founded by Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson.
Talia, you hit the jackpot for me. Since the 14th. Amendment was intended to assure civil rights protections for all citizens born or naturalized, why are we still struggling to assure the simplest freedoms for women, like equal pay for equal work and other similar ideas assumed to be included in the still absent from the Constitution, Equal Rights Amendment for Women? The wording of the 14th. Amendment seems precise and clear to me. While it’s original intent was to shore up Amendment #13, the clarity of the document cannot be denied. Indigenous rights are assured along with Blacks and women. Perhaps we protest too much about the ERA when time could be better spent highlighting the 14th. Amendment for the causes of women. Seems simple to me (recognizing nothing ever is simple in Constitutional Law or the need for SCOTUS would evaporate.)
Voting rights are very complicated, though the 14th seems so clear. Here Native Americans are granted voting rights. I remember my grandmother, who was 26 years old at the time, voting in every single election until she died at 84. My parents were two at the time, both faithful voters.
Good question. It appears to be a deliberate choice. The 14th grants the protections of citizenship to all "persons". But the section on voting rights specifically uses the term "male" to refer to voters, thus shutting women out- this was not an oversight. Oddly enough, the next section. on eligibility to hold public office, uses the term "person". And women actually managed to use that section to run for office, though still not allowed to vote. Most were turned away or lost, but some won. It was a beginning, but a shameful one, given that women were active in the anti-slavery movement and the war, and there were high hopes that they would be included in the suffrage amendment that affirmed citizenship for former slaves.
Just as those who ordained the constitution, the 14th refers to persons, or we the people. We make a mistake when we consider all humans as people. One distinction is the capacity of foresight. No one I would consider a person would vote for someone claiming "I alone can fix it". https://www.politico.com/video/2020/08/20/trump-at-2016-rnc-i-alone-can-fix-it-085403
Coretta Scott King famously has said that every generation has to ‘refight’ this ‘justice war’….and God knows we are in the throes of one hell of a fight…that is not just about those Black codes but about our democracy itself….and we can ill afford to lose THIS fight….
No one, absolutely no one should NOT see to it that there is a very very clear understanding of the Justice Departments 37 Felony indictments as they concern our national security…the issues of bribing a porn star to be silent relative to your relationship with her and it’s impact on a presidential election, and that clarity also needs to apply to the Eugene Carroll cases and I mean the initial defamation case AND the new one caused by the Orange One, 2 days after the initial verdict and that clarity is also soon to needed in Fulton County, Georgia, and back in DC with the January 6 debacle and in the Southern district of New York with additional Orange person horrors…and God knows, perhaps elsewhere too!
Yes. How we remember history matters. But we have to learn it first. I taught in all Black middle school from 1967-1978. How can it be that I never even heard of Juneteenth until decades later?
Juneteenth wasn't the end, just as July 4 wasn't the beginning. "How we remember our history matters," and the ongoing academic falsification of the meaning of the Declaration of Independence is like a KKK cross tattooed on our minds.
There were still slaves after Juneteenth, in Kentucky and Delaware.
The Declaration of Independence was Part 2, following the original anti-Lockean independence resolution of May 15 (written by John Adams), which instructed the "total suppression" of royal government:
Now let’s talk about actually teaching black history in classrooms. Let’s talk about environmental Justice and real socialized healthcare to address the massive gaps between African Americans and white folk. Let’s talk about reparations.
Heather, thanks for this exceptional history lesson. I must admit, I have learned a lot from this writing tonight.
These is a question though.
With the current laws in affect in states like Florida, where Governor DeSantis and his minions in his Republican state legislature. How will the people of the state be able to celebrate this holiday, or the educators be able to mention, or discuss it, in their classrooms for fear of being jailed?
We all do remember the ridiculous laws that they passed where things like this can’t be discussed . After all, it is about slavery, and the Civil War. That’s two things that can’t be discussed in Florida schools!
Juneteenth wasn't the end, just as July 4 wasn't the beginning. "How we remember our history matters," and the ongoing academic falsification of the meaning of the Declaration of Independence is like a KKK cross tattooed on our minds.
There were still slaves after Juneteenth, in Kentucky and Delaware.
The Declaration of Independence was Part 2, following the original anti-Lockean independence resolution of May 15 (written by John Adams), which instructed the "total suppression" of royal government:
OFF TOPIC:`The JOHN EASTMAN CA State DISBARMENT TRIAL will be Live-streamed on 6/20/23. Per the State Bar Court of California, the disbarment trial will be held in Courtroom A next Tuesday at 10 am. Case: SBC-23-0-30029.
"How we remember our history matters."
Yes, we as free, responsible citizens must actively work to remember history accurately, and can only do so with the help of responsible intellectual leaders like Dr. Heather--thank you.
'Thousands queue to see the Emancipation Proclamation and General Order No. 3' (WAPO) excerpts
'For the second year, thousands of people marked Juneteenth by queuing outside the National Archive’s East Side Rotunda Gallery to catch a glimpse of the rarely exhibited Emancipation Proclamation and General Order No. 3., which informed enslaved Black people in Texas of their freedom in 1865, and gave rise to the holiday.'
'Two of the most influential documents that discuss the freedom of enslaved Black people in the United States are so fragile that the National Archives normally keeps them in a high-security climate-controlled vault with limited light for preservation. But that could change soon. On Saturday, Colleen Shogan, the Archivist of the United States, announced a plan to display the Emancipation Proclamation and General Order No. 3 permanently.'
'To celebrate Juneteenth weekend, the National Archives is displaying the original Emancipation Proclamation documents for 3 days only.'
“It’s critically important because it’s an addition to the Charters of Freedom and helps us tell a much more comprehensive story,” she said. “It’s important for all Americans to see a reflection of themselves in American History.”
'Inside the East Side Rotunda, Beth Short, 45 and Laura Short, 44, stood with their daughter Ada, 7, peering over the Emancipation Proclamation, which was enclosed in a glass climate-controlled case with a wooden base. The Shorts pointed to parts of the document while Ada’s curious wide eyes followed along.'
'Ada asked about the importance of Juneteenth. Her parents explained it the best way she could comprehend. Beth Short said later that it is key for children to learn history during their foundational years even if the conversation is uncomfortable in the current polarized political climate.'
“There have been struggles of equality and continued struggles that are present and it’s connected. If we don’t have those conversations, we’re just going to repeat them,” Short said.
'Garrett Osumah, 47, stood behind his small young sons as they gazed over General Order No. 3, which was enclosed in a glass case. Even before they got to the Archives, Osumah said, he had given his sons a pop quiz on the documents and the history of slavery during their 22-mile ride from their home in Fairfax.'
'As a Black father, Osumah said he chooses to educate rather than shield his sons from racism in America. He believes his sons need to know how slavery started, how early Americans built a system to perpetuate it despite declarations of equality and freedom, and how that history relates to the present.'
“We have three young Black men,” he said. “They need to understand that these things happened in the world and it’s not just back in the 1800s. These types of things are happening now.” (WAPO) See gifted link below.
https://wapo.st/3CAvVzL
Excellent post, Fern.
This old white guy WOKE up this morning. Started the coffee. Leashed Sophie. As we headed out for her "constitutional" I grabbed the Stars and Stripes. We are flying the flag in solidarity and support for our brothers and sisters.
Sadly, the revelations of the investigation in Minneapolis would probably reveal similar results in many other American cities.
That being said, how can we still be fighting this fight 150+ years later? Why have we allowed it? Why isn't every bigoted politician and preacher shouted down into the holes they crawled out of? Why so little shaming? How long will this take?
Equality: it's the job of the American people; We the People, the citizens of this country, and it has been our job for centuries.
Of course. Much work for all of us to do. Perhaps if enough of us get upset and we have that Blue Trifecta next year and if we shout/shut down our own local bigots the world can resume the progress.
If you are not familiar with the names of excellent grassroots and several civil rights organizations that many activist citizens belong to, Elly listed a few good ones today. Let us know if you'd like some guidance. There are quite a number of subscribers so engaged. I suggest that you contact Ellie, she's very knowledgeable.
Thanks, Fern.
Ellie has been on my radar for some time. She does wonderful stuff. A good guide.
I am gathering my resources around the "youth vote". There are several groups that are working on voter registration of young people. turnup.us is one that I support.
Younger people mostly support diversity and eschew the MAGA madness. They will tip the scales.
I don't believe there should be a blue Trifecta. We need bipartisan representation, that is how our Republic began and will survive. That being said the other party does not have to be Republican, it can be independents. I am in total favor of a third party. BTW the Republican party was a third party when it became a party in 1854.
I agree. As long as that party isn't an Oligarch funded scam like No Labels.
A center right truly "conservative" (original meaning) party that believed in patriotism, the rule of law (for everyone) and a regulated capitalism would be a healthy counter balance.
I speak as one who is a fan of the Nordic blend of social support and a thriving private enterprise (which excludes health care, education and incarceration).
May the GQP go the way of the Whigs and the Know Nothings!
Blue Trifecta doesn't mean no Republicans, it means control of house, senate and executive. It will require Republicans votes in both house and senate to be effective for the American people. It will mean killing off the filibuster and reforming the court. I have lived in the UK and have a son and his family in Canada. A third, and 4th etc party works there but it is a different form of government.
I don't want to go back to 1854. There will be some form of reformed Republican party I hope, we do need those voices but they have to have some policy base and not just blow smoke and talk garbage.
Not many countries have “welcomed,” (after much gnashing of teeth) so many diverse peoples from all over the world. That we did gave us a special challenge to live up to the words on the Statue of Liberty. We have fallen short. If we took advantage of the strengths of our diverse population, we could truly be the beacon on the hill for the world.
we have to work with what we have, but we have allowed much too much immigration, and that's a big part of what brought us trump (immigration was his signature issue). In the mid-'90s, Barbara Jordan, the Black Texas Democrat who made her name during Watergate, on the Judiciary Committee, ran a commission on immigration reform under Pres Clinton. She recommended cutting legal immigration to around half of what it was then, and strict enforcement of immigration laws--part of the impetus being that big biz uses mass immigration as a way to maintain an oversupply of cheap labor, which keeps wages down.
Had Jordan's recommendations been followed, trump would never have occupied the White House.
Did not know that. Loved Jordan, she was Texas’ best. Repubs will never cooperate on immigration. It’s the albatross they can hang around Dems necks forever. Totally forgetting that it was Reagan who gave amnesty to so many. I felt that that one fact made the problem worse. We need comprehensive reform, multifaceted, and sensible, or scrub the Statue of Liberty’s message.
Actually, we're the ones who are not cooperating with the GOP on immigration. I like to say that just as the GOP is in denial about global warming, the Democratic party is in denial about immigration. (Despite that, I still think Biden is the best President of my lifetime and that he's terrific on everything except immigration.) There was a bill in the House in the last several months that would have established a national, mandatory E-Verify. In case you're not familiar with E-Verify, it's a system which verifies people when they apply for a job to make sure they are legally here. It's good for both American workers, and for legal immigrant workers. It did not pass the House because so many Democrats voted against it, including my otherwise good congresswoman, Katherine Clark.
And at this point, our country is way overpopulated. If every person on Earth consumed at the average rate for Americans, it would take four Earths to support the world, according to people who study sustainability. Immigrants come here so that they can consume like Americans. The average immigrant's greenhouse emissions rise threefold after arrival. In the 60 odd years since I was 10, the number of creatures of all sorts has declined by half or more--insects, which are often the bottom of the food chain, birds, frogs, reptiles and amphibians generally, as virgin land (which holds tremendous amounts of carbon that gets loose as carbon dioxide when developed) has been turned into sprawl.
Between 1990-2020, we added 40 million immigrants, on top of 40 million in native increase, which is equivalent to 4 New York states. The Census Bureau projects another ~65 million immigrants and 7 million in native increase over the next 40 years. From a quality of life point of view, certain things inevitably get worse with increasing population--traffic, noise, the distance to places where one can walk around in nature.
This notion that we can admit everyone who wants to come here is an American Exceptionalism of the left. No we can't! It was obvious to me at age 9 that allowing the population to keep growing would be a disaster. And if the population had stopped growing when I was 9 (1962-63) we'd be a lot better off with respect to global warming, as we are the major industrialized nation with the greatest per capita GH emissions, and 188 million produce far less emissions than 335 million.
Finally, think of the initiative that a lot of people who come here have. Imagine what their countries could be like if they stayed home and worked to better their conditions.
Oh, and, big biz GOPers, such as Reagan, like mass immigration because it keeps wages down. In 1980, meat packers were Black, and they made good middle class wages, having organized for six decades. By that decade's end, meat packers were mostly immigrant, earning barely above minimum wage under atrocious conditions where maimings were common. The same thing happened in other trades and low/no-skilled work. The wages had been pretty good generally since immigration had been quite low since 1924.
I recommend the book, Back of the Hiring Line: A 200-Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias and Depression of Black Wealth. Companies would send boats to Europe in the 1800s to bring back white workers so they could fire their Black workers. The book is highly readable, as the author had been an environmental journalist for three decades. It's also solid, going through the academic economic literature (296) footnotes, and also quoting Black leaders, beginning with Frederick Douglass, whose sons were downwardly mobile because of mass immigration, quoting from Black periodicals, from the author's journalism, and Jordan's commission on immigration reform. It's $14 on Amazon, and may or may not be available at local bookstores where you are.
You speak the truth. Again.
Bill, your questions mirror mine. The reaction to George Floyd's murder had given me hope. The formation of the Black Panthers and the racial riots of the 60s, and poems such as Marvin X's "Burn Baby Burn" were a direct response to a history of Blacks being oppressed by Whites. I distinctly remember understanding and empathizing with the Black's anger but also fearing it. The Black's response to Floyd's murder was different--a collective wave of hurt. I was heartened that Whites responded with sympathy. But not all Whites. The "far-right Republicans," for example, who voted against Juneteenth last year, citing divisiveness, should be called out for who they really are--racist pigs....
Because sadly there are too many racists in the country. I have never in my long life understood how one's skin color can cause so much upset. Is there a _first_ person in our history that declared such a fear of non white people? Where does this hatred come from?
Well slaves have been around for a long long time. For centuries most slaves were a result of conquest, race, color, sex etc was not really a factor except if you were a slave your child would be a slave. My understanding is that the Portuguese sailors and traders came up with the concept of race and that Black people should therefore be slaves. There are others on this forum which likely have much better data than I do.
Many, many white USians think they are fighting for the soul of America. They believe that soul is white and Christian. They do not see themselves as bigots. Shaming is not going to work.
Your right. And if these White Christians read and quote the Bible and don't see the hypocrisy, NOTHING is going to work....
But the Bible isn't internally consistent, especially if what Christians know as the Old Testament is included. (No surprise there: it contains many books written by many authors over a considerable period of time.) In the 1850s, Southern preachers used biblical passages to justify slavery at the same time anti-slavery preachers were using other biblical passages to support abolition. I don't understand how believing Christians can support someone like Trump, but somehow they justify it for themselves.
None of the REAL Christians (those who follow Christ's Way) can understand so-called Christians' support of trump....
Regardless of the Bible's historical evolution, one of its foundational messages is that Jesus abhorred hypocrisy and what I can't understand is how these people read the Bible and can't see what they're doing. I guess we're shaking our heads at the same thing. Jesus explained it best: "Those who have eyes can't see and those who have ears can't hear."
MANKIND ! READ PROVERBS 14, Verse 12 ! REPENT ! ( with Humbled Heart ) and Get Ready ! The LORD !, is Returning ! ....Sooner, Than You THINK !
THEY DO NOT FOLLOW : " WHAT Would JESUS DO ! ? "
Why? The same sense of superiority exist today as it did during the slave era. It was accepted knowledge that slaves were an inferior "breed" of humans, and therefore an easy rationalization/justification for maintaining slavery. Human insecurity seems to need to feel superior to those who they think are inferior and or in someway a threat. My sense is that it is this deep insecurity that lies at the heart of all the systemic racism that was been put in place over these many years.
Well said. True.
Very simple, Bill. Because the people and the states who were traitors to America, who tried to rip the country to pieces, suffered no consequences after they lost the Civil War. Imagine Germany allowing the Nazi flag to fly or monuments to Hitler to be erected. No trials for treason. No one went to prison for insurrection. They were given reparations instead! Plantation owners were given $300 (about $5,597 in today’s money) for every enslaved person. Since, the South learned that it’s not only fine to continue to worship a way of life that is dependent on the enslavement and murder of people because of the color of their skin, but that the very existence of Black people was (and is) the source of all their problems since. America not only learned this, we have supported it for these 150+ years.
And then years later they erected statues of their traitorous generals. The truth is that the leaders of the Confederacy should have suffered the same consequences as the Nazis. It's easy to second guess history. Maybe it's not fair. But celebrating Lee for decades? Really? At the very least, the leaders of this treason should have been imprisoned for life.
Some data on incarceration & police violence...
https://www.sentencingproject.org/issues/racial-justice/
https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/
https://policescorecard.org/
Exactly...
Instead ...the bigoted Politician and a lot of preachers are the shouters....of twisted lies, poisoned darts, prelims to their next assault, and the incessant fictional storytelling.
Here in WV at our wonderful Vandalia Fest we have ‘A Liars Contest’ . Entree #1 wearing the MAGA hat and lips moving J. Q.(ANON) Republican...
Do we just ignore, take the oxygen from them, focus on real issues...GET WHAT’S NEEDED DONE ?
Because the facts presented , the majority of hands raised in AYES (what J.Q.Public wants) , history telling their promise hasn’t and won’t work, people jailed by the train carsfull/fired for NOT following insanity or NOW telling under oath what that insanity detailed ...
I truly see the tide coming in , a deep blue ocean , cleaning up/kicking out/rid of/
and prison sentenced traitors
💙VOTE THE BLUE TSUNAMI💙
Douglas county Colorado elected a proud boy as its sheriff. Yeah, it’s everywhere in the police force.
I hope that is a very small county without many people.
how awful!
Also, check out Shasta County California. Hatred kept growing there.
“It’s important for all Americans to see a reflection of themselves in American history.”
Yes, Deborah, thank you for repeating Colleen Shogan's, the Archivist of the United States, quote about Americans seeing themselves as part of the history that is theirs. Just what DeSantis and his gang want to continue to deprive us of -- and how long has that been going on?! FOR CENTURIES!
Another way to say this, given our penchant and reliance upon national polls and national statistics, is that our group, our demographic is in the disaggregate, not the aggregate of all of the metrics. The well-being of my group, my tribe, if we might, is what matters, is that reflection, my truth. If we are below average means something different than if we are above the average. But, if there is no metric/reflection of my group or tribe or meaningful demographic, do we even exist, least of all have a standard against which to be proud of, to pass on to the next generation?
Fred, can you explain your post somewhat more. 'Our group', how do you define it? What is the source of your data? Age/race/education? ___Your post is making a important point or points, but it is too vague for me to understand.
Our group could be White, college educated, Evangelical, males or Black, single mothers, paraprofessional or inner-city small business owners, third-generation Cuban American, with adolescents, and investment portfolios or college educated, Black men, living in rural states, working multiple jobs to stay afloat or .... almost any other combination of demographics (or attitudes or political leanings). A meaningful group of similar if not like people who may be included in one of the national polls (e.g., Marquette, CBS/NPR political leanings) or surveys (e.g., US Census, Health Surveys) intended to capture some set of important information from a representative sample of Americans. Any legitimate sample must be either truly random or clearly representative of any of those traits the survey/poll is gather the data from (e.g., gender identified, education, political leaning, voting patterns) or demographics (e.g., geography, ) and of sufficient size to provide trustworthy information. But, the information is mostly for the aggregate. With some exceptions where the sample obtained (versus the intended representation when telephone or other voluntary responses are sought), few disaggregate analyses will provide meaningful reflections of the traits or attitude for subgroups. Does the sample actually include people like me (my tribe, our group) and can I see how I look as part of that subgroup? If I were do pull out the responses from people like me, will I know something different? If my subgroup wants to see how we are improving or changing in someway important to me (e.g., shared opinions, economic gains, safety, employment, family health) are there enough of us (or any of us) to portray? Are there ANY samples or surveys or polls conducted (rigorously, of course) among people like me that would be relevant. I am pretty sure that most of us (the aggregate) look at poll and survey findings and ask How is this representative of me, my tribe, my subgroup? and likely don't see themselves captured in the telling of stories. So, if I don't see myself reflected in the data, how am I to gauge my group's or my standing on issues or measure of important (e.g., safety, equity, health, wealth, employment, education, standing, quality of life)? Am I even included in your discussion and projections? I still am at-one with my subgroup, our group, the one (or more) that I live and grow or fade and get left behind. I am not the aggregate mean, but the variance, the disaggregate subgroup with important meaning and needs to be measured and represented and focused upon as we examine how well or how not we have improved. Sometimes the subgroup must study themselves in order to engage in a meaningful discussion or Where are we? and How do we get our share of this prosperity?
Fred, I'm lost in your analysis and believe that you took time to carefully explain it to me. I have done solid research as a lay person, assistant, associate producer and producer of public affairs programing for both public tv and commercial tv stations/ It may be that individual polls, the basis on which each was created and an understanding of samples used would be the route necessary for me to understand your point. Thank you for your effort.
Bravo, Fern. I knew you'd come through for Juneteenth.
HCR, subscribers like you, Lynell, our brothers and sisters. models of courage in the past, at this very moment and the younger ones teaching us a lesson or two, keep democracy marching on -- no matter what!
We should each and all celebrate this day of freedom .
Those who have issues with persons of color have an opportunity to reevaluate past and current prejudices. It is an opportunity for each and all to overcome those wrong thoughts and attitudes that separate us.
It is an opportunity to come together in love and hope and peace. It is an opportunity for us to evaluate ways we can demonstrate respect....ways we each and all can encourage one another.
"From a Distance" thank you Bett Midler!
Emily Pfaff - "From a Distance" thank you Bett Midler!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbovSrR6atE
Have always loved this. Thanks.
“How we remember our history matters.” Gratitude Professor, and Fern and all who post and read History and understand we continue to live History every day. The fact that the “United”States of America continues to battle, debate and legislate for Freedom and to enforce the Constitution is more than troubling. Yet the possibility, yes, possibility, that our votes can count and our voices can be heard, gives hope that battles fought for freedom then and now were and are worth the losses and gains and must continue.
If I could watch WWII as a 7-11 year-old, others that age can learn the truths of American history. My father showed me a photo of a Polish child who looked just like me standing alone beside a blackened stick (?burnt sapling) in a field of rubble. The photo was, I believe, in the Richmond, Virginia evening paper, probably early September, 1939. (I have tried unsuccessfully to find it online.)
Those who steer the course of our society (the People, no?) cannot do so effectively without trustworthy information, current and past.
The Professor provides much more than trustworthy information including the link to the original National Archives` Junteenth military order followed by her signature historical context -- in this case of the absolutely necessary Constitutional Amendments & still necessary enforcement of those Amendments in Minneapolis & elsewhere in 2023.
"Those who forget (or never knew) history are condemned to repeat it."
“Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. Yet those who do study history are doomed to stand by helplessly while everyone else repeats it.” From Tom Toro, The New Yorker. Sad to say
True, but not at LFAA.
George Santayana 1905, Winston Churchill 1948, Edmund Burke,1790.
“plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.” Perhaps this has been said here many times. I like to think there is progress, but in the face of recent behavior, I wonder. Is it Groundhog Day? No, it is Juneteenth. So let’s celebrate what we have.
That's why this Substack is so important.
Our history must be remembered - and not with parts of it omitted or “white-washed” or covered-over nor glossed-over and yes, it must be factually accurate!!!
History Matters, and Justice Matters ( says Glann Kirschner. ). Anybody in the bumper sticker business?
Gigi Go!
Juneteenth wasn't the end, just as July 4 wasn't the beginning. "How we remember our history matters," and the ongoing academic falsification of the meaning of the Declaration of Independence is like a KKK cross tattooed on our minds.
There were still slaves after Juneteenth, in Kentucky and Delaware.
The Declaration of Independence was Part 2, following the original anti-Lockean independence resolution of May 15 (written by John Adams), which instructed the "total suppression" of royal government:
https://startingpointsjournal.com/the-may-resolution-and-the-declaration-of-independence/
More on the anti-Lockean meaning of the Declaration of Independence is summarized on this Twitter thread:
https://twitter.com/john_schmeeckle/status/1497951393067450375?s=20
Thanks Professor for this important reminder that change happens slowly and with much effort. To turn the course of history a consistent and considerable effort of changing the laws as well as the hearts and minds of the citizens is essential.
What’s discouraging is the backlash. It seems like it’s two steps forward with one back, but, my gosh, that step back right now is so painful.
Absolutely Agreed, that is why we can not become complacent or give up the good fight. I do find I need time away, time in nature and my nightly HCR to be prepared to reenter the fray
Yes. And the national push back against the backlash is limp, weak and shameful. Our politicians and preachers should be throwing rotten vegetables at the bigots they serve with.
Where is the shaming and outrage? The racial gerrymandering, the voter restrictions, the treatment by police are all things that should have been part of our distant past.
Yes, it's painful. And I am disappointed and angry that this discussion has to be had after so many years.
But I guess we should be realistic. Why would a nation where one of its largest religions doesn't believe women are equal to men...why would that nation consider all races equal?
Large segments of our country still believe in 19th century values.
Brain-washed cult nuts.
...read Lincoln's Second Inaugural address again, he includes the fact that both sides pray to the same God and read the same Bible...in the end, he called for unity and reconciliation.
A tragedy he was not able to complete his vision due to a bullet by a Confederate sympathizer who believed he would be lauded for killing the President. Instead, the Good Friday shooting followed by the announcements of his death on Easter Sunday created the Christ-like martyrdom of the first assassinated Commander-in-Chief.
I am a big fan of Lincolns presidency. Slow to free the slaves. But still, a towering figure in our history.
As to both sides praying to a God and reading a book of questionable veracity, I suggest that his statement is pure of heart. But how many Bible thumpers really follow the words of Jesus?
Religiosity and its often twisted interpretations are one of the many reasons we are divided. Funny how a faith originally based on love and charity has become one of selfishness, hate and violence.
The hearts and minds are a huge problem. " “It looked like everything worth living for was gone,” Texas cattleman Charles Goodnight later recalled. " And just what was worth living for, that had gone?
The sense of lordship.
I do love all us women on this thread
It’s women and people of color who will bring about change in attitudes. White men are slow and so used to power that they have trouble “joining in.”
Have you - any of you - read "Beyond Power"? Big fat book, full of historical clarity, which has sat battered on my various bookshelves since the seventies. Here's a quote from a reader of the NYT in 1985:
To the Editor:
I wonder if Lawrence Stone and I read the same book. Marilyn French's ''Beyond Power'' is certainly, as he writes, ''a passionate polemic about the way men have treated women over the past several millenniums.'' But that is an extended illustration of its central thesis, not the thesis itself. Centrally, it examines a larger criminality - the unrelenting, millennial pursuit of power, ''masculine'' in character, that has led us to the brink of annihilation. Power is Mrs. French's focus, as her book's title implies; Mr. Stone manages to blur that focus away. In the process he gives us such recherche oddities as ''the noble savage in feminist drag'' -what on earth is feminist drag?"
(Further comment, from me: if "Mr Stone" thought "millenniums" was the correct plural, he has no business casting the first stone :) ) (Whoops, no pun intended - it just slipped out).
I have never heard of it. It’s sounds terribly dispiriting.
And I agree with you on plurals. It’s almost as bad as to, too and two.
(Ha!) No, not dispiriting! I made a quick dive into Goodreads - here are four comments:
"Beyond Power" changed my life
A "must read" for anyone interested in our communal journey as women.
Every page is jam-packed with information and provocative thought. This is a book to read slowly, correlating its offerings with everyday life during the process. It is life-changing.
Best book on feminism I have ever read--changed my life! All MEN should read this book!
And how can you possibly make a living when you have to pay people to work?
Very nicely put.
Juneteenth wasn't the end, just as July 4 wasn't the beginning. "How we remember our history matters," and the ongoing academic falsification of the meaning of the Declaration of Independence is like a KKK cross tattooed on our minds.
There were still slaves after Juneteenth, in Kentucky and Delaware.
The Declaration of Independence was Part 2, following the original anti-Lockean independence resolution of May 15 (written by John Adams), which instructed the "total suppression" of royal government:
https://startingpointsjournal.com/the-may-resolution-and-the-declaration-of-independence/
More on the anti-Lockean meaning of the Declaration of Independence is summarized on this Twitter thread:
https://twitter.com/john_schmeeckle/status/1497951393067450375?s=20
"How we remember our history" definitely matters, because it's been my discovery over 50 years of effort in gathering, analyzing and describing events in American history, that a good 80% of what passes for "official history" is more properly filed under "mythology."
The Minneapolis PD can take a big step in the right direction by getting rid of the Trump-loving leadership of their "Patrolmen's Benevolent Association," the cop union. Particularly that retrograde pig who's the president of the PBA, the guy who came out defending the murder of Floyd as "deserved."
Sad when the police (the protect and serve guys) are the arrogant arses with axes to grind. Your rotten apples need to go, even if they are half the barrel
TC, I grew up in Minneapolis on the South side about 3 miles from where Floyd was killed. The Minneapolis police department has long been exceptionally racist, and the city’s mayors and City Council have long promised to “reform” the police department. Things would get better for short periods; then backslide. I know you understand.
Will this report from the Justice Dept. change things? As an optimistic person, I’d like to say yes...
My stepdaughter, who lived just a block and a half from the corner where Floyd was killed, bought a house recently in the neighborhood I grew up in. I appreciate seeing how diverse that neighborhood has become and how committed so many folks are to celebrating and supporting that diversity. But the scars of more than 100 years of police brutality and systematic racism in the City remain - and one of the major reasons Emkae moved out of Powderhorn was because the crime rate skyrocketed after Floyd’s murder and police no longer responded to calls for help. That bloody police union has never been cowed in any way, shape or form by anybody or anything - not even seeing Derek Chauvin jailed for murdering Floyd. By a team led by a black Muslim state Attorney General no less.
Not a huge fan of union busting but that union needs to be busted and the culture that protects racism and violence dismantled. Huh. Not optimistic about that.
"That union" isn't even a union, in the way I understand unions. It is a fraternity, all for one, one for all, and they are cowing municipalities into treating their negotiations as "personnel matters" that belong behind closed doors, no public input. Personnel matters in my state are defined as actions that concern one employee, to protect that employee's rights.
Contract negotiations are not personnel actions: they are the equivalent of negotiating with equipment providers to get the best value for cost. My town finally got it. The result: better trust of the police officers and less meddling by people who aren't elected and aren't residents. A step in the right direction, but a ways to go. This so-called union does need to be seen for what it is: an attempt to control how a community makes decisions, and a way for incompetent members to avoid responsibility.
This "union" also was hired to provide training at our police academy. This was when we began experiencing a lot of improper interactions with the public. One elected constable decided to take the training and become a certified police officer so he could serve his community better. He was appalled at what the training did: it taught not public service, not how to defuse a tense situation, not how to manage a person in emotional distress. Nope: the focus was on what to do to avoid facing accountability when things went wrong. End of that story. The state took over the training again, and put the focus on preventing escalation of events, and creating positive relations with the public. Things are improving.
I'm still leery, but feeling more at ease.
My first house was three blocks from the intersection where Floyd was murdered. Given the decades of brutality I witnessed, I was not totally surprised by yet another killing of a Black man. About twenty years ago Hennepin County installed cameras in the elevator in Detox so the cops would stop beating intoxicated people in the elevator.
And Native Americans. Many from reservations go to Minneapolis.
Always good to have reports from the ground. This time, if we can keep Merrick Garland, you may see a change. He proceeds slowly, but doesn’t walk away.
All police unions need to be busted.
Juneteenth wasn't the end, just as July 4 wasn't the beginning. "How we remember our history matters," and the ongoing academic falsification of the meaning of the Declaration of Independence is like a KKK cross tattooed on our minds.
There were still slaves after Juneteenth, in Kentucky and Delaware.
The Declaration of Independence was Part 2, following the original anti-Lockean independence resolution of May 15 (written by John Adams), which instructed the "total suppression" of royal government:
https://startingpointsjournal.com/the-may-resolution-and-the-declaration-of-independence/
More on the anti-Lockean meaning of the Declaration of Independence is summarized on this Twitter thread:
https://twitter.com/john_schmeeckle/status/1497951393067450375?s=20
Troll liability cases are in reasjng in frequency & sevrity in including criminal liability in the case of a Professional Troll attacking the Head of thr History Dept at the University of Idaho.
Courtesy Request. Cease your commercial Ads.
PS: Pleased to report the Substack Inc Moderation Department has improved.
Bryan, I have made eight reports, all concerning the identical scripts, which were posted by this entity or person. I've seen a couple complaints made to this poster but do not know of any subscribers. in addition to me, who have have reported this unfortunate and frequent distraction. I encourage subscribers to do so. Do you know that all you have to do is click the dots beside 'reply' under the poster's name to make a complaint?
Dear Fern, good morning!
On myriad occasions (at least 20), I’ve reported said offender and added comments encouraging others to join me. Like you, I’ve included the simple how-to — “…” under the specific comment(s). At least a few commenters have confirmed reporting as well.
Good morning, AshleyR, lovely to see you. Thanks for your report.
Fern I respect your opinion and posts. I have gone to Schmeeckle's links and I find his argument intriguing and worthy of consideration and discussion. That he is pushing it by posting identical comments is another issue. We are constantly reassessing history and overlooked contributions to our understanding and thus meanings. We should not be calling a person a troll if they are not really trolling... or maybe I don't know the meaning of troll. Best Wishes.
Oh, please. This is how this guy describes himself: "By accident, I became the leading expert on the meaning of the Declaration of Independence, as I discuss on this Twitter thread:"
Kind of says it all, really. All he needs now is a YouTube video.
I find the ganging up here more off putting, the name calling, more of a turn off than his description of himself, however inflated.
Yeah he should have a NYTimes mag article or a YouTube video. So what? Clearly he wants to make a point and it's interesting and actually valid imo-- connects these ideas that led to the Declaration back even to Cicero.
Steve, I laughed with your clarity as a couple of us were tiptoeing around the obvious. Thank you for the fresh air, and guess who appeared as I was replying to you? Perfection in the midst!
I hope you're not the kind of guy who admires the KKK cross tattooed on his mind.
The Author, Substack, Reader CONTRACT defines the rules of this Platform. Troll Ads, troll narcissism, troll misinformation & troll abuse of copy & paste disrupts this Platform & will not be tolerated by this Reader who knows how to enforce 3rd Party CONTRACTUAL rights.
There is a CONTRACTUAL forum for disputes, JAMS SF.
Judicial & Mediation Sevices (JAMS)
Two Embarcadero Center, Suite 1500
San San Francisco 94111
You describe yourself as a *retired* trial attorney"who monitors (amongst other such) social media platforms....as a hobby? You sound like a bully...and may fit the definition of trolling here.
Ulterior motive alert: "Don't allow others to think about the actual congressional anti-Lockean definition of happiness in the original May 1776 independence resolution."
Sophisticated trolls who pretend to be lawyers will also pretend that those who talk about the actual meaning of the Declaration of Independence are deplorable undesirables, so that timid other-directed people will nod along with the pompous, threatening, legalistic Alpha Male instead of thinking for themselves.
Get a lawyer..... this is off the wall more disruptive of the conversation and major bad handling of it.
Potter, I didn't call Schmeeckle a troll. I counted 10 identical scripts that he posted very near to one another. I reported that series asking that the scripts be assessed as coherent or not because I could not tell and to do so with recognition that the poster was distracting us with posting so many identical posts in close proximity to one another.
You have not refuted the charge of troll in the discussion..which flames. You post ubiquitously here Fern. I do see all the repeat posts of Schmeeckle here. He is pushy about his POV, defends it by saying he wants to reply to the individual. He should stop, enough.
"Spammer" is more accurate, in fact.
"Distracting us"??
I replied to close to a dozen different responses to HCR's post for today. Each of these responses was history-minded, and many if not most of them referred to HCR's statement: "How we remember our history matters."
I had something relevant to add to each of those comments. I have no reason to think that those commenters are hovering over the day's comments and replies, which means that those people to whom I replied will get separate e-mail notifications regarding separate comments that I made.
People who are complaining about my relevant replies to different people uniformly fail to engage with the content of what I wrote, as if they are thuggish thought controllers who can't bear to examin my argument that the ideology of the Founders was neither "conservative" nor Harvard liberalism.
You seem to have trolls on your mind -- perhaps your mind has a KKK cross tattooed on it?
You had nothing to say about the CONTENT of what I posted.
Your dishonest and absurd reference to "commercial ads" will doubtless be noticed by Substack if and when they check your post and consider your ulterior motive.
You are a troll and a spammer because you have copied and pasted the same comment at least eight times. People only do that when they are using this Substack primarily to call attention to themselves. That's prohibited by Substack's user agreement. Which you maybe should have read.
You are not the judge here. Complain to management!. You are calling attention as well... and disrupting.
I replied to close to a dozen different posts. Each of these posts was history-minded, and many if not most of them referred to HCR's statement: "How we remember our history matters." I had something relevant to add to each of those comments. I have no reason to think that those commenters are hovering over the day's comments and replies, which means that those people to whom I replied will get separate e-mail notifications regarding separate comments that I made. People who are complaining about my relevant replies to different people uniformly fail to engage with the content of what I wrote, as if they are thuggish thought controllers who can't bear to examin my argument that the ideology of the Founders was neither "conservative" nor Harvard liberalism.
See my response above re yours. I have no idea how much you have reposted the same comment. I just noticed it here twice and was intrigued to read the links. Interesting. Sorry to see this descend into name calling.. you are (as far as I can see) not a troll.
"Troll" is essentially defined by Substack Inc's Content Mediation Dept's rules of the road. This is not the anononymous Facebook for 13 year olds.
Complain to management. And stop flaming... which is also disruptive.
I replied to close to a dozen different posts. Each of these posts was history-minded, and many if not most of them referred to HCR's statement: "How we remember our history matters." I had something relevant to add to each of those comments. I have no reason to think that those commenters are hovering over the day's comments and replies, which means that those people to whom I replied will get separate e-mail notifications regarding separate comments that I made. People who are complaining about my relevant replies to different people uniformly fail to engage with the content of what I wrote, as if they are thuggish thought controllers who can't bear to examin my argument that the ideology of the Founders was neither "conservative" nor Harvard liberalism.
I believe what you say is important. Since Floyd's murder, and the words of this union president, I have struggled with the visibility of that union and where we are now as a country, because I strongly support unions. SO grateful Garland investigated the Minneapolis police and city and came out with this report. There are definitely some bad people in leadership positions who should not be there.
It never hurts to review the difficulty slaveholding states had relinquishing the free labor to which their holders felt entitled, and it should sadden us all that so much of our society clings to that power differential. But I must admit that I was shocked by the documented brutality of Minneapollis police and the struggle to retain it. And just today in the land of Lincoln there was another mass shooting at a Juneteenth celebration. Somehow, some way, we must find the courage to make this nation safe from racial hatred and reject those who profit from it. I wish I knew how we could cut off the energy that fuels it.
progwoman, are we not the energy that fuels discord through our actions and indifference?
Certainly we can try not to be.
I grew up in the Minneapolis (Mpls) area in the 1950's - 1970's as a middle-class white girl. I moved from the (all white) city to the (kind of - it's complicated) suburbs when I was 12 and lived between an upper-middle-class white suburb (Golden Valley) and one of the "black" neighborhoods - this one in north Minneapolis. Because of my father's job, I was well acquainted with many Mpls policemen. Most, if not all of them (in my experience) were decidedly racist. I think many of my family and lifetime friends will reject and/or deny the DOJ report about the Mpls police department as being accurate but I was not surprised to hear about it. I hope the report results in real, positive change and I also hope the same type of study is done in more cities nationwide and that it results in more dialogue and education aimed at uniting our divided nation. I cannot understand all of the hate in our country.
I grew up in two suburbs of Detroit, the same time as you which were mostly all white. Then I went to college at Wayne State University in Detroit and graduated 1978. I studied and worked in Detroit hospitals because I became a nurse. My eyes were opened to other people of different races thankfully.
Like you said in your last sentence “I cannot understand all of the hate in our country “.
Thank you. Your report and others are invaluable to anyone reading them as they make alive the journalists’ reports.
Opal Lee continues to be an inspiring figure in our local communities here in Ft Worth. Hearing her speak on the Tarrant County courthouse steps just after President Biden made Juneteenth a national holiday was witnessing history in the making! Thank you for this information. I hope how we remember our history can continue to be truthful!
We can still hear Opal Lee!
Email: DEI@aarp.org
Event: Real Conversations with AARP featuring Opal Lee
Date: Monday, June 19, 2023
Time: 7:00 PM-8:00 PM Eastern Time
Thanks Ellie. I will check it out.
Juneteenth wasn't the end, just as July 4 wasn't the beginning. "How we remember our history matters," and the ongoing academic falsification of the meaning of the Declaration of Independence is like a KKK cross tattooed on our minds.
There were still slaves after Juneteenth, in Kentucky and Delaware.
The Declaration of Independence was Part 2, following the original anti-Lockean independence resolution of May 15 (written by John Adams), which instructed the "total suppression" of royal government:
https://startingpointsjournal.com/the-may-resolution-and-the-declaration-of-independence/
More on the anti-Lockean meaning of the Declaration of Independence is summarized on this Twitter thread:
https://twitter.com/john_schmeeckle/status/1497951393067450375?s=20
The transparent efforts in former Confederate states and several others to make voting more difficult for "urban" populations, which is to say majority-minority cities, requires us to respond head-on with ways to defend the 13th and 14th Amendments. So sad that they are still so controversial that the conservative Supreme Court majority would like to abandon them or argue away their protection of the civil rights of all people.
Imagine if Allied forces had such a thing to Holocaust survivors upon their release from Concentration Camps. I guess no one gave any consideration, during the war, on how to assimilate the millions of freed slaves? This sounds a few cards short of a 'deck of citizenship'.
Granger's Gen Order #3: “The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”
100, that sentence you quoted says it all, doesn't it?
That sentence reminds me that the Union represented the view not that blacks were equal to whites, only that they were to be equal under the law. The white leaders of the Union believed sincerely in the inferiority of blacks and sought only the upper hand in negotiations with representatives of the former Confederates. In fact over time they lost that negotiation as HCR explains beautifully in How the South Won the Civil War, a book everyone of her subscribers should read.
As a country we remain of two minds on the subject: we are racist to the core but some of us fight the tendency and some of us do not. The first group under estimates the size of the second, and thinks our country is better than it is. The second group denies their membership in it and accuses the first group of being anti-American. That is the state of our national politics and has been since the first Juneteenth.
Your second paragraph is quite profound and food for deep thought
The history of the event and the efforts to wipe it out are a constant reminder of the state of politics today. Our vote matters, I realize, but our participation and contribution to like minded candidates and causes are what matter now. Vote. Donate. Be mindful.
Yes, support voter registration:
League of Women Voters:
https://www.lwv.org/
Voters of Tomorrow:
https://votersoftomorrow.org/
Yes, run for something or support the candidates who do:
https://runforsomething.net/
The States Project Giving Circle inspired by HCR, Tending to Democracy:
https://www.grapevine.org/giving-circle/1XQhnyD/Tending-to-Democracy
And as David Pepper writes, how can each of us scale up our footprints for saving democracy:
https://www.amazon.com/Saving-Democracy-Users-Manual-American/dp/1662938217/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1ZKAPFPJUMB99&keywords=saving+democracy+pepper&qid=1687165603&sprefix=saving+democracy%2Caps%2C153&sr=8-1
(or actually, check it out with your favorite bookseller!)
Thanks, Ellie!
I'd just like to add this: https://bookshop.org/p/books/saving-democracy-a-user-s-manual-for-every-american-david-pepper/20075262 to support independent bookstores.
Love it—thanks, Jan! I’ll use this link for books in the future!
Thank you, Ellie. Again.
Hi, Ellie!
Nice to see you in the classroom ! 😊
Vote, donate, be mindful, and, I'd add, run for office. Start at the local level, then the state level, then nationally. And if you don't want to run, find a like-minded person who is willing to be a candidate and support them.
Yes! Start with PTA, Library Board, County Commission...
If the intent of the Fourteenth Amendment was to grant all privileges of citizenship to everyone born or naturalised in the United States of America, why was it not assumed that it would grant voting rights to American-born women?
Talia and Judith, suffragists of the time like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Victoria Woodhull; the California contingent like Emily Pitts Stevens, Laura deForce Gordon, Clara Foltz, Georgiana Bruce Kirby; Oregon suffragist Abigail Scott Duniway, all seized on exactly that, and went to the polls that year and subsequently, quoting the Fourteenth Amendment to prove their right to vote. A surprising many were able to do so, which led to court challenges and a smackdown.
The history of women's suffrage with respect to the Black Women vote is important for the American people to know. This is just a tease.
'In the long battle for women's suffrage, and the passage of the 19th Amendment, some leading activists prioritized white women’s suffrage over voting rights for all women.'
'Two of the most prominent women's suffragists, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, were at one time part of the American Equal Rights Association (AERA), a group they formed with Frederick Douglass and other activists in 1866. The organization’s goal was to win voting rights “for both women and African Americans,” says Lisa Tetrault, a history professor at Carnegie Mellon University.'
“There’s tension from the very beginning over the priority of those two demands,” she says. “Black women fall out of this equation.” (historychannel)
https://www.history.com/news/suffragists-vote-black-women
Anthony and Stanton were much more racist than we were taught in school, but that was not true of suffragists across the board. The issue and other issues of tactics caused the suffragist split into two camps in 1869: Anthony and Stanton's National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association founded by Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson.
Thank you for that addition!
Judith, any time. I think we're all here trying to piece together the history we weren't taught in school, or weren't taught enough of!
Talia, you hit the jackpot for me. Since the 14th. Amendment was intended to assure civil rights protections for all citizens born or naturalized, why are we still struggling to assure the simplest freedoms for women, like equal pay for equal work and other similar ideas assumed to be included in the still absent from the Constitution, Equal Rights Amendment for Women? The wording of the 14th. Amendment seems precise and clear to me. While it’s original intent was to shore up Amendment #13, the clarity of the document cannot be denied. Indigenous rights are assured along with Blacks and women. Perhaps we protest too much about the ERA when time could be better spent highlighting the 14th. Amendment for the causes of women. Seems simple to me (recognizing nothing ever is simple in Constitutional Law or the need for SCOTUS would evaporate.)
The 19th. Amendment to the Constitution guarantees women the right to vote. Google is gracious. 1920!
Voting rights are very complicated, though the 14th seems so clear. Here Native Americans are granted voting rights. I remember my grandmother, who was 26 years old at the time, voting in every single election until she died at 84. My parents were two at the time, both faithful voters.
Indian Citizenship Act. On June 2, 1924, Congress enacted the Indian Citizenship Act, which granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the U.S. The right to vote, however, was governed by state law; until 1957, some states barred Native Americans from voting. https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/june-02/#:~:text=to%20this%20page-,Indian%20Citizenship%20Act,barred%20Native%20Americans%20from%20voting.
I do not intend to belittle or challenge in any way the intent to free Blacks from slavery.
Good question. It appears to be a deliberate choice. The 14th grants the protections of citizenship to all "persons". But the section on voting rights specifically uses the term "male" to refer to voters, thus shutting women out- this was not an oversight. Oddly enough, the next section. on eligibility to hold public office, uses the term "person". And women actually managed to use that section to run for office, though still not allowed to vote. Most were turned away or lost, but some won. It was a beginning, but a shameful one, given that women were active in the anti-slavery movement and the war, and there were high hopes that they would be included in the suffrage amendment that affirmed citizenship for former slaves.
Just as those who ordained the constitution, the 14th refers to persons, or we the people. We make a mistake when we consider all humans as people. One distinction is the capacity of foresight. No one I would consider a person would vote for someone claiming "I alone can fix it". https://www.politico.com/video/2020/08/20/trump-at-2016-rnc-i-alone-can-fix-it-085403
Coretta Scott King famously has said that every generation has to ‘refight’ this ‘justice war’….and God knows we are in the throes of one hell of a fight…that is not just about those Black codes but about our democracy itself….and we can ill afford to lose THIS fight….
No one, absolutely no one should NOT see to it that there is a very very clear understanding of the Justice Departments 37 Felony indictments as they concern our national security…the issues of bribing a porn star to be silent relative to your relationship with her and it’s impact on a presidential election, and that clarity also needs to apply to the Eugene Carroll cases and I mean the initial defamation case AND the new one caused by the Orange One, 2 days after the initial verdict and that clarity is also soon to needed in Fulton County, Georgia, and back in DC with the January 6 debacle and in the Southern district of New York with additional Orange person horrors…and God knows, perhaps elsewhere too!
The "Carol cases" plural, Carol I & Carol II, thank you. Carol I was filed first in 2019 & is now set for Trial early in 2024.
Yes. How we remember history matters. But we have to learn it first. I taught in all Black middle school from 1967-1978. How can it be that I never even heard of Juneteenth until decades later?
Juneteenth wasn't the end, just as July 4 wasn't the beginning. "How we remember our history matters," and the ongoing academic falsification of the meaning of the Declaration of Independence is like a KKK cross tattooed on our minds.
There were still slaves after Juneteenth, in Kentucky and Delaware.
The Declaration of Independence was Part 2, following the original anti-Lockean independence resolution of May 15 (written by John Adams), which instructed the "total suppression" of royal government:
https://startingpointsjournal.com/the-may-resolution-and-the-declaration-of-independence/
More on the anti-Lockean meaning of the Declaration of Independence is summarized on this Twitter thread:
https://twitter.com/john_schmeeckle/status/1497951393067450375?s=20
Now let’s talk about actually teaching black history in classrooms. Let’s talk about environmental Justice and real socialized healthcare to address the massive gaps between African Americans and white folk. Let’s talk about reparations.
Heather, thanks for this exceptional history lesson. I must admit, I have learned a lot from this writing tonight.
These is a question though.
With the current laws in affect in states like Florida, where Governor DeSantis and his minions in his Republican state legislature. How will the people of the state be able to celebrate this holiday, or the educators be able to mention, or discuss it, in their classrooms for fear of being jailed?
We all do remember the ridiculous laws that they passed where things like this can’t be discussed . After all, it is about slavery, and the Civil War. That’s two things that can’t be discussed in Florida schools!
Juneteenth wasn't the end, just as July 4 wasn't the beginning. "How we remember our history matters," and the ongoing academic falsification of the meaning of the Declaration of Independence is like a KKK cross tattooed on our minds.
There were still slaves after Juneteenth, in Kentucky and Delaware.
The Declaration of Independence was Part 2, following the original anti-Lockean independence resolution of May 15 (written by John Adams), which instructed the "total suppression" of royal government:
https://startingpointsjournal.com/the-may-resolution-and-the-declaration-of-independence/
More on the anti-Lockean meaning of the Declaration of Independence is summarized on this Twitter thread:
https://twitter.com/john_schmeeckle/status/1497951393067450375?s=20
And justice for all. Thank you Professor.
OFF TOPIC:`The JOHN EASTMAN CA State DISBARMENT TRIAL will be Live-streamed on 6/20/23. Per the State Bar Court of California, the disbarment trial will be held in Courtroom A next Tuesday at 10 am. Case: SBC-23-0-30029.
ZOOM: https://calbar.zoom.us./I/97985435232. Webinar ID: 979 8543 5232
Finally!
Some relief for Orange County of, California, CA & the rest of the Nation.
Thanks!
Great news!!