On Friday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and 36 Republicans sent a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona accusing him of trying to advance a “politicized and divisive agenda” in the teaching of American history.
There is a version of American history that starts out with, "Once upon a time..."
That is the history I was taught. (I'm 70) It is a myth, a fairy tale, not only because of what is told, but because what is left out.
America would not be the nation it is without slavery and genocide, starting from when the first Europeans set foot on this continent. That is a fact, a fact that colors all that this nation has accomplished. If we can, as a nation, acknowledge that fact, we can truly realize our great potential, and begin to make the myth a reality. That was the message of Martin Luther King.
But that myth is the basis of an entrenched power structure that will hold onto it with a death grip, because if the myth dies, so must the power structure.
I haven't read much from the 1619 Project, but what I've seen is most impressive. The 1776 "Project" is a joke by comparison. The loudest GQP voices on history education and race are willfully ignorant about both.
Gerald Horne, one of our most hard-working historians, concurs with 1619's view of slavery in the Revolution.
Horne, Gerald. The counter-revolution of 1776: slave resistance and the origins of the United States of America. New York University, 2014. 349p index afp ISBN 9781479893409, $39.00.
Horne (Univ. of Houston) holds a distinctive view of watershed historical dates. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 brought political order to Britain and encouraged free trade. This facilitated massive slave imports into the American colonies, destabilizing colonial societies with the specter of racial conflicts and rebellious slaves allied with foreign invaders. Horne also asserts the less-familiar importance of 1772. That year's landmark Somerset decision by Lord Mansfield effectively banned slavery in England, signaling a trend in favor of rights for Africans. In June 1772, Rhode Islanders defied imperial authority by burning HMS Gaspee. Colonists' determination to continue profiting from "the slavery trade" ultimately led to independence, but 1776 was partly a counterrevolution against London's nascent antislavery sentiment. This narrative is often about white anxieties in Britain, the Caribbean, and North America. Readers seldom hear the voices of free and unfree Africans, though their actions (flight, rebellion, everyday resistance) speak clearly enough. Horne's interpretation emphasizes material factors over political philosophy and ideas in general. It directly challenges conventional views of the American Revolution but, based on extensive evidence, deserves close reading. Summing Up: Recommended. Academic and large public libraries; undergraduates and above.
Choice Vol. 52, Issue 4, Dec 2014 American Library Association. Contact permissions@ala-choice.org for permission to reproduce or redistribute.
I just have to say that I LOVE being on this forum with a bunch of historians. Not a single day goes by that I don't learn something vital and accurate. Thanks to you all.
Lynda, when I was in school, there was an essay contest every year, sponsored by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. My mother enrolled me every year, I suppose because she thought “people would talk” if she didn’t, and I wasn’t old enough to rebel. I did as little work as I could get by with. We were given time during class, when we should have been learning *anything* else, to work on these essays. This is by way of saying that any teacher who had taught us anything that went against the Glorious Cause narrative would have lost her (always her) job.
I had a few friends when I was working that did the entire foolish Daughters of the Confederacy thing up to dressing up and re-enactment. I always thought it was ridiculous, but honestly I didn't realize the harm it was doing until much later.
For the past 10 years, I’ve been indexing for the DAR Genealogical Research System, a tool to help history students, researchers, scholars and teachers. Not an “ugh.”
Thanks back at ya, Reid. We learn much from you as well.
In every course, I ask students who among them plans to be a teacher. With many business or IT majors, few if any answer Yes, especially when I taught history at a business school. My reply: "WRONG. You answered a question not posed. I didn't ask who will be a professional educator; the question is, who will purposely impart information, knowledge and/or wisdom?" Once they realize what's at issue, they understand that we all teach others: children, peers, friends, co-workers, even our bosses. (Among the worst is when we train someone who will take our job. Argh!) This also means that we're all students too, and should be throughout life.
The point: we all act as teachers, whether we know or wish it. And most LFAA readers have something to offer. So, now that we know, seize the opportunity!
TPJ, as one of the fellow historians in this conversation group, I concur that some of the most interesting work published in the last 5-10 years is reassessing not just US and North American colonial history (and how I wish people would start paying more attention to Canada in discussion of the era before the invention of the USA), but also British and European history. The impact of the Cromwellian Interregnum on the psyches of British people has been understudied. The tactics Cromwell used in Ireland against Catholics served as a blueprint for genocide in the colonies, and the expansion of the plantation system from Ulster to the colonies, with its parallel expansion of the kinds of enslaved and pressed labor developed in order to effect it, has not been discussed sufficiently by either British or US historians.
One of the biggest problems we have is that "American" history has almost always been a closed shop: Historians outside the USA have, until recently, eschewed studying US history. This is changing, but slowly. As a British historian whose background is anything but British, I find I have a different perspective on the history of the British Isles, as I am not particularly influenced by some emotion-driven notion of "patriotism" in the work I do. I am not saying that American-born historians are incapable of being critically engaged--far from it. But we have these jokers whose "education" in US history was probably taught in high school by football coaches (that's who taught US history in my high school and many others) who have absolutely no idea of how to think critically about the past. Unfortunately, they appeal to the basest emotional instincts of the dominant white population in order to demonize everyone else.
And never forget the text books that shaped the curriculum everywhere. If Texas didn’t adopt a text book, it was/is dead on arrival, as the big publishing houses well knew. Authors were carefully edited and teachers required to follow the prescribed program. I published a textbook for junior college communications with a major publisher in 1986. It took my co-author and I four years to respond to all the editing and for the company to bring the book out.
I was a teacher in a very progressive public school later. Happily, in our system teachers were free to dispense with textbooks. It made more work for teachers but such better opportunity to help students of all ages learn research skills, questioning, and discernment.
So I mentioned this in an earlier comment, but I've been thinking about it all day.
When I was in school, there was no Google. Our town, when I was young, had no bookstores: as I mentioned, the closest we had was the Hallmark store, and the "lurid paperback" rack at the supermarket, and of course, the magazine racks, and least half of which were up high with only the top edges showing. My parents got us a World Book Encyclopedia set, twenty-some volumes of the "authoritative history of everything." The county library had what it had, and there was a card catalogue, but its curation was a bit haphazard.
The real Authority was the textbooks we were given in our classes, because it consisted of material we had to memorize and regurgitate, though typically only once. There was no real synthesis of ideas, just discrete sections with discrete globs of things to memorize, regurgitate, and forget. But we all knew that if it was in the Textbook, it was right, and the teacher was wrong.
Now, I can go online and learn how to install and mud drywall (that's been a home project, and we did a good job), gather enough information to write an algorithm for reproducible floating-point sums, get an overview of global warming trends (with data), read three competing histories of the attack on Pearl Harbor, order a book on John Dee's Enochian Magick.... If I can ask the question, I can get answers.
It's like something out of Arthur C. Clarke's Against the Fall of Night.
So how DO you approach the teaching of history? Can it be summarized?
When I taught third grade my class and I researched and wrote and published neighborhood histories. We began with the neighborhood around our school, which included many olh houses as well as the site of the first gristmill in our county. We discussed how we could learn what the neighborhood was like 150 years earlier. We walked downtown to the main branch library and discovered the Sanborne insurance maps as well as old city directories. We found a history of Asheville ( our city) houses. We knocked on doors and interviewed people. Eventually we divided the research into pieces and kids wrote different sections. We invited the man who lived on the gristmill site to talk to us. We had discussions about how you could decide which was the correct answer when one source gave a different date than another. It was a fascinating project for all of us. We integrated language arts, social studies, research, etc. These were 8 and 9 year olds, and at the end of the year we went to a City Council meeting where a few of the kids got up and gave reasons why the neighborhood should be designated a historic district.(It did).
I have learned so much more about our history as a country in the last 10 years, about America as a whole, about my own state (NC) in particular. That history that l learned on my own is much more complex than the version l was taught in school. Economic forces were usually the drivers of history. I want to recommend Colin Woodard whose two books, “American Nations” and “American Character” taught me things I did not know. Check out the book descriptions on Amazon.
As I recall the 1619 view of slavery arrived as a special section of our Nytimes one Sunday. I read it and found it fascinating and plausible. I was early educated in the NY state public education system. I feel it is correct that we learned mostly the great myths about our country.
Thank you TPJ for bringing, Horne, Gerald. The counter-revolution of 1776: slave resistance and the origins of the United States of America. New York University, 2014, to our attention. I am taking the long way before returning to Gerald Home's work.
I was somewhat lost after finishing today's Letter. Only some memories of my Social Studies classes in elementary school came to mind. Seeing lean-tos and the Indian's clothing, so different from what we wore wafted into my mind. Feeling patriotic or like a 'Girl Scout' when getting into the Brotherhood spirit as a schoolgirl. It felt good widening our circle of people when in Social Studies classes. The hours there were as mini dramas. There was the sense of play absent from my academic of math and reading classes.
'The department is proposing two priorities to reach low-income students and underserved populations. The Republicans object to the one that encourages “projects that incorporate racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse perspectives into teaching and learning.” (The Letter). I want to be in the classes for the low-income students and underserved populations; they sound a lot more interesting. Why aren't classes that incorporate racially, ethnically, etc., diverse perspectives taught to all the children? I would go farther than the Department of Education.
While we will delve into this White v. Other war that the Republicans are waging, doesn't this present a great opportunity for us to learn our American History differently? Won't we 'educated Whites' enjoy taking bites from a revised American History curriculum, in addition to fighting the current Civil War? I'm back to Gerald Home's work, TPJ. Heather is sending us back to school!
Indeed you are right. "But that myth is the basis of an entrenched power structure that will hold onto it with a death grip, because if the myth dies, so must the power structure. " See my post on my experience as a researcher of US history.
As far as Mc Connell's train of thought that even discussing racism, here in NH, the newly Republican majority (a result of the Nov. election) has been falling in lockstep w/him, just as the southern states mentioned have done. They have passed HB 544, a gag order that prevents essentially anyone from even discussing racism or offer any diversity training or teaching such concepts. I sincerely hope that the ALCU will challenge this in court. As Dr H said, it IS unconstitutional re Freedom of Speech guaranteed in the Constitution. I truly fear that the super majority SCOTUS would go along with this UNCONSTITUTIONAL train of thought.
Turned 71 today and looking back to the 60’s and 70’s, it looks like the same ol’ same ol’ to me. I’d love to see this has come up to be healed but I thought that then also. Just seems like circles to me, fighting the same old battle over and over again.
I turn 71 in two weeks and have had similar thoughts. But then when we went into Iraq and Afghanistan I wondered, “What’s the end game? Will these be two more long, pointless wars? Did we learn anything from Vietnam?” Guess not.
What was learned from Vietnam was not to send a draftee army to fight an imperial war. The antiwar movement was fueled by the draft calls; you'll notice the large antiwar movement that exists today, when the fighting and dying only affects 1.5% of the population.
When you've got a job as big as the job America has now, you can't just dig your shovel in, scrabble around a little, sweat a little, and say you're done with it. Our project has to be more like archaeology, I think: dig carefully, dust things off, look at them in the light (definitely with direction from HCR), analyze and synthesize and act. Then dig a little more. I'm not, by the way, suggesting that we should do it slowly. There is an urgency in the air now, and it provides, no, demands energy. Let's roll up our collective sleeves, energize our minds and hearts, and get it done. I've got three score and ten-plus behind me, and of course there are and will be times when I mutter, "Damn. I thought we did that already," to myself.
I want to do that too and I try very hard not to feel helpless, but in a state where it will fall on deaf ears and where my friends and family think I am crazy and a radical leftist, it is hard.
Crazy and a radical leftist? Wear it like a badge of honor!
Much sympathy to you Lynnda, and Nance too. Even here in bluest MA, we often encounter something similar, especially with the crises in racial justice and policing. Even moderates imagine that real law enforcement reform will leave them exposed to nameless, faceless danger. (Though the faces cannot be discerned, they are almost always dark ones.) Most who will not stay silent, and who celebrate last year's protests, see friendships strained or lost. Yet progressives and moderates reach out and find each other, achieve new understandings, make wonderful new friendships, and build community. Cf. Letters from an American.
I try to be proud of what I believe and sure in the knowledge that I've taken the high road and done my homework. But it's really difficult when your brother tells you that many of our "mutual friends and family" have deleted my posts on FB because they make them so mad. I want to say - then why don't they try to discern what's really going on. But I don't.
Oh, Lynnda, I am so, so sorry. Right now I'm a lefty in a pretty red little town, but I've got good friends, and this forum . . . although I suspect my sister will never speak to me again. My thoughts are with you.
I blame Trump and Fox"news" for the extreme divide we are in. I cannot get my brother to see that we are no longer discussing Left vs Right issues, but we are discussing Democracy vs Authoritarian/corruption/craziness/and on and on.
So nice of you to write, TPJ. I love The Clancy Brothers (Tommy Makem, too), and I'd never heard this song with the "three score and ten." I was referring to my age, which is three score (60) and (10, plus. . . ) so, 74, and fast closing on 75. It's taken me such a long time to heal from doing work I thought was good, then returning to it years later, only to find it erased. I helped knock down the unnecessary Caesarean section rates where I lived in the 70s, only to find them soaring 20 years later. Sigh. I had a friend who was in the Peace Corps and managed the digging of wells for people who had little access to water. She visited nine years later and could barely find the sand-filled holes. Well, you know what I mean. When we make change, we work hard, and we want it to stick. I'm getting better at facing what I see is probably a reality, but right now, I'd give a lot just to see things move . . .
So I was wrong, and the connection is serendipitous. Oops!
My parents' early Makem/Clancy record is among my first musical memories. I had the great privilege of finally seeing Tommy about 20 years ago. He and Liam C made several fine records together. You are in for a treat.
The world is littered with aid and development projects that look like failure, but in fact, success is real, though finite. I had some success with a project fighting cattle disease in Zambia in the 1990s Such efforts often do achieve something for a while, including yours.
Yes, some in America can't let go of feeling like being the White Masters of the Universe. We keep coming back to it. It's old and it's new again. It is also so boring, ugly and dangerous, still.
I agree with you. I am the same age as you. Born and raised in a rural town in NC. Our history books never taught us about slavery and the white man’s foray into raping, lynching, and denial. I was surprised that Anne Frank’s book was required reading though.
Ralph, Wait! You mean John Wayne didn't win the West?? George Washington didn't chop down his daddy's cherry tree?
Seriously, your points are well taken. I've got a few years on ya, and I learned the same -you'll pardon the expression - white-washed version of American History you describe.
At least when I was in what is now called 'middle school', we did learn civics, by which I mean, the mechanics of how it's all supposed to work.
When my daughter was in middle school in NC, in the 1990s, civics had become a mere shadow of its former self, and was bundled into 'social studies', which was a mish-mash of some history, some geography, and very little clarity and NO depth. I was horrified.
I have never been a fan of home schooling, but if I had school age kids now, and the local system followed the Trumpian dictates, I would become a home schooler in a skinny minute.
Don’t surrender yet, Nancy. To paraphrase John Paul Jones, we have just begun to fight! And to quote the British-American naval commander, “If fear is cultivated it will become stronger, if faith is cultivated it will achieve mastery.”
As you can tell from the responses to Dr, HCR’s “Letters...”, her readers are just beginning to draw up plans, decide on strategies, and create tactics, to do moral and intellectual battle with the “forces of darkness” who threaten our national existence. Far from conceding the contest, we are committed to confronting the evil and destroying it with goodness.
By banding together with like-minded people we can deliver mortal blows to self-serving falsehood with the keen-edged sword of truth! Unity, courage and perseverance are the arrows in the quivers of the righteous!
No need to sorrow or concede to the greedy, ignorant horde. We can and will win the day!
TPJ, thank you for that kind, dare I say, overly generous, response. On re-reading the copy I was struck by the perhaps florid style that I am all too likely to lapse into. I wanted to be comforting and encouraging, but the scent of flora was a bit overwhelming.
I was born in the late 1940’s. In junior high and high school I suffered though domestic arts and sewing classes and I never seemed to get it right. I never learned to make the perfect white sauce and I always put the sleeves in backward. So, I had to get out the thread picker and unstitch them and put them in right. The normalisation of slavery in American put it’s sleeves in wrong in the fabric of democracy from the very beginning. It is going to take a lot of diligent unpicking and resewing to create an garment fit to be worn with pride and true to the proposition that all people are created equal with Liberty and justice for all. But it can be done, Biden is giving it a go. The macerations of the far right are right on cue. Lie, gaslight, mislead, on and on. Life can be complicated but doing the right thing really is not. The golden rule, kindness, equality before the law, these are worth striving for. For an ill fitting garment is not a lovely or practical thing to behold, but it can be altered to fit, given the will to do so. And by the way, later in life I discovered you can buy this stuff called wondra flour and pour it into milk and viola....white sauce!
I am an anology-speaker as well - use them a lot ( maybe too much) - so your comment, Robin, is right up my alley! 😄 I agree with your view that we have a varied cloth of experience and history - the body that it is draped on changes as it ages, or we completely flub putting on those sleeves - and it is of utmost importance to keep looking in the mirror, acknowledging the condition of that fabric and it's fit, and working towards making those alterations. I am grateful for HCR and the community that has built up around her Letters. It has let me understand how very much I needed to look in the mirror to see at least some of the alterations to my own understanding of our US history are needed. I know my teen daughter's generation will have a much more nuanced historical garment to wear, even now, than I did as a young adult. That can only be a good thing.
Robin, I love your sense of common sense. “the sleeves in wrong in the fabric of democracy”.... a lot of us “white folk” are up to the task of unpicking and resewing. I see it as just due for all the “picking and sowing” done by slaves and claimed as agricultural profit by whites.
I too suffered through sewing classes Robin, and never could get the sleeves or zipper to fit right. Lots of time spent with the ripper. Your analogy made me smile thinking about those days, and made me think how perfectly it describes how America really did put the sleeves in wrong in the fabric of our democracy. It’s time to get to work with that ripper.
My mother (born in 1924) always said that the first thing she learned about knitting was that the three basic stitches are knit, purl, and rip (undo previous work).
Ahh Seattle, my home town. How is it faring these days? We have not been able to go back to our condo-friends and family there for almost two years now.
So true. Those of us who remember it before the freeway, before Amazon, can get quite nostalgic about it’s past. It’s funny but the small Welsh town were I live now is quite a bit like Seattle in the 50’s. Butcher, bakery, you know everyone on your street. My husband, who spent time in it as a youth remembers all the things that are gone now that he says made it better than now. I guess regretting change is just human. But embracing the the good, interesting and new keeps a person moving forward...the only way to go.
Joan, I learned a term, tink (the alphabetic opposite of knit), for undoing your work, one stitch at a time. One of many things I learned from Knitting Paradise, an online forum. ☺️
What a wonderful way to help us all understand the work ahead. I might like to make a lapel pin out of the thread picker in my drawer, which I have owned about since the days of incomplete history class. Thank you, thank you, Robin.
Wonderfully stitched Robin. Your analogy was thrilling. While I didn't suffer as you did in home ed., my fingers never felt as inadequate. At the end of the class, I managed to create a lustrous purple skirt. While not the best in the class, the skirt looked good enough. It was a miracle that I couldn't stop staring at it.
When I read McConnell's claim that "American pride was at its lowest point in 20 years", I was skeptical. So I googled it (https://news.gallup.com/poll/312644/national-pride-falls-record-low.aspx). Turns out he's right about the measure of American pride. Gallup's poll shows that pride in America was remarkably steady from 2000 through 2016 - hovering around 80-85% year after year. Until Trump took office. Then national pride fell 20 points in 3 years. I wonder why?
There are days when I am grateful for the TFG era, for forcing our hidden caste system into bright light. I and so many other privileged white people could begin to understand what we did not know. Much of it was not taught in the Virginia schools where I went to high school, especially anything about oppression of any non white culture. I have been an adult for a long time and certainly could have found out about these things. But I was “busy” believing voting rights acts, and months celebrating women, or various cultures had righted the wrongs. But once you know, you know. I believe there can be correction and healing AND patriotism, coexisting. It will involve pain, discomfort and sacrifice. The essential tonic is knowledge, coming to us via many dedicated historians and delightful younger generation sources like Amanda Gorman. My thanks to every one of you.
Yes, while it's painful (and embarrassing) to admit that Trump had to be elected for me to get all the way to anti-racism, his election was a powerful goad and a deep recalibration of my assumptions about the people of this country.
I find myself in a similar boat, although I had started fighting this battle in earnest after Michael Brown was murdered in Ferguson, MO by law enforcement. I had to really stretch my ways of thinking about race and law enforcement.
**In case no one knows, retired cop, use of force trainer and hostage negotiator, living in an almost entirely white region of Oregon.
The hill you had to climb was so much steeper than mine; you have my admiration. I do not mean that you started out as more racist than me (than I? I can never keep it straight), but that the cultures within which you were and are operating may have been more likely to give cover to implicit (and explicit) bias. Good for you for digging deep. We all have so much work to do.
I agree, Reid and Ally. I've always been open to all groups and view equality across races, genders, and religions, but being forced to think otherwise helped me to learn and engage in anti-racism thoughts and actions. I've grown a lot the last 5 years.
Ally, I am a former Oregonian. After my degree in Broadcasting (74’) at the U of O. I worked at a TV station in Medford, Oregon. A friends husband worked as a cop in Ashland, Oregon. He said once riding with his partner that they saw a POC on the street. His partner said “ya there are about six of them here and we know where they all live.” After having lived with a person of color at the U of O. It came as such a shock. I never considered myself a a liberal. There where a number of friends from the Broadcasting department working there. Every executive at the station there Were white male chauvinist. They had an executive little club called “the Jolly boys”. After a couple of years they had to let this little “Jolly girl” into their group after I moved into sales. The FCC was going to challenge their license. We made a big joke out of it and made our own club we called ourselves the “Jolly Pee-Ons.”
I grew up in Medford, and graduated HS in 1976. I'm sure you knew (or knew of) Tam Moore; he is one of my best friend's Dad. What TV station did you work for, and who was your friend's husband? I got my degree in Criminology from SOSC in 1981 and knew a fair number of APD.
Lost your email. The person I went was Steve Deaton. He was there in the later 70's . It was only shortly then he got a job with Portland PD and went on from there to become a pilot for United.
I worked at KEMD I had the Promotions position when we changed it to KTVL. We did that when we sold the KMED call letter with the AM radio station. I don't know Tam he most have been at the other station. The fires there are just unbelievable. I spoke to friends in Portland this morning they were talking about the protests DT that are turning violent at night. Still. With only few arrests. She said she went through DT yesterday and there were 150 motorcycles lined up getting ready to do soon. They left quickly!
I have found memories of Southern Oregon. My only Fame to claim was that I help Anne Curry get her first job in TV. She went on to go to the TODAY show on NBC. Did you now David Sourer? His Dad was Pres. at SOSC. His sister worked at the Hungary Woodsman. I work with David at then KMED when I first got there. Good remembering with you .
Except that Michael Brown was not murdered . The grand jury and Eric Holder agreed.
From the liberal leaning WaPo
“So we wanted to set the record straight on the DOJ’s findings, especially after The Washington Post’s opinion writer Jonathan Capehart wrote that it was “built on a lie.” From time to time, we retroactively check statements as new information becomes available. In this case, the Justice Department has concluded that Wilson acted out of self-defense, and was justified in killing Brown.”
Legally justified in the existing context is one thing. Morally justified, including justification of that context, would be something else. If our police were trained to see people of color as us, not them; if trained to act to reduce violence, not inflict superior violence; then Michael Brown and a long list of other people would be alive today.
I agree that he was not prosecutable for murder, and I am normally more careful with my language than that.
The problem that I see with this "justification" is that (and I said this at the time, and was very unpopular in my non-cop social set) that in a very narrow window of time, to wit: the confrontation while the cop is seated in his patrol car and Mr. Brown is reaching in through the window <as I recall without looking up the details> that is a justified shoot. BUT: why was he seated in his patrol car while talking to Mr. Brown, why was he even talking with Mr. Brown in the first place, and did he say or do anything that may have provoked a violent response?
President Obama through his DOJ disagrees with you.
From the DOJ report.
This morning, the Justice Department announced the conclusion of our investigation and released a comprehensive, 87-page report documenting our findings and conclusions that the facts do not support the filing of criminal charges against Officer Darren Wilson in this case. Michael Brown’s death, though a tragedy, did not involve prosecutable conduct on the part of Officer Wilson.
“This conclusion represents the sound, considered, and independent judgment of the expert career prosecutors within the Department of Justice. I have been personally briefed on multiple occasions about these findings. I concur with the investigative team’s judgment and the determination about our inability to meet the required federal standard.
This outcome is supported by the facts we have found – but I also know these findings may not be consistent with some people’s expectations. To all those who have closely followed this case, and who have engaged in the important national dialogue it has inspired, I urge you to read this report in full. “
Not the result you wanted, but a conclusion based on fact.
Though the wakeup call was essential, the election of 1/45 was no boon to America or anyone except Putin. Division, treason, sedition, a coup attempt, and most grievous, half a million avoidable deaths . . . so much unnecessary suffering . . . tragic.
There's an old British saying from WW2 that "War is how Americans learn geography." Being a nation of hardheads, it takes a whole lot of whacking on the head to get the American Mule to recognize Reality.
Trump taught me that as much as I thought I was "woke" from the experiences of my life since the 60s and my political involvements, that I still had further to go. And that I had drunk from the poisoned glass of tribalism too.
I agree and will take your comment further by saying, 'correction and healing IS patriotic'. Isn't the very essence of democracy to have the freedom to right wrongs? And I agree, again, that knowledge is essential. In order to solve a problem, one must see and recognize the problem for what it is. It's a little like addiction, isn't it? One must first admit one has a problem before one can take the steps necessary to fix it.
The history I was taught in lily-white Glendale, CA, in the ‘40s and ‘50s, started with the Pilgrims, moved quickly to the founding fathers (emphasis on fathers) and jumped to scenes of wheat turbines spewing out our great agricultural products to show how prosperous and down to earth we were. Good clean soil, no dirt, especially on our hands.
As was the history that I was taught in lily-white (10% Hispanic) Glendale in the 60's and 70's. Glendale High School had 5 black students out of 3000. Some of the history teachers were forward thinking, though most of them were still a joke. Let it be remembered forever that Glendale Ca, was a Sundowner town,
In 1950 or so, an Indian family moved to Glendale; one of the sons, Nehru, was in my class. Some of the fine local citizens lit a cross on the family’s front lawn, thinking the family was Black. “Oops, honest mistake,” was the common reaction when told they were from India. My father and mother were horrified, but I think few others were.
Just as Ally above mentioned that she was a "use of force" trainer, there needs to be training of teachers in the proper way to instruct these sensitive topics of slavery and racism in our schools. I am a retired Special Education teacher from NJ. The history curriculum in NJ requires the teaching of slavery in our elementary schools (starting in 5th gade). I have witnessed and heard of teachers having their students engage in projects such as holding 'slave auctions' writing advertisements for the selling of slaves, and acting out the transporting of slaves in the hulls of the ships by having the students lay down on the classrooom rug and squeeze in as close as possible. Teachers have gotten in trouble, reports of these 'lessons' have gone on the news, etc. Yet, it continues to happen. There needs to be training for such curriculum because so many people just don't get it!
I went to high school in a fairly liberal suburb of Sacramento. We had one Black student and he ended up committing suicide. (I have no idea what the circumstances were and the two could be entirely unrelated. Still...).
That's interesting. We had one black student at my high school - an outstanding athlete in several sports, high achiever academically. Committed suicide the month before the 10th year class reunion.
I would have assumed that suicide rates among black men would be generally high, but it turns out that's not the case. Indigenous men #1, followed by white men. All others far behind. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide
And history class in Texas in the 60s taught that "Lincoln freed the slaves. And the Texas Rangers were 'really good-guy heroes.' The end." (a pathetic indictment of the way textbooks have been co-opted and slanted for decades)
Although I love American history, I've never felt "proud" to be an American. I feel a degree of responsibility to learn history, and to have an ongoing conversation about America, but Trump becoming president felt humiliating, and any pride I may have had before then was burned away. I think a large segment of Americans have little patience for subtlety and discussion... you either love the country or you don't. McConnell recognizes this. He knows that a large segment of the Republican base is a flag waving, patriotic, love it or leave it kind of voter. If they lose the self-esteem that they gained by electing Trump, then they may stop voting.
What I learned out of my experiences in Vietnam that there is a big difference between loving the country (which I do) and supporting the government (which I mostly haven't). I knew the guy who was Librarian at RAND who let Daniel Ellsberg take the Pentagon Papers out and copy them. His name was Dick Best and he's known in history as the guy who turned the Battle of Midway from an American defeat to a victory by sinking the carrier Akagi almost single-handedly. A true American hero. And he told me he always believed he served his country better by what he did with Ellsberg than what he did over the Japanese fleet. "The American people deserved to know what had been done in their name."
There is indeed a big dif between loving the country and supporting the gov't. And Dick Best had a damn good head on his shoulders. Thanks for these observations.
Though mostly true of almost all politicians, in McConnell's case we can always assume there is a calculation of advantage in everything he does. He no longer operates on any principle whatsoever, if he ever did. Like Gollum with the Ring, power is his only lodestar.
McConnell is a real sh!t, and someone who doesn't give a damn about the country. One interesting factoid about him: his three daughters are all estranged from him.
It was probably a miracle. In any case, while in some cases, including my best friend and his ex-wife, give 'em a little time and they get along well. But Mitch's ex seems to realize she married a piece of slag (slag is much worse than sh!t because the latter is fertilizer and food for the dung beetles, whereas slag is poisonous).
"Although I love American history, I've never felt 'proud' to be an American." That is me exactly. I've always been so deeply aware of our flaws that I find it impossible to say we are somehow exceptional.
As a 12 year old living in France for a year, '65-'66, I felt proud to be an American. But now? We're the most backward of the western industrialized nations. We have much more poverty than the rest of them. We have a greater percentage of deaths by opioid overdose, many of which are suicides (I've written about this). Our infrastructure has been left to wither in the wake of the Reagan revolution.
But this critical race theory that is invading college campuses and private high schools is BS. We have a class problem as much as a race problem, and CRT is giving the GOP a new handle on attacking us.
There is a lot of problems in the USA right now. It feels overwhelming. The pendulum is swinging wildly and differently around the country. With that said, I also believe that if this country is to become a better place there needs to be space for voices and theories that one would consider to be BS. Again, I am open to at least listening to the conversation. Eventually, I believe the country will land in a different place with a different overall consensus. This excites me.
I do think we have the right leader to lead us to a better place. We really lucked out, between getting rid of Delirium J. Tremens, getting both Houses, and getting the Democrat who is probably most prepared to deal effectively with the country's problems by dint of his experience. But critical race theory is very harmful, and stupid. Far better students should be taught empathy, beginning in elementary school.
I like that and I would add that I would like to see “compassion” as part of more school experiences. For me the word compassion adds the component of action; doing things to contribute to community and the country.
If you had actually studied critical race theory (I had to in order to write something accurate about it) you would find that it is actually very useful in learning how complicit we all can be, and what we need to do to get to where we claim we want to go.
Maybe so, and maybe not, but in practice it often results in harm, as evidenced by the NYT article on Smith College that I posted, and numerous other articles I've read. I think teaching empathy would do everything people want critical race theory to do without the harm.
Empathy, compassion and respect. Truth, justice and The American Way. Parents, school, religion. Throw them all in a melting pot and build back better.
Telling the truth is never BS. We should look to the example of Germany and how they wrote and taught all school children the truth about the Holocaust 20 years after the war!
I'm a Jew, and Germany did an excellent job. I knew a kid from Germany 20 years after the end of the Holocaust, and I saw first hand how well that had worked.
But the truth about privilege, and lack thereof in the US is much more complex than critical race theory makes it out to be. Money often has more power than race in this day and age. Think about all the working class whites in places like Appalachia and the rust belt, whose jobs have migrated to other countries or have been filled by immigrants, the amount of opioid addiction, and the numbers of deaths by opioid overdose--much of which are suicides (I've written about that). Substantial quantities of money trump skin color.
I remember reading about that incident. And one of the commenters on there mentioned that there was no investigation into what would have happened if the student was white! Good question. But the whole issue was allowed (& almost encouraged by the college) to get way out of line. The student didnt do any favors for the already dicey race relations on that campus. Doubt it changed any "hearts and minds".
Black and White. Good and Evil. The list goes on and on. I suspect that the oversimplification of religious texts, twitter sized histories and differing senses of fairness have something to do with this. Personally I find this a very exciting time for history and how it is written. I have learned a tremendous amount over the last five year alone. The newer narratives lend a richness to American History that I did get as a young man. I can see how flag waving Americans would hate anything that interrupts the illusion and would make them reconsider. Insecurities and mental illness in people’s personal lives spill over to the public sphere. People are all things and so is history and histories are made up of people who encompass all things good and not good. I for one embrace it.
I do understand how simple narratives can be very comforting, too. Wouldn't it be nice if we could clearly identify good people and evil people and love the one and despise the other? Too bad history gives us no such comfort. One of the reasons we on the left are struggling to attract people who don't want to think too hard is that the truth is complex and the Rs are peddling a simple and easily-understood, though entirely false, narrative.
I once wrote an essay last century deriding the bumper stickers "Proud to be An American."
In St. Louis high school 1962, I protested saying the pledge of allegiance to the flag every morning (under god) was my complaint. Surprisingly, no one tried to force it on me (A 1940 Supreme Court decision said they could not.) However, backwater schools were still trying to enforce patriotism, and a few brave students challenged it, so I made a more realistic pledge. That was 2002, this is the updated when DADT & DOMA were defeated in 2011 & 2015. When they remove that divisive "under god" I may recite it again.
Questions of Allegiance
Rob Boyte
June 26, 2015
Why pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, or to the Republic for which it stands, that allowed slavery until 1863, denied women the vote until 1920, segregated its armed forces by race until 1948, persecuted political minorities throughout the 1950s, and into the 21st Century still denied full rights to homosexuals to serve in its military until 2011 or to reap the benefits of marriage until 2015?
One nation, indivisible would not disfranchise its Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists or others who do not accept the archaic concept of a "god" by forcing them to read "in god we trust" on every coin of a supposed secular state. "We" do not all agree that ours is a nation "under god" and for the religious majority to assume such is a most divisive insult.
With Liberty and Justice for all, except of course those too poor to afford a slick lawyer in the court system, too black to be presumed innocent by the police or too in love with someone of the same gender.
I would expect American Pride to falter. As a privileged and formerly very patriotic white male I have lost pride in this stumbling country. Feel shame for being a white male amongst so many racist, ignorant hiders of the truth.
Perhaps low pride is proof of an American awakening. In any case, "pride" is an interesting concept.
Google tells me, "Pride is a positive emotional response or attitude to something with an intimate connection to oneself, due to its perceived value. This may be one's own abilities or achievements, positive characteristics of friends or family, or one's country." It is derived, however (still according to Google), from the Late Old English "pryde", meaning "excessive self-esteem".
So, while pride may be a positive emotion, a normal feeling common to all people at one time or another when justified by circumstances, clearly there is a point at which pride can become excessive, especially when there is insufficient circumstantial justification. So I am proud when my risotto ai carciofi is up to my Italian wife's high culinary standards, while she is proud when she is able to beat me at backgammon, a game I have played - even with strangers for money - since I was a child, while she played it for the first time when we were first locked down by the pandemic 14 months ago.
But, should my wife be so proud of all the amazingly good Italian food she is able to cook that she dismisses me as a "burger-eater", or should I be so proud of my backgammon abilities that I dismiss her (occasional!) victory as "pure luck, my dear, you'd be nowhere without double sixes"? Pride may be a pleasurable, hard-to-hide emotion, natural and even inevitable in all of us, but when we express it with more than a faint smile it tends to irritate those around us. Natural self-esteem, when even slightly excessive, can become irritating in a big way. Like most good things, there is a limit.
If I had gone to war to fight the Nazis and done my duty to the utmost and survived to tell the tale, would I be entitled to feel proud about that? Sure. If students, after much study and worry and missed social occasions, ace their organic chemistry exam, do they have a right to feel proud? Of course. But if I'm watching the US Olympic Men's basketball team wipe up the court with some other nation's Olympic team, should I jump up (spilling beer all over myself) and begin screaming "USA! USA! We're number 1!"? No, I shouldn't, not unless my brother is Steph Curry or LeBron James.
To sum up, there is the pride of Democrats (faint smile, "Good job, Joe Biden.") And there is GOP pride (raised AR-15, "America, Love it or Leave it!).
JR, do you think that in addition to the Trump Effect, the Pandemic Effect figured into Gallup's poll reflecting American's pride in country? Life was as lousy at it gets in the USA and there were so many deaths. Trump and the Pandemic are inextricably tied - how can you separate the two?
Many Canadians view America as a country brimming with self-confidence that would easily swell to arrogance at propitious moments (eg the Dream Team of NBA stars at the Olympics in Atlanta), expressed in the insufferable USA, USA, USA chants.
There was a periodically renewed debate within our country as to whether we were too self-effacing and would do well to adopt at least some of the attitude Americans had to their country.
We did adopt a more “take no prisoners” style in our government-initiated “Own the Podium” movement which aimed to support (and harden) our Olympic hopefuls.
But, by and large, we felt it futile to adopt the brash American attitude. It seemed to suit you - it wouldn’t us.
Then came 9/11.
When the dust settled, so to speak, we saw a new America. It was (or so it seemed to us, much less confident. The swagger was gone. There was a seeming national introspection - a moment in which Americans felt their bubble had been burst, their invulnerability pierced.
We saw Americans respond by going to war in two countries, that is true. But America seemed subdued and chastened, less sure of its ability to bestride the world like some unthinking Colossus.
Many of us would date American loss of confidence to 2001, not 2017 as has been suggested, maybe verified by studies.
The 21st century has been and continues to be a time of deep reckoning and hard questions for America about itself. Out of that has come a fierce struggle for the soul of the country - a quixotic quest, it seems to me. There are too many America’s for one soul to harbour.
I appreciate your thoughtful analysis. From what I’ve seen, American confidence (not quite the same thing as pride) on the international stage has ebbed and flowed over the past 60 years. Viet Nam seriously dented America’s confidence, followed by the double whammy of the OPEC oil embargoes. Confidence sprang back under Reagan, re-enforced by the falling of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. It remained strong through the Clinton years, and actually rose after 2001, as America felt an outpouring of support from around the world. If anything, after 2001, America was overconfident. Dubyah’s arrogant neocons proclaimed (as they set out to invade Iraq and Afghanistan), “we don’t need to study history, we make history”. That didn’t turn out so well. Confidence (and pride) were strong during the Obama years. Then, it fell considerably during Trump’s presidency, for (I think) two reasons. One is that many of us were ashamed that such an unfit man could become president. Trump was an embarrassment to us. The other is that Trump’s rhetoric painted the world with fear - proposing that we cower behind walls and withdraw from the world, instead of continuing to lead by action and example. Trump’s vision, what little there was of it, was small and bitter. Nothing to instill confidence or pride.
I love this comment. I suppose that there could be reliable tracking by polls which illustrate your thesis. At an intellectual level, it makes tremendous sense to me.
I would put in two further comments to ponder.
The first is that 9/11 was an incredibly successful attack on American soil, considerably more impactful than the difficult periods - Vietnam, the OPEC crises, the Trump era - that you explained.
9/11 was a terrorism event that was shock and awe in a way the world had never seen (in terrorism). It came as a complete surprise - to ordinary Americans. It was televised live in unsparing detail - who can unsee people jumping out of skyscrapers? And the enemy was to most people, relatively unknown for some time.
If they could pull off that, why could they not blow up 10 Walmarts at exactly the same moment a month or two later. The attackers showed power and daring. Who knew what they were capable of?
Then followed the futility of two wars, the creation of the Dept. of Homeland Security, the daily humiliations at airports when we went to travel again.
Du ta was arrogant but Americans soon learned how stupid his response was - and how all sympathy was squandered in pursuing bin Laden and al Qaeda. On a macro scale it just kept worse and worse.
The second point I’d make is this. In Vietnam Americans learned slowly and painfully that they could lose a war. That was a new thing. And it certainly must have drained away confidence.
But the nation was far, far stronger then than it was in 2001. The pillars of any society, rock solid community organizations were virtually fully intact. People went to mainstream churches in high numbers. Schools were trusted. The government was seen as a force for good, although less so as Vietnam dragged on. Family units were stronger. The service club ethos was a binding force (Kiwanis, Lions Club etc). The Boy Scout organization was at the height of its influence. The union movement was at its apex. And so on.
For many reasons middle class Americans believed in the concept of America. On the other hand 9/11 came at a time when America seemed to be crumbling internally.
Despite your very persuasive points, I still cling to my belief that the 21st century has been one bad year after another for Americans. I do not think confidence suddenly eroded in 2017.
You are right. What a drop! Wouldn't you like to see that broken down, for instance, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, educational levels, race, class, ethnology, etc.?
One of the things that immediately harmed my patriotism was the use of the flag, the red white and blue, and some pretty awesome patriotic songs to push white supremacy. Add to that the president's and the GOP's insistence that I believe all the lies, distortions, and gaslighting. I immediately stepped aside.
I recall in Eighth Grade Colorado History (the "official" course) reading about what was then called "the Battle of Sand Creek," in which the valorous white people fought the dastardly Inidans and managed to kill many of them with few losses to the valorous white people. When I raised my hand and said from my reading of battles (I at the time had a College Freshman reading level and was already reading history books for recreation) it sounded like a massacre, I was once again sent to "polish the bench" in the Assistant Principal's Office (I did a lot of bench-polishing back then, which I didn't mind at all since they didn't seem to mind me bringing a book along to read - I don't think I got a report card in 12 years of public miseducation that didn't include "does not respond to properly constituted authority.")
The son of an acquaintance, years back, wrote a well research highschool paper on the War of 1812-1814 from the perspective of the First Nations who were the true losers of the war. Canada won as we kept the Americans out; the Americans won as they freed up the mid west from British control to settlement. Only the indigenous lost. He got a failing grade but his dad was so proud of him
French colonials versus English colonials, each recruiting Indigenous allies in quest of supremacy over the revenue-producing resources of the land (e.g. beaver skins, tobacco) for profits of the corporate investors on behalf of the sovereigns of France and England.
Yes but the French wanted to work with the locals through "comptoirs" and create trade whilst the English were there to stay "en masse" and eliminate the middlemen.
Yes, the French went for assimilate, the English more for annihilate, or at least for apartheid. A coureur des bois ("runner of the woods") was a French-Canadian trapper and/or trader with First Nations peoples. Some married Indigenous women and made Métis families and communities in the outback. So the practices vis-à-vis the middlewomen were very different, though Métis were subjected to racist persecution. Oh right, the English won the Battle of the Plains of Abraham and turned New France into Canada!
Sometimes I wonder just for a second whether I'm reading The Onion, as it seems incredible what the Republicans are attempting to do in our country, in reframing history. The gaslighting continues even without 45 "reigning." Every morning I wake up grateful for our current leadership in the White House, but our work continues at the state level.
As an author of non-academic nonfiction history, I have found in my own research that most "official history" is mythology at best and bullshit normally. Governmental bodies involved with keeping the official record to this day are busy cooking the books and stuffing that which they find inconvenient down what Orwell called "the memory hole."
In my history of naval aviation in the Korean War, I featured the accurate account of an air battle between a Navy pilot and Russian-flown aircraft that from the day it happened the Navy claimed never happened, due originally to their desire to hide from the Soviets the fact that the then-new No Such Agency (as the NSA is known to those of us who research it); the cover was "blown" back in 1992 when the Russians published the names of the four pilots who were killed in the fight. When I did my original research, I went to the Naval History & Heritage Command site, where I downloaded every Monthly Report of every aircraft carrier that was in the war (Monthly Reports are the basic place to start, since each covers everything that happens on a ship in a given month; they're goldmines of information). One of them was the November 1952 Monthly Report of USS Oriskany, where the Navy's cover story of the incident was done in detail. Before the book came out, i contacted NHHC and told them it was coming and asked if they were interested in revising their history to conform to the actual facts. They replied that "official history can only be changed by the sworn testimony of two US participants in the event, verified by subsequent research of the record." A year after the book came out, I was contacted by one of the retired admirals I interviewed, and was told he was unable to find the report up at the NHHC site. I went there and indeed, there was one monthly report missing from all the others - that one. It has been replaced by the Air Group Report, a far less-detailed document that has the cover story in outline only. I again contacted NHHC and they replied that "unfortunately, not all documents survive to be included in our records, and we have used the best available documentation." I replied "Well, since you're missing this report, I'm attaching a copy of my copy of this missing report that I downloaded from your side three years ago" and attached a digital copy to the e-mail. They have yet to respond.
When I wrote my most recent book, about naval aviation in Vietnam, I started with the (alleged) Tonkin Gulf (non) Incident, which I personally know was a bullshit story as an actual participant and from interviews with other participants over the years. The "official lie" that was used to take us into the War of Lies, the "Ur Lie" of the war as I have called it, was first debunked in the Pentagon Papers by the government itself 50 years ago. I came across verified research done in 2006 that found that the "lights in the water" reported as "North Vietnamese torpedo boats " was the reflection of lightning and moonlight on an enormous school of flying fish that annually transits the Gulf of Tonkin at that time, which was not known at the time. It turns out that the only guy who "got it right" was LBJ who exclaimed on being first informed of the event, "Those poor dumb sailors were probably shooting at flying fish." Yet if you go to that waste of electrons known as the Vietnam Fifty Project, which celebrates the valiant efforts of Americans in that war (!), you will find them STILL telling the Ur Lie of the War of Lies. The guy running that bullshit operation doesn't like me after i posted my chapter on the site (which not-so-mysteriously "failed to post" within 24 hours)
I could go on. The "facts" most people know about "the forgotten war" in Korea have turned out in the light of actual research to be what I called in an interview "wartime propaganda that has fossilized over 70 years into fact-like material that is the historical equivalent of coprolites."
Quite frankly, anyone who believes what I call "American Official Mythology" put out by the US government on any topic probably also believes in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and that the sun will rise in the west tomorrow. Another term one can now use is "Republican History." It's as factual as "Republican Justice."
One studying the history of WW II would do well to keep in mind that, as I understand it, every news report went through military authority before being submitted for publication. There were no imbedded journalists reporting directly to their editors. Nothing got published without first being cleared and, if necessary, scrubbed of inconvenient facts, by military authorities.
It is probably just coincidence that the history of US military adventures hasn't been as rosy since the military can no longer control the flow of information.
Putin has clamped down hard on anyone who dares contradict his approved official history, especially of WWII. He doesn't want Russians to think about how much the USSR contributed to Hitler's initial conduct of the war or how Russians in Nazi held territory were just as cooperative with them in exterminating the Jews in their communities or how Stalin's paranoia as a leader led to the unnecessary deaths of millions of Soviet soldiers and civilians.
Every country produces official white washed versions of history and people like you are necessary to combat it so we know the truth. Thank you.
Ah, yes. The Soviets "tore the children away from their mothers and forced them to go to work". Sounds like capitalism. The mothers are forced to work and care of the children is not the problem of the capitalists
Putin is also enraged that it is public knowledge that he and most of his fellow oligarchs lives such lavish lives and are billionaires while Russian citizens struggle so badly. Some knowledge doesn't benefit his keeping his citizens controlled.
Just a thought, do you think those "dumb" enlisted sailors arbitrarily opened up on the "flying fish?" Perhaps, they were ordered to do so? To your point on the "flying fish:
Night of August 4: "The Maddox and Turner Joy moved out to sea, but both reported that they were tracking multiple unidentified vessels approaching their positions. The vessels appeared to be coming from several different directions, and they were impossible to lock onto. Both ships began firing at what they thought were torpedo boats, and again they sought air support. A plane piloted by Commander James Stockdale joined the action, flying at low altitude to see the enemy ships. Stockdale reported seeing no torpedo boats."
I always liked working with officers as a Marine Sergeant as we could have some pretty good conversations as long as I respected the boundaries. I wasn't a sea-going bellhop.
Things are not always as they seem and change after the actuals are no longer around to dispute the facts. Nice story.
I was one of those "dumb enlisted men" (enlisted staff on the command in charge of things). No, they didn't. A month later, I ran across my best friend from boot camp in an Olongapo bar, where he told me the truth: he was the fire control technician in charge of the main battery on Maddox; he refused the order "open fire" three times on grounds the only thing out there was the Turner Joy, and got a General Court-martial and reduction in rank for that. I later met the Asst Gunnery Officer on Turner Joy at Cal where he was a grad student - he was able to convince his captain to hold fire for the same reason.
Several of the naval aviators I interviewed for this book, when told the real story, commented on seeing what they were later told was this school of fish in later years of the war.
I am so enjoying your commentaries. So, well informed. Can you share a couple of the titles of your non-academic historical non-fiction? I am bunkering down in such material perhaps too much as I found myself wanting to suggest one character in one book should connect with another character in a previous novel I read who was doing war crimes investigations and would be a good source for solving the problem in the second book. Thanks for your postings.
There are a few guys whose stories travel through the books. Most particularly the story of my favorite WW2 "hero", John Bridgers, who goes over three of the books from a guy who becomes a NavCad in 1941 for the money ("As a son of the depression, these seemed princely sums") to go to school afterwards and the fact it pays better than being a teacher in North Carolina there, to the guy who graduates from Pensacola as a dive-bomber pilot the week before Pearl Harbor, who is present at the Doolittle Raid, survives the sinking of the USS Yorktown at Midway, survives the "worst" six weeks on Guadalcanal, comes back to the US and is assigned to what becomes the top-scoring Navy air group of the war, and in the end helps sink the battleship Musashi and as a 24-year old Lt. Commander leads the air strike that sinks the last of the six carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor. And thinks to himself on the way back to the carrier afterwards, "I decided that the Navy's investment in me had been repaid."
After the war, he went to medical school on that NavCad money and the GI Bill, and became a hospital administrator who was well-known for creating health care in "under-served communities" for 50 years.
I really love having been able to know so many of that generation.
About 15 years ago my brother and I visited the Turner Joy, now a floating museum in Bremerton WA. The entire presentation was an uncritical celebration of the Tonkin Gulf fraud that led to America's Vietnam War, along with the war itself. Unless it's been substantially revised since then, Not Recommended.
Another couple of things "down trhe memory hole". A late friend was an AP reporter in Vietnam, and turned me on to the story of the USS Higbee, which was the first USN ship attacked by an enemy air force since WW2 in April 1972. In researching it, I found a site where someone had copied the entry for the ship from the USN Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, which had a paragraph in it that covered the attack in outline accuracy. When I went to the DANFS site, I looked at the official entry and that paragraph was missing. When I queried NHHC, they claimed it had never been there! So I hope they will be interested when the new book has the account of the last living VPAF pilot who made the attack, a photo of the attack map they used, and official USN photos of the ship and the destroyed aft turret. "Never happened" my ass.
That same pilot has another story in the book - about his leading the special VPAF squadron, "the victory-minded air unit" who went to South Vietnam, renovated five VNAF A-37s, learned to fly them (over three days) and made the attack on Tan Son Nhut on April 28 1975 that shut down further air evacuation, which Americans have always blamed "turncoat" VNAF pilots for, since they didn't believe Vietnamese could be smart enough to learn how to fly a "complicated" airplane like the A-37 so quickly. I also have photos the the "victory-minded air unit" with their A-37s that will be in the book.
Wow, thanks for sharing this. It’s hard to face the truth, and most of us would rather not, and just “move on.” We need the investigators such as yourself to go after the facts and report on them.
Yes - that the NSA team on the cruiser Helena was listening to the Soviet radio comms (I forgot to put that in and as we know, Substack needs an edit function!)
It is amusing that McConnell is concerned about "American Pride". I would say it is American arrogance that Mitch wants to protect. The ruling class in America wants to protect it's position and keep the working stiffs busy and out of the way, especially in the education of our children. Like any great empire, we have a lot to be ashamed of and need to learn from the mistakes we have made in the past.
Being aware (educated) and honest about our caste-based foundations as a country, and rectifying them as we go forward in alignment with our Constitution and Bill of Rights, will be the most profound accomplishment our truly multicultural country could ever strive for.
We are a young country, in our ego-centric adolescent stage, where the White Myth is screaming for survival, and its' petrified cries and blatant lies and revisions are impossible to ignore if we are to remain a democracy. We The People are finally maturing into full adulthood as a nation. We are learning as a large mass about the lies we perpetuate and are ingrained in our culture and society. We cannot unsee what we now see or be ignorant of our white privilege and our caste system.
If you keep a nation dumbed down via education, mind-numbing tv, and now lying rallies and media, they are much, much easier to control and manipulate. The previous occupiers of our country have proven that with their mafia-like lifestyles and oligarchic, conspiratorial funding by hostile foreign countries. That playbook worked in 1930's Germany and with the 30% of Americans that want to be falsely superior. If more Americans knew and understood the rise and fall and rise again of fascism and autocracy the Great Liars would have been relegated to the dustbin of history. May that be their destiny, still.
The ancient Romans knew it as well: panem et circenses. Keep their bellies full and their minds occupied with trivialities, and the people are easy to rule.
180 days of public holidays towards the end with games each time at which of course bread was distributed free...the only way many of the spectators could eat.
Lest we not forget, and as far as we currently know....... the first persons of "colour" to arrive in North America were "white" and entered a world where the skin colour varied from "tan" through "yellowish"to "red" depending which part of the Native American population you frequented. It is only the extreme difference that made the skin colour an issue. The attitude of those white arrivals to the human life that they discovered in this "New World" was something else......although it would seem that many of the locals were not necessarily too shocked by their brutality if you consider the prevalence of human sacrifice in some cultures.
The arrival of Afro-American slaves and their treatment continued a tradition that the White invaders had established over a century previously....even with some of their own being subjected to the same treatment. The Blacks were then, for the Native Americans....who were already somewhat diminished by the incoming diseases and bellicose attitude by this time...were the second "people of colour" to arrive on their shores.
The history of America dates from, on current research, from well over 20,000 years ago and should be taught as such. The Republic, as a political organization, dates from its foundation on July 4th, 1776. Regimes change, some bad, some good....but Nations go beyond the political names and structures that we give them as they change and not the Nation. The Nation is a sum total of all its history and not just that which the interests, ideologies and values of a particular time dictate.
Our fixation on compartmentalizing a land mass for the benefit of some seems to be the core issue here. My coffee table book, "Before Columbus: The Americas of 1491," by Charles C. Mann, challenges the reader to: "Prepare yourself to unlearn much of what you have learned" It doesn't go back as far as 20,000 years ago, Stuart, but I find it a good start!
Indeed...and for a little more respect for the history of the land in its entirety and for those who were here from the start. Building a bridge to the whole of the past would give a firmer base to our perspective of who we are, what it means to be an American and where we go from here.
Morning Lynell!! In Europe around 1800, if someone said that an American was coming to dinner, people assumed that s/he was a Spanish speaker. My, how times have changed.
True but there used to be 13 colonies too. Lines on the map that the white Europeans invaders' dreams of conquest have imposed on an existing, none fully delineated fabric....for the time being!
And why stop there? The presence of human beings is a mere blink of time’s eye. The dinosaurs ruled for millions of years before us and lasted far far longer than we can ever hope to survive. So why not the dinosaur project (which fits neatly with the attitude of the Trump republicans)?
"When the delegates to the Constitutional Convention met in 1787 to debate what form of government the United States should have, there were no contemporary democracies in Europe from which they could draw inspiration. The most democratic forms of government that any of the convention members had personally encountered were those of Native American nations. Of particular interest was the Iroquois Confederacy, which historians have argued wielded a significant influence on the U.S. Constitution."
Stuart, As the fields covering this subject are archeology, geography, science, history and more, a small bite for 10 to 14 year olds would be fascinating. For in-depth learning, however, it is more appropriate for HS, college and graduate students.
'Geneticists now calculate, based on mutation rates in human DNA, that the ancestors of the Native Americans parted from their kin in their East Asian homeland sometime between 25,000 and 15,000 years ago—a difficult time for a great northern migration. Huge glaciers capped the mountain valleys of northeastern Asia, at the same time massive ice sheets mantled most of Canada, New England and several northern states. Indeed, reconstructions of past climate based on data preserved in ice cores from Greenland and on measurements of past global sea levels show that these ice sheets reached their maximum extent in the last glacial period between at least 22,000 and 19,000 years ago. “But these folks were extraordinarily adept at moving over the landscape,” says David Meltzer, an archaeologist at Southern Methodist University. “Their entire existence—and the existence of everyone they knew and the existence of their ancestors—was about adapting. They had a toolbox of tactics and strategies.” (First Americans, Scientific American)
Of course, White settlers', soldiers', politicians', business owners', etc., relationships with Indigenous Americans is one at the defining aspects of the USA. The conflicts of White people and the 'Others' that's at least a few bibles.
'Native Americans, also known as American Indians, First Americans, Indigenous Americans and other terms, are the indigenous peoples of the United States; sometimes including Hawaii and territories of the United States, and other times limited to the mainland. There are 574 federally recognized tribes living within the US, about half of which are associated with Indian reservations. "Native Americans" (as defined by the United States Census) are indigenous tribes that are originally from the contiguous United States, along with Alaska Natives...'
For the 20,000 BC reference: "A Short History of Humanity: A New History of Old Europe", J. Krause, T. Trappe. A fascinating book on a new science-archaeogenetics. All about what genomes are telling us about immigration, among other things. Mostly about movement of peoples in Europe but they talk about the movement from the northwest into what became the Americas. " Europeans and indigenous Americans seem to have drawn a lot of their genetic material from Eastern Europe and Siberia" (P 100 Kindle). They mention in another place that for a long time European ancestors were all what we would today call "dark skinned". (Paled out later.) SO, it strikes me that the colonizing Europeans encountered, drove out and killed their own rather close genetic relatives in the indigenous peoples they found in the "new" world----"new" only to the colonizers, of course!!!! A fascinating read, accessibly written and underlining how theories about pre-written history are shifting due to new knowledge.
From memory, the only fly in that ointment is the discovery of human remains and atifacts in the Amazon Basin which effectively predated know human populations of Europe...Nearer to 40,000 BC.
Would not be surprised. The subtext of this book is that archaeogenetics is "correcting" or at least adjusting some carbon dating- based theories. I am not a scientist but I am in awe of what the DNA of.the finger or teeth or small bone fragment remains of a 40,000 year old ancestor tells us. The book is not dogmatic. It deals in the realms of scientific method and theories.
Stuart, the indigenous people of America regarded Europeans as barbarians. The phrase "many of the locals were not necessarily too shocked by their brutality if you consider the prevalence of human sacrifice in some cultures" is awfully general and broad in application. It implies something that has very limited application as if it were widespread. It was not. Keep in mind that there were thousands of indigenous cultures in the Americas, and still are hundreds.
The central lesson for today, imho, is that the 1619 Project is a robust and enduring endeavor and .... This letter from McConnell and his tribe will most likely never have standing in our history,, save as a footnote of grievances . So I will not be alarmed by his penmanship.
However, the efforts of southern states to dictate their beliefs upon their educational curriculum is, well, their choice. Education, and much else of life, appear to be a right of the states, and the southerners do LOVE their states’ rights! So, we have a cultural war playing out, again. Let’s see, we have the values discord playing out with differences of “Liberty and Justice for All” pertaining to women and their full freedom of liberty; LGBTQ+ and all others who identify as they desire, in their pursuit of one’s liberty; all others who do not identify as WASP - and let’s include practicing Jews and Catholics, who btw, and deemed as ‘outsiders’ by conservatives, as they pursue one's own personal liberty .....
I’ve drawn my own conclusion here, that our culture war can be reduced to understanding one’s own perspective of “Liberty and Justice For All.”
To most people alive today, wherever one is alive, “All” means no one is left behind. From wherever one’s roots are planted, “all” means “no one is left behind”. So, I suggest we include our friends who cite McConnell, the Klan, authoritarianism, and even fascism, in our collective human family. They have their right to pursue fascistic values. But the tide of justice cannot be stopped, as it is simply a force of both human nature and mother nature.
I will be happy to call out one’s fascistic values, if they do not see that “all” includes, actually, themselves and EVERY brother and sister, in this human family.
Sure, let “southerners” teach how they like -as long as that means all adults in each state have a vote and a voice, not just a white supremacist subset.
I agree. One’s views ought to be challenged, if they are not inclusive, as well as adhering to our core principles. The right is attempting to define the very term “American” in 2021 to an outdated set of norms, established during slavery and continued throughout the Jim Crow era of the South. Tis no wonder the 1619 Project ruffles their kerfuffle!
I feel we are in a cultural struggle to define “democracy.” As Joe Biden exhibited in his recent address, liberalism is short on philosophy and morals, but long on legislation and policy. We certainly need a short-course on Locke and Montesquieu, as well as TR, FDR and JFK.
Many Republicans I have encountered recently and unfortunately, openly say that we are NOT a democracy and for them we should not be a democracy. From what I read they are pushing this in local curriculums. An example: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/07/us/usa-democracy.html
Christy, this is a telling tale of Michiganders debating the terms “republic” (conservative view) and “democracy” (liberal view).
But to me, this quote from the article is most telling:
I wanted to make sure there was a seat at the table for a conservative worldview,” Mr. Colbeck said. Colbeck is identified as a former Rep State Senator.
The fact that a local state senator speaks in terms of conservative world view tells me we have a looong road ahead to create a progressive world view, and then disseminate throughout the US. Say, 5 years, perhaps??? UNLESS, Joe Biden starts to speak in terms of a progressive worldview
Sad to say, it's not just southern states doing this sort of thing. NH's newly Republican majority in all branches of government (we actually have 4, not the typical 3-it includes the Executive Council, an advisory group to the Governor) have now passed an unconstitutional gag order forbidding ANY discussion/diversity training by pretty much ANYONE.
NH does all kinds of weird things. It's a wonder it even functions, even at the low level it does. I occasionally ponder on how two adjacent states of similar size, geography, and history can be so different from each other. It probably makes a difference that VT was an independent Republic for 10 years (while NY and NH each claimed it), but NH prior to 1776 was a Mass county run pretty much by self-serving governors. Sometimes things don't change much.
You're so right. I've lived here all my life and it just feels like we can never get anything done with our overly huge state legislature which tends to be majority GOP most sessions. When you don't pay your state legislators anything to speak of, who you gonna get? Old white guys who want to maintain the status quo from a couple centuries ago.
This thought has been ringing in my head for a few years now: the dilemma of the nation is just how to allow both Liberty and Justice for All! I tend toward justice, others tend toward liberty - and you have hit a nail on the head here.
The radical right has a notion of "liberty" as meaning their personal and collective right to do whatever they want, no matter how it may infringe on or harm the life or dignity of anyone else. "Religious liberty" is therefore their right to impose their religious choices on everyone else - be that insisting that states can make abortions illegal, or insisting that states cannot impose public health measures that treat religious gatherings the same as other gatherings.
I feel we need to call out this fascistic notion. What else would we do, Joan? But we need to name it for what it is - a hierarchical attempt to force a religious on others. A major tenet of America, and democracy, is ... freedom of religion.
I feel is vital to label the right’s attempt to force a view or morality as what is is - fascistic.
As a practical matter, I don't know, other than public discussion and supporting expansion of the Supreme Court.
The settlers of at least some of the original English colonies made the trip in order to be the ones in charge of establishing religion. There were multiple religions in the colonies, and eventually they agreed to leave each other in peace. One of the clear virtues of the writers of the Declaration and the Constitution (with Bill of Rights) is that they made it clear that religion is NOT the business of government...
Well, a bit more nuanced than that, I think, but I agree. It was actually more a desire to protect religion in general (and the right to choose not to be a believer), by keeping any religion or sect from establishing itself as a state religion. Fewer wars that way, and more attention paid to what they thought was the real provence of government: enabling acquisition of wealth.
I’m interested in hearing more, Margaret The Artist, as to how this phrase rings for you.
The two are wedded, to me, simply because they are a part of our “Pledge”. Here’s a bit more about "Liberty and Justice for All"
from Wikipedia:
"Included in our nation's Pledge of Allegiance, the phrase is supposed to represent the idea that each citizen is equal under the law. It represents the concept that every American is free and not to be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” as indicated in our Bill of Rights”
I’ve long felt that this statement ought to be a core tenet of progressivism. The fact that it is from our “Pledge” to our democracy elevates the phrase to a moral certitude, if in this country there ever would be one.
Oh yes! They *should* be wedded and working as a team, the two concepts supporting and balancing society. It seems that in our current polarized country, the two are bifurcated. Divorced. One side screaming about their liberty, the other crying for justice. 2020 in a nutshell. I am hoping Biden can bring us back in balance. Some more tidbits about that pledge (love the juxtaposition of the Christian Socialist celebrating Columbus Day):
Pledge Timeline
September 9, 1892: The pledge is introduced in the magazine The Youth’s Companion as part of a program to celebrate Columbus Day in schools across the country. The words were written by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister and Christian Socialist, and read: "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation indivisible with Liberty and Justice for all."
June 14, 1923: The National Flag Conference, sponsored by the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution, changes "my Flag" to "the flag of the United States of America," in part to ensure that recent immigrants had the US flag in mind and not the flag of their nation of origin.
June 22, 1942: Congress formally recognizes the pledge and includes it in the federal Flag Code.
December 22, 1942: Congress changes the official manner of delivery to placing the right hand over the heart; the previous stance, one hand extended from the body, was too reminiscent of the Nazi salute. The "Bellamy Salute" had directed that "the right hand is extended gracefully, palm upward, toward the Flag."
June 14, 1954: President Eisenhower approves the congressional resolution adding the words "under God" to the pledge. The Knights of Columbus and other groups, as well as Eisenhower himself, had lobbied for the change.
So glad you included the history of the "pledge", the wording of which was originally very different. The so-called "flag code" is not a legal thing, btw: merely an advisory thing. It has no legal ramifications. You can salute or not, say the pledge or not. As a Quaker, I do neither (though I stand in respect to the people I am with if the circumstances are formal). The pledge is not one of our founding documents, and should not be confounded with them. It is about a piece of cloth that is a symbol with varying meanings to different people.
Greetings TPJ. Thanks for the vibe. Yes, the “Mrs” and I took time to pack-out of our winter rental, and then a week to drive across our plains and byways. And I simply don’t have the energy to engage here in much dialogue, but I find my two cents on occasion to share my opinion.
It's not just Southern states. Here in NH, and in many other states where Republicans control state government, there are bills moving forward that will make the teaching of anything "controversial" illegal in public schools. If the First Amendment is to mean anything, those laws cannot stand. Given the Trump/McConnell court-packing schemes, though, I'm not sure the First will survive this onslaught.
Given how Conservative pundits like Senator Kennedy are saying, on one hand, that "The government and the people are two different things", on the other hand, they're saying that "big businesses are people", it's little wonder that "American pride has plummeted to its lowest level in 20 years", while big business is booming.
This is frustrating to the point of anger! OMG!! Lie, Gas Light and now rewrite history.Let us put into our written history how these traitors continue to try and blur the historical record of our nation and change the perspective on what they are actually doing right now. This fight is endless but we cannot let them win.
Oh, lordy! Now the education of young minds is politicised. "Give me a child when they are 6" I guess a future generation of unquestioning Republicans is the aim. That it should be wrapped up in such blatantly false argument - forgive me while I vomit...
Yes, the Trumpublicans are turning up the politicization of young minds. But education has always been politicized.
Educated in Maryland public schools, slavery was taught in a mundane, matter of fact part of history... minus the details about how brutal it was. That was politicized history classes, brutality was deemed unimportant, it was deemed unnecessary to shaping young minds. That changed in 9th grade with an amazing civics teacher who taught outside the box. Lucky for me, he transferred to my high school and I was in his class again in 11th grade along with more lesser known history facts.
Pure GOP racism is Trump. Democrats were no better. Worse for decades. Guilt of racist whites inspires logical expectations and all sorts of issues and stuff. Bedt case This process will take generations and patience. No excuse or justification for the passive white idiot savant of American history peddling the best facts on Substack when Q and A might inspire just behavior and constructive embarrassment.
The nuns in my Catholic school taught me very well to be "unquestioning." It has haunted me to this day. Thankfully, having discovered Letters from an American and all the subscribers with their comments, I am starting to break free. Thanks, Constantine.
I have a friend who was thoroughly beaten regularly - and with some pleasure - by the Dominican Brothers. This not only turned him against Catholicism, but *all* organised religion!
This was the late fifties/early sixties. My mother was left a widow when I was only 4 years old. She thought her daughters would be "safe" in a Catholic school while she was at work. I was never aware of what it cost or how she paid for it. We were not wealthy, that I know!
I was actually referring to the costs to the recipients of Catholic education, but your point is valid as well. I have no clue what the tuition is these days, but I do know that the family I mentioned below do not have all the toys that many of their peers do...
And, their kids play sports, take music lessons, and serve as altar boys.
Many of my LEO friends are sending their kids to the Catholic private school(s) here in Eugene (they have been open fully the entire school year of 20-21). The only ones that I know of that are Catholic are raising their three boys in the church as well as the school system... (their Mom, who married one of the kids who was a law enforcement explorer and is now the acting Captain of the patrol division, was a graduate of the local Catholic HS that I met when she was the catcher for their softball team 30 years ago.) I think it is equal parts conservatism and contravention of pandemic policies on most of their parts.
Don't know what they're up to these days, Ally, as I have been a card-carrying heathen ever since those days! All around the barn to say they are very effective at suppressing independent thinking.
That's so brutal. And unnecessary - in fact counter-productive.
I had a Catholic education in the Fifties and Sixties. There was certainly a fair amount of indoctrination in my primary years, but the nuns who taught me and priests who put up with me as an altar boy all had my best interests at heart. In fact (embarrassing), my first crush (age 10) was on my Grade 8 teacher - Sister Josephine. She herself was 21 at the time I found out later and went on to become Mother Superior.
Secondary school coincided with the volatile part of the Sixties. I had numerous teachers who encouraged us to think for ourselves. Catholicism was never questioned, but neither did I ever feel it was rammed down my throat.
Twenty years later I found out some of the horrors committed by Catholic priests and nuns in indigenous residential schools - a chamber of horrors in Canada - as well as in parishes. It stunned me. I had shifted away from Catholicism as it didn't seem rational to believe in God. But because I had enjoyed a happy childhood, I was left deeply at odds with the incongruities I now faced. I think it's where I first really internalized how human beings can be so deeply repugnant and evil and at the same time can rise to the noblest heights. Sometimes it can be embodied in a single individual.
The Church has so much to answer for. Yet I still wish I had the stirrings of belief in me. I'd go back.
I lived in and around a Catholic nunnery (Missionaries of Charity) for 6 months as a full time AIDS volunteer. The sisters had opened up their house/convent as an HIV/AIDS hospice.
I came to love the dedication to service that I saw embodied not just by the nuns, but by the congregation who gave of their time to support the work.
At the same time, I saw firsthand the terrible price that their strict belief system/personal unfinished childhood trauma unleashed on deserving men who didn't deserve to die. It was a stark contrast in opposites and has left indelible memories with me.
Most 'service' organizations do more harm than good, the Catholic Church is among them.
The world reaction to AIDS was unconscionable. We are always a hair’s breadth away from lapsing into the comfort of a morality play. Group think is so safe and so devastating for those the group turns on. The AIDS crisis was, in the truest sense of the word, a shaming period for humanity.
As for the Catholic Church, it has represented both the excesses of sin and the shining example of redemption with equal favor over the centuries. Rarely within the same person unfortunately.
Too bad those nuns weren't influenced by some Jesuit priests! They are encouraged to question everything. Luckily my brother was going to Gonzaga University while I was attending my all girl catholic high school. He lived at home his sophomore year & he challenged our mother's blind faith a lot!
Funny thing, our mother went back to school years later & got her BSRN from GU but to this day has blind faith. Not so much her 8 kids....well maybe 1 of my brothers.
White supremacist objections to better education for non-elite children go back a long way in this country. There was a new round of it as part of the “movement conservative” takeover, under the false as usual label of ‘teacher responsibility.’ Load the teachers with paperwork and the students with standardized tests, to cut down on time for teaching critical thinking.
White, slave-holding men created the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and our system of government. Should we simply erase them all from history because they are now viewed as morally reprehensible? Or would it be the role of history to contend with these contradictory facts? Perhaps Barack Obama will be erased in due time because of the drone program, or his own expulsion of refugees? Is the role of history to teach history in all its conflicting parts, or is it a tool for societal manipulation? I'm not interested in a dismantling of history anymore than I'm interested in a mythical lie. History should move us, it should reveal the people, places and events that are crucial to understanding the scope of the nation and our own place in it. It should no more shy away from terrible decisions and events, then it does the important victories. In other words, stop using children as political pawns, and start opening their minds to our rich and ugly and beautiful and heartwrenching and joyous past. Because it is not just one story, it's all of them.
Pointing out their beliefs and backdrop for their blueprint is not erasure, it is illumination. It is truly ALL of the stories that need to be told, and in context.
I am concerned by this: "The department is proposing two priorities to reach low-income students and underserved populations. The Republicans object to the one that encourages “projects that incorporate racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse perspectives into teaching and learning.”'
The department should be concerned about reaching ALL communities because it is imperative that we teach ALL communities about white privilege and systemic racism. Otherwise, predominantly "white" communities will continue believing the myth of America: that "white is right." I'm convinced that lifting "racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse perspectives" alone will not tackle systemic racism. We must also teach that whiteness is a social construct tied to power and keeping power. More and more schools are hiring DEI directors but it will continue serving as a "feel good" fix until we are also willing to voice the reality of White Supremacy and all that that means. Let's do both at the same time!
Lily whiteness is blinding. That is the intention of McMurderer and his klan...to distort history. Yes, they want to keep people of color in “their place”. God forbid they should become scholars, historians, leaders. Again, the white hoods are in full view. We must burn the old history books and rewrite/ teach the truth about how and when slavery came about. How a despicable man became a Russian operative and stole an election from a qualified woman. How white scum attacked the Capitol’s sacred grounds and how seditionists are in powerful roles in Congress.
Recently, one of our forum members asked Dr. Richardson to address the 1619 Project. She offered no information, but she prompted me to do some research on Project 1619. I discovered that despite the loud aggressive attacks on the project, I support the endeavor. Authors of the project have tweaked the preliminary report in response to some critiques, but they have maintained strong conviction in their project with regard to America's future methods of honoring the truth of our real history. I delighted in Hannah-Jones' retort to Mike Pomeo.
Dr. Richardson reports that : Then–Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted that multiculturalism [is]... not who America is.” It “distort[s] our glorious founding and what this country is all about.” Hannah-Jones retorted: "When you say that multiculturalism is 'not who America is' and 'distorts our glorious founding' you unwittingly confirm the argument of the 1619 Project: That though we were ... a multiracial nation from our founding, our founders set forth a government of white rule. Cool."
There will more than likely be more developments to this story.
Here is how Nikole Hannah-Jones starts the 1619 journey: "My dad always flew an American flag in our front yard. The blue paint on our two-story house was perennially chipping; the fence, or the rail by the stairs, or the front door, existed in a perpetual state of disrepair, but that flag always flew pristine. Our corner lot, which had been redlined by the federal government, was along the river that divided the black side from the white side of our Iowa town. At the edge of our lawn, high on an aluminum pole, soared the flag, which my dad would replace as soon as it showed the slightest tatter."
Having listened to all 5 podcasts, I cannot say everything in it is fact. But what it portrays is enough for me.
There is a version of American history that starts out with, "Once upon a time..."
That is the history I was taught. (I'm 70) It is a myth, a fairy tale, not only because of what is told, but because what is left out.
America would not be the nation it is without slavery and genocide, starting from when the first Europeans set foot on this continent. That is a fact, a fact that colors all that this nation has accomplished. If we can, as a nation, acknowledge that fact, we can truly realize our great potential, and begin to make the myth a reality. That was the message of Martin Luther King.
But that myth is the basis of an entrenched power structure that will hold onto it with a death grip, because if the myth dies, so must the power structure.
This will not be easy.
I haven't read much from the 1619 Project, but what I've seen is most impressive. The 1776 "Project" is a joke by comparison. The loudest GQP voices on history education and race are willfully ignorant about both.
Gerald Horne, one of our most hard-working historians, concurs with 1619's view of slavery in the Revolution.
Horne, Gerald. The counter-revolution of 1776: slave resistance and the origins of the United States of America. New York University, 2014. 349p index afp ISBN 9781479893409, $39.00.
Horne (Univ. of Houston) holds a distinctive view of watershed historical dates. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 brought political order to Britain and encouraged free trade. This facilitated massive slave imports into the American colonies, destabilizing colonial societies with the specter of racial conflicts and rebellious slaves allied with foreign invaders. Horne also asserts the less-familiar importance of 1772. That year's landmark Somerset decision by Lord Mansfield effectively banned slavery in England, signaling a trend in favor of rights for Africans. In June 1772, Rhode Islanders defied imperial authority by burning HMS Gaspee. Colonists' determination to continue profiting from "the slavery trade" ultimately led to independence, but 1776 was partly a counterrevolution against London's nascent antislavery sentiment. This narrative is often about white anxieties in Britain, the Caribbean, and North America. Readers seldom hear the voices of free and unfree Africans, though their actions (flight, rebellion, everyday resistance) speak clearly enough. Horne's interpretation emphasizes material factors over political philosophy and ideas in general. It directly challenges conventional views of the American Revolution but, based on extensive evidence, deserves close reading. Summing Up: Recommended. Academic and large public libraries; undergraduates and above.
Choice Vol. 52, Issue 4, Dec 2014 American Library Association. Contact permissions@ala-choice.org for permission to reproduce or redistribute.
I just have to say that I LOVE being on this forum with a bunch of historians. Not a single day goes by that I don't learn something vital and accurate. Thanks to you all.
I so agree. None of this was taught when I was in school.
Lynda, when I was in school, there was an essay contest every year, sponsored by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. My mother enrolled me every year, I suppose because she thought “people would talk” if she didn’t, and I wasn’t old enough to rebel. I did as little work as I could get by with. We were given time during class, when we should have been learning *anything* else, to work on these essays. This is by way of saying that any teacher who had taught us anything that went against the Glorious Cause narrative would have lost her (always her) job.
I had a few friends when I was working that did the entire foolish Daughters of the Confederacy thing up to dressing up and re-enactment. I always thought it was ridiculous, but honestly I didn't realize the harm it was doing until much later.
For those essays & poetry submissions, be sure to avoid the phrase “Civil War. Instead use “War Between the States.” lol
My New Englander's view: it's The War to Fulfill America's Promise. But I just say or write "Civil War."
Oh the good ole DAR! Ugh
The DAR is a very different organization than the DAC. Both have their issues, but the DAC are just plain racist.
For the past 10 years, I’ve been indexing for the DAR Genealogical Research System, a tool to help history students, researchers, scholars and teachers. Not an “ugh.”
Ditto!!
Same here.
Thanks back at ya, Reid. We learn much from you as well.
In every course, I ask students who among them plans to be a teacher. With many business or IT majors, few if any answer Yes, especially when I taught history at a business school. My reply: "WRONG. You answered a question not posed. I didn't ask who will be a professional educator; the question is, who will purposely impart information, knowledge and/or wisdom?" Once they realize what's at issue, they understand that we all teach others: children, peers, friends, co-workers, even our bosses. (Among the worst is when we train someone who will take our job. Argh!) This also means that we're all students too, and should be throughout life.
The point: we all act as teachers, whether we know or wish it. And most LFAA readers have something to offer. So, now that we know, seize the opportunity!
My thoughts exactly! SO grateful to have these lessons to wake up to each day.
TPJ, as one of the fellow historians in this conversation group, I concur that some of the most interesting work published in the last 5-10 years is reassessing not just US and North American colonial history (and how I wish people would start paying more attention to Canada in discussion of the era before the invention of the USA), but also British and European history. The impact of the Cromwellian Interregnum on the psyches of British people has been understudied. The tactics Cromwell used in Ireland against Catholics served as a blueprint for genocide in the colonies, and the expansion of the plantation system from Ulster to the colonies, with its parallel expansion of the kinds of enslaved and pressed labor developed in order to effect it, has not been discussed sufficiently by either British or US historians.
One of the biggest problems we have is that "American" history has almost always been a closed shop: Historians outside the USA have, until recently, eschewed studying US history. This is changing, but slowly. As a British historian whose background is anything but British, I find I have a different perspective on the history of the British Isles, as I am not particularly influenced by some emotion-driven notion of "patriotism" in the work I do. I am not saying that American-born historians are incapable of being critically engaged--far from it. But we have these jokers whose "education" in US history was probably taught in high school by football coaches (that's who taught US history in my high school and many others) who have absolutely no idea of how to think critically about the past. Unfortunately, they appeal to the basest emotional instincts of the dominant white population in order to demonize everyone else.
And never forget the text books that shaped the curriculum everywhere. If Texas didn’t adopt a text book, it was/is dead on arrival, as the big publishing houses well knew. Authors were carefully edited and teachers required to follow the prescribed program. I published a textbook for junior college communications with a major publisher in 1986. It took my co-author and I four years to respond to all the editing and for the company to bring the book out.
I was a teacher in a very progressive public school later. Happily, in our system teachers were free to dispense with textbooks. It made more work for teachers but such better opportunity to help students of all ages learn research skills, questioning, and discernment.
So I mentioned this in an earlier comment, but I've been thinking about it all day.
When I was in school, there was no Google. Our town, when I was young, had no bookstores: as I mentioned, the closest we had was the Hallmark store, and the "lurid paperback" rack at the supermarket, and of course, the magazine racks, and least half of which were up high with only the top edges showing. My parents got us a World Book Encyclopedia set, twenty-some volumes of the "authoritative history of everything." The county library had what it had, and there was a card catalogue, but its curation was a bit haphazard.
The real Authority was the textbooks we were given in our classes, because it consisted of material we had to memorize and regurgitate, though typically only once. There was no real synthesis of ideas, just discrete sections with discrete globs of things to memorize, regurgitate, and forget. But we all knew that if it was in the Textbook, it was right, and the teacher was wrong.
Now, I can go online and learn how to install and mud drywall (that's been a home project, and we did a good job), gather enough information to write an algorithm for reproducible floating-point sums, get an overview of global warming trends (with data), read three competing histories of the attack on Pearl Harbor, order a book on John Dee's Enochian Magick.... If I can ask the question, I can get answers.
It's like something out of Arthur C. Clarke's Against the Fall of Night.
So how DO you approach the teaching of history? Can it be summarized?
When I taught third grade my class and I researched and wrote and published neighborhood histories. We began with the neighborhood around our school, which included many olh houses as well as the site of the first gristmill in our county. We discussed how we could learn what the neighborhood was like 150 years earlier. We walked downtown to the main branch library and discovered the Sanborne insurance maps as well as old city directories. We found a history of Asheville ( our city) houses. We knocked on doors and interviewed people. Eventually we divided the research into pieces and kids wrote different sections. We invited the man who lived on the gristmill site to talk to us. We had discussions about how you could decide which was the correct answer when one source gave a different date than another. It was a fascinating project for all of us. We integrated language arts, social studies, research, etc. These were 8 and 9 year olds, and at the end of the year we went to a City Council meeting where a few of the kids got up and gave reasons why the neighborhood should be designated a historic district.(It did).
Like that. We are skewed in our objectivity (accuracy) by our emotion-driven notions.
Thanks, Linda. I hadn't considered the take-over of Ireland as prelude to other colonial endeavors. That makes perfect sense to me.
The 1619 Project Podcast is available. I highly recommend it.
The 1619 Podcast was excellent. If there are degrees of excellent, it was very!
Excellently excellent
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/podcasts/1619-podcast.amp.html
I second this. The written version is even better because more expansive, but the podcast is a wonderful summary.
Thank you Kelly.
I have learned so much more about our history as a country in the last 10 years, about America as a whole, about my own state (NC) in particular. That history that l learned on my own is much more complex than the version l was taught in school. Economic forces were usually the drivers of history. I want to recommend Colin Woodard whose two books, “American Nations” and “American Character” taught me things I did not know. Check out the book descriptions on Amazon.
As I recall the 1619 view of slavery arrived as a special section of our Nytimes one Sunday. I read it and found it fascinating and plausible. I was early educated in the NY state public education system. I feel it is correct that we learned mostly the great myths about our country.
Thank you TPJ for bringing, Horne, Gerald. The counter-revolution of 1776: slave resistance and the origins of the United States of America. New York University, 2014, to our attention. I am taking the long way before returning to Gerald Home's work.
I was somewhat lost after finishing today's Letter. Only some memories of my Social Studies classes in elementary school came to mind. Seeing lean-tos and the Indian's clothing, so different from what we wore wafted into my mind. Feeling patriotic or like a 'Girl Scout' when getting into the Brotherhood spirit as a schoolgirl. It felt good widening our circle of people when in Social Studies classes. The hours there were as mini dramas. There was the sense of play absent from my academic of math and reading classes.
'The department is proposing two priorities to reach low-income students and underserved populations. The Republicans object to the one that encourages “projects that incorporate racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse perspectives into teaching and learning.” (The Letter). I want to be in the classes for the low-income students and underserved populations; they sound a lot more interesting. Why aren't classes that incorporate racially, ethnically, etc., diverse perspectives taught to all the children? I would go farther than the Department of Education.
While we will delve into this White v. Other war that the Republicans are waging, doesn't this present a great opportunity for us to learn our American History differently? Won't we 'educated Whites' enjoy taking bites from a revised American History curriculum, in addition to fighting the current Civil War? I'm back to Gerald Home's work, TPJ. Heather is sending us back to school!
Thank you, TPJ.
Same back at ya, RD. It was good to meet onscreen through Heather's Herd. Keep the comments coming!
There is an excellent podcast of the 1619 project available on Stitcher as well as other podcast platforms
Indeed you are right. "But that myth is the basis of an entrenched power structure that will hold onto it with a death grip, because if the myth dies, so must the power structure. " See my post on my experience as a researcher of US history.
And this is the exact reason for the 'Big Lie'. The myth is rapidly crumbling.
As far as Mc Connell's train of thought that even discussing racism, here in NH, the newly Republican majority (a result of the Nov. election) has been falling in lockstep w/him, just as the southern states mentioned have done. They have passed HB 544, a gag order that prevents essentially anyone from even discussing racism or offer any diversity training or teaching such concepts. I sincerely hope that the ALCU will challenge this in court. As Dr H said, it IS unconstitutional re Freedom of Speech guaranteed in the Constitution. I truly fear that the super majority SCOTUS would go along with this UNCONSTITUTIONAL train of thought.
Turned 71 today and looking back to the 60’s and 70’s, it looks like the same ol’ same ol’ to me. I’d love to see this has come up to be healed but I thought that then also. Just seems like circles to me, fighting the same old battle over and over again.
I turn 71 in two weeks and have had similar thoughts. But then when we went into Iraq and Afghanistan I wondered, “What’s the end game? Will these be two more long, pointless wars? Did we learn anything from Vietnam?” Guess not.
What was learned from Vietnam was not to send a draftee army to fight an imperial war. The antiwar movement was fueled by the draft calls; you'll notice the large antiwar movement that exists today, when the fighting and dying only affects 1.5% of the population.
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday dear Elaine,
Happy birthday to you!
When you've got a job as big as the job America has now, you can't just dig your shovel in, scrabble around a little, sweat a little, and say you're done with it. Our project has to be more like archaeology, I think: dig carefully, dust things off, look at them in the light (definitely with direction from HCR), analyze and synthesize and act. Then dig a little more. I'm not, by the way, suggesting that we should do it slowly. There is an urgency in the air now, and it provides, no, demands energy. Let's roll up our collective sleeves, energize our minds and hearts, and get it done. I've got three score and ten-plus behind me, and of course there are and will be times when I mutter, "Damn. I thought we did that already," to myself.
I want to do that too and I try very hard not to feel helpless, but in a state where it will fall on deaf ears and where my friends and family think I am crazy and a radical leftist, it is hard.
Crazy and a radical leftist? Wear it like a badge of honor!
Much sympathy to you Lynnda, and Nance too. Even here in bluest MA, we often encounter something similar, especially with the crises in racial justice and policing. Even moderates imagine that real law enforcement reform will leave them exposed to nameless, faceless danger. (Though the faces cannot be discerned, they are almost always dark ones.) Most who will not stay silent, and who celebrate last year's protests, see friendships strained or lost. Yet progressives and moderates reach out and find each other, achieve new understandings, make wonderful new friendships, and build community. Cf. Letters from an American.
I try to be proud of what I believe and sure in the knowledge that I've taken the high road and done my homework. But it's really difficult when your brother tells you that many of our "mutual friends and family" have deleted my posts on FB because they make them so mad. I want to say - then why don't they try to discern what's really going on. But I don't.
Oh, Lynnda, I am so, so sorry. Right now I'm a lefty in a pretty red little town, but I've got good friends, and this forum . . . although I suspect my sister will never speak to me again. My thoughts are with you.
I blame Trump and Fox"news" for the extreme divide we are in. I cannot get my brother to see that we are no longer discussing Left vs Right issues, but we are discussing Democracy vs Authoritarian/corruption/craziness/and on and on.
Nancy 100%. The best part of digging for knowledge is that we never get dirty, at least not much.
PS, we saw what you did in using "three score and ten." Please confirm. (Or not; I may be wrong. Never rule out that possibility.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEjW9Pxildo
So nice of you to write, TPJ. I love The Clancy Brothers (Tommy Makem, too), and I'd never heard this song with the "three score and ten." I was referring to my age, which is three score (60) and (10, plus. . . ) so, 74, and fast closing on 75. It's taken me such a long time to heal from doing work I thought was good, then returning to it years later, only to find it erased. I helped knock down the unnecessary Caesarean section rates where I lived in the 70s, only to find them soaring 20 years later. Sigh. I had a friend who was in the Peace Corps and managed the digging of wells for people who had little access to water. She visited nine years later and could barely find the sand-filled holes. Well, you know what I mean. When we make change, we work hard, and we want it to stick. I'm getting better at facing what I see is probably a reality, but right now, I'd give a lot just to see things move . . .
So I was wrong, and the connection is serendipitous. Oops!
My parents' early Makem/Clancy record is among my first musical memories. I had the great privilege of finally seeing Tommy about 20 years ago. He and Liam C made several fine records together. You are in for a treat.
The world is littered with aid and development projects that look like failure, but in fact, success is real, though finite. I had some success with a project fighting cattle disease in Zambia in the 1990s Such efforts often do achieve something for a while, including yours.
That's what I keep telling myself :) It's good to have confirmation. Thanks!
Happy Birthday 🌸🌺🌼
Happy Birthday, Elaine! Cheers!
Yes, some in America can't let go of feeling like being the White Masters of the Universe. We keep coming back to it. It's old and it's new again. It is also so boring, ugly and dangerous, still.
Happy Birthday, Elaine!
Happy Birthday!
I agree, it’s not easy Ralph, but we are making progress in becoming a more just nation once again with the election of a mensch.
I agree with you. I am the same age as you. Born and raised in a rural town in NC. Our history books never taught us about slavery and the white man’s foray into raping, lynching, and denial. I was surprised that Anne Frank’s book was required reading though.
Here's a gem that's not likely to be in the textbooks in the near future: TJ Loves Sally 4 Ever
Written by James Ijames
Directed by Pascale Florestal
In Partnership with
Boston Conservatory at Berklee
http://www.speakeasystage.com/tj-loves-sally/
Right on Ralph!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till
Ralph, Wait! You mean John Wayne didn't win the West?? George Washington didn't chop down his daddy's cherry tree?
Seriously, your points are well taken. I've got a few years on ya, and I learned the same -you'll pardon the expression - white-washed version of American History you describe.
At least when I was in what is now called 'middle school', we did learn civics, by which I mean, the mechanics of how it's all supposed to work.
When my daughter was in middle school in NC, in the 1990s, civics had become a mere shadow of its former self, and was bundled into 'social studies', which was a mish-mash of some history, some geography, and very little clarity and NO depth. I was horrified.
I have never been a fan of home schooling, but if I had school age kids now, and the local system followed the Trumpian dictates, I would become a home schooler in a skinny minute.
Sobbing doesn’t help, but it’s an appropriate reaction. I will miss Democracy and loathe the Autocracy when it takes control.
Don’t surrender yet, Nancy. To paraphrase John Paul Jones, we have just begun to fight! And to quote the British-American naval commander, “If fear is cultivated it will become stronger, if faith is cultivated it will achieve mastery.”
As you can tell from the responses to Dr, HCR’s “Letters...”, her readers are just beginning to draw up plans, decide on strategies, and create tactics, to do moral and intellectual battle with the “forces of darkness” who threaten our national existence. Far from conceding the contest, we are committed to confronting the evil and destroying it with goodness.
By banding together with like-minded people we can deliver mortal blows to self-serving falsehood with the keen-edged sword of truth! Unity, courage and perseverance are the arrows in the quivers of the righteous!
No need to sorrow or concede to the greedy, ignorant horde. We can and will win the day!
Bill 100%. I often say the same thing, but your eloquent exposition is much appreciated.
TPJ, thank you for that kind, dare I say, overly generous, response. On re-reading the copy I was struck by the perhaps florid style that I am all too likely to lapse into. I wanted to be comforting and encouraging, but the scent of flora was a bit overwhelming.
Anyway, thanks my brother!
I was born in the late 1940’s. In junior high and high school I suffered though domestic arts and sewing classes and I never seemed to get it right. I never learned to make the perfect white sauce and I always put the sleeves in backward. So, I had to get out the thread picker and unstitch them and put them in right. The normalisation of slavery in American put it’s sleeves in wrong in the fabric of democracy from the very beginning. It is going to take a lot of diligent unpicking and resewing to create an garment fit to be worn with pride and true to the proposition that all people are created equal with Liberty and justice for all. But it can be done, Biden is giving it a go. The macerations of the far right are right on cue. Lie, gaslight, mislead, on and on. Life can be complicated but doing the right thing really is not. The golden rule, kindness, equality before the law, these are worth striving for. For an ill fitting garment is not a lovely or practical thing to behold, but it can be altered to fit, given the will to do so. And by the way, later in life I discovered you can buy this stuff called wondra flour and pour it into milk and viola....white sauce!
I am an anology-speaker as well - use them a lot ( maybe too much) - so your comment, Robin, is right up my alley! 😄 I agree with your view that we have a varied cloth of experience and history - the body that it is draped on changes as it ages, or we completely flub putting on those sleeves - and it is of utmost importance to keep looking in the mirror, acknowledging the condition of that fabric and it's fit, and working towards making those alterations. I am grateful for HCR and the community that has built up around her Letters. It has let me understand how very much I needed to look in the mirror to see at least some of the alterations to my own understanding of our US history are needed. I know my teen daughter's generation will have a much more nuanced historical garment to wear, even now, than I did as a young adult. That can only be a good thing.
Well wrapped up! You drape your arguements peruasively around a "corps" of essential truth.
Robin, I love your sense of common sense. “the sleeves in wrong in the fabric of democracy”.... a lot of us “white folk” are up to the task of unpicking and resewing. I see it as just due for all the “picking and sowing” done by slaves and claimed as agricultural profit by whites.
Terrific analogy, Robin!
Good morning, Lynell!
Morning, Ally!! (I'm way ahead of you; time-wise, that is!
Yes you are! And I'm an early riser out west.
I too suffered through sewing classes Robin, and never could get the sleeves or zipper to fit right. Lots of time spent with the ripper. Your analogy made me smile thinking about those days, and made me think how perfectly it describes how America really did put the sleeves in wrong in the fabric of our democracy. It’s time to get to work with that ripper.
You're probably safe, as long as the ripper isn't named Jack.
My mother (born in 1924) always said that the first thing she learned about knitting was that the three basic stitches are knit, purl, and rip (undo previous work).
In the construction world, we call it 'New construction remodeling' whenever you have to take apart what you just built.
Ahh Seattle, my home town. How is it faring these days? We have not been able to go back to our condo-friends and family there for almost two years now.
It really depends on who you ask. Seattle is a marvelous city from my perspective, and I've been here since 1980.
So true. Those of us who remember it before the freeway, before Amazon, can get quite nostalgic about it’s past. It’s funny but the small Welsh town were I live now is quite a bit like Seattle in the 50’s. Butcher, bakery, you know everyone on your street. My husband, who spent time in it as a youth remembers all the things that are gone now that he says made it better than now. I guess regretting change is just human. But embracing the the good, interesting and new keeps a person moving forward...the only way to go.
Joan, I learned a term, tink (the alphabetic opposite of knit), for undoing your work, one stitch at a time. One of many things I learned from Knitting Paradise, an online forum. ☺️
What a wonderful way to help us all understand the work ahead. I might like to make a lapel pin out of the thread picker in my drawer, which I have owned about since the days of incomplete history class. Thank you, thank you, Robin.
Love this analogy Robin.
Wonderfully stitched Robin. Your analogy was thrilling. While I didn't suffer as you did in home ed., my fingers never felt as inadequate. At the end of the class, I managed to create a lustrous purple skirt. While not the best in the class, the skirt looked good enough. It was a miracle that I couldn't stop staring at it.
Yes, sewing miracles do happen...so glad you had your’s😊
When I read McConnell's claim that "American pride was at its lowest point in 20 years", I was skeptical. So I googled it (https://news.gallup.com/poll/312644/national-pride-falls-record-low.aspx). Turns out he's right about the measure of American pride. Gallup's poll shows that pride in America was remarkably steady from 2000 through 2016 - hovering around 80-85% year after year. Until Trump took office. Then national pride fell 20 points in 3 years. I wonder why?
There are days when I am grateful for the TFG era, for forcing our hidden caste system into bright light. I and so many other privileged white people could begin to understand what we did not know. Much of it was not taught in the Virginia schools where I went to high school, especially anything about oppression of any non white culture. I have been an adult for a long time and certainly could have found out about these things. But I was “busy” believing voting rights acts, and months celebrating women, or various cultures had righted the wrongs. But once you know, you know. I believe there can be correction and healing AND patriotism, coexisting. It will involve pain, discomfort and sacrifice. The essential tonic is knowledge, coming to us via many dedicated historians and delightful younger generation sources like Amanda Gorman. My thanks to every one of you.
Yes, while it's painful (and embarrassing) to admit that Trump had to be elected for me to get all the way to anti-racism, his election was a powerful goad and a deep recalibration of my assumptions about the people of this country.
I find myself in a similar boat, although I had started fighting this battle in earnest after Michael Brown was murdered in Ferguson, MO by law enforcement. I had to really stretch my ways of thinking about race and law enforcement.
**In case no one knows, retired cop, use of force trainer and hostage negotiator, living in an almost entirely white region of Oregon.
The hill you had to climb was so much steeper than mine; you have my admiration. I do not mean that you started out as more racist than me (than I? I can never keep it straight), but that the cultures within which you were and are operating may have been more likely to give cover to implicit (and explicit) bias. Good for you for digging deep. We all have so much work to do.
I echo what Reid said below. I only wish there were many more of you in the profession.
I agree, Reid and Ally. I've always been open to all groups and view equality across races, genders, and religions, but being forced to think otherwise helped me to learn and engage in anti-racism thoughts and actions. I've grown a lot the last 5 years.
Ally, I am a former Oregonian. After my degree in Broadcasting (74’) at the U of O. I worked at a TV station in Medford, Oregon. A friends husband worked as a cop in Ashland, Oregon. He said once riding with his partner that they saw a POC on the street. His partner said “ya there are about six of them here and we know where they all live.” After having lived with a person of color at the U of O. It came as such a shock. I never considered myself a a liberal. There where a number of friends from the Broadcasting department working there. Every executive at the station there Were white male chauvinist. They had an executive little club called “the Jolly boys”. After a couple of years they had to let this little “Jolly girl” into their group after I moved into sales. The FCC was going to challenge their license. We made a big joke out of it and made our own club we called ourselves the “Jolly Pee-Ons.”
I grew up in Medford, and graduated HS in 1976. I'm sure you knew (or knew of) Tam Moore; he is one of my best friend's Dad. What TV station did you work for, and who was your friend's husband? I got my degree in Criminology from SOSC in 1981 and knew a fair number of APD.
Lost your email. The person I went was Steve Deaton. He was there in the later 70's . It was only shortly then he got a job with Portland PD and went on from there to become a pilot for United.
I worked at KEMD I had the Promotions position when we changed it to KTVL. We did that when we sold the KMED call letter with the AM radio station. I don't know Tam he most have been at the other station. The fires there are just unbelievable. I spoke to friends in Portland this morning they were talking about the protests DT that are turning violent at night. Still. With only few arrests. She said she went through DT yesterday and there were 150 motorcycles lined up getting ready to do soon. They left quickly!
I have found memories of Southern Oregon. My only Fame to claim was that I help Anne Curry get her first job in TV. She went on to go to the TODAY show on NBC. Did you now David Sourer? His Dad was Pres. at SOSC. His sister worked at the Hungary Woodsman. I work with David at then KMED when I first got there. Good remembering with you .
Stay safer.
Thank you!
Except that Michael Brown was not murdered . The grand jury and Eric Holder agreed.
From the liberal leaning WaPo
“So we wanted to set the record straight on the DOJ’s findings, especially after The Washington Post’s opinion writer Jonathan Capehart wrote that it was “built on a lie.” From time to time, we retroactively check statements as new information becomes available. In this case, the Justice Department has concluded that Wilson acted out of self-defense, and was justified in killing Brown.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/03/19/hands-up-dont-shoot-did-not-happen-in-ferguson/
https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-holder-delivers-update-investigations-ferguson-missouri
Legally justified in the existing context is one thing. Morally justified, including justification of that context, would be something else. If our police were trained to see people of color as us, not them; if trained to act to reduce violence, not inflict superior violence; then Michael Brown and a long list of other people would be alive today.
I agree that he was not prosecutable for murder, and I am normally more careful with my language than that.
The problem that I see with this "justification" is that (and I said this at the time, and was very unpopular in my non-cop social set) that in a very narrow window of time, to wit: the confrontation while the cop is seated in his patrol car and Mr. Brown is reaching in through the window <as I recall without looking up the details> that is a justified shoot. BUT: why was he seated in his patrol car while talking to Mr. Brown, why was he even talking with Mr. Brown in the first place, and did he say or do anything that may have provoked a violent response?
Did you know the sun's going to rise in the west tomorrow? They're wrong. Which frequently happens, and involves both Ds and Rs.
President Obama through his DOJ disagrees with you.
From the DOJ report.
This morning, the Justice Department announced the conclusion of our investigation and released a comprehensive, 87-page report documenting our findings and conclusions that the facts do not support the filing of criminal charges against Officer Darren Wilson in this case. Michael Brown’s death, though a tragedy, did not involve prosecutable conduct on the part of Officer Wilson.
“This conclusion represents the sound, considered, and independent judgment of the expert career prosecutors within the Department of Justice. I have been personally briefed on multiple occasions about these findings. I concur with the investigative team’s judgment and the determination about our inability to meet the required federal standard.
This outcome is supported by the facts we have found – but I also know these findings may not be consistent with some people’s expectations. To all those who have closely followed this case, and who have engaged in the important national dialogue it has inspired, I urge you to read this report in full. “
Not the result you wanted, but a conclusion based on fact.
Though the wakeup call was essential, the election of 1/45 was no boon to America or anyone except Putin. Division, treason, sedition, a coup attempt, and most grievous, half a million avoidable deaths . . . so much unnecessary suffering . . . tragic.
There's an old British saying from WW2 that "War is how Americans learn geography." Being a nation of hardheads, it takes a whole lot of whacking on the head to get the American Mule to recognize Reality.
True saying from the Brits. but again, there's violent imagery. Please skip it.
Trump taught me that as much as I thought I was "woke" from the experiences of my life since the 60s and my political involvements, that I still had further to go. And that I had drunk from the poisoned glass of tribalism too.
I agree and will take your comment further by saying, 'correction and healing IS patriotic'. Isn't the very essence of democracy to have the freedom to right wrongs? And I agree, again, that knowledge is essential. In order to solve a problem, one must see and recognize the problem for what it is. It's a little like addiction, isn't it? One must first admit one has a problem before one can take the steps necessary to fix it.
The history I was taught in lily-white Glendale, CA, in the ‘40s and ‘50s, started with the Pilgrims, moved quickly to the founding fathers (emphasis on fathers) and jumped to scenes of wheat turbines spewing out our great agricultural products to show how prosperous and down to earth we were. Good clean soil, no dirt, especially on our hands.
As was the history that I was taught in lily-white (10% Hispanic) Glendale in the 60's and 70's. Glendale High School had 5 black students out of 3000. Some of the history teachers were forward thinking, though most of them were still a joke. Let it be remembered forever that Glendale Ca, was a Sundowner town,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town
In 1950 or so, an Indian family moved to Glendale; one of the sons, Nehru, was in my class. Some of the fine local citizens lit a cross on the family’s front lawn, thinking the family was Black. “Oops, honest mistake,” was the common reaction when told they were from India. My father and mother were horrified, but I think few others were.
My High School history teacher didn't like me so he nicknamed me "Adolph"... That would get your a** handed to you these days...
Just as Ally above mentioned that she was a "use of force" trainer, there needs to be training of teachers in the proper way to instruct these sensitive topics of slavery and racism in our schools. I am a retired Special Education teacher from NJ. The history curriculum in NJ requires the teaching of slavery in our elementary schools (starting in 5th gade). I have witnessed and heard of teachers having their students engage in projects such as holding 'slave auctions' writing advertisements for the selling of slaves, and acting out the transporting of slaves in the hulls of the ships by having the students lay down on the classrooom rug and squeeze in as close as possible. Teachers have gotten in trouble, reports of these 'lessons' have gone on the news, etc. Yet, it continues to happen. There needs to be training for such curriculum because so many people just don't get it!
I went to high school in a fairly liberal suburb of Sacramento. We had one Black student and he ended up committing suicide. (I have no idea what the circumstances were and the two could be entirely unrelated. Still...).
That's interesting. We had one black student at my high school - an outstanding athlete in several sports, high achiever academically. Committed suicide the month before the 10th year class reunion.
I would have assumed that suicide rates among black men would be generally high, but it turns out that's not the case. Indigenous men #1, followed by white men. All others far behind. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide
And history class in Texas in the 60s taught that "Lincoln freed the slaves. And the Texas Rangers were 'really good-guy heroes.' The end." (a pathetic indictment of the way textbooks have been co-opted and slanted for decades)
And slaves were mostly happy agricultural workers who were, by and large, treated well.
I didn't learn anything like that. But then I went to a progressive private secondary school in Massachusetts.
That was pretty much the standard tale for us then.
Don't get me wrong, slavery was WRONG in this telling. But it wasn't too bad. 🙄
Trump taught us what we were in danger of losing through complacency.
Remind me TFG, please?
"That F-ing Guy", I believe. AKA Donald
;D no wonder Google search couldn’t help!
We speak our own esoteric language here on LFAA.
Or The Former Guy
The Former Guy
Also "That F-ing Guy"
That part about American pride falling under the last administration doesn’t surprise me! It was the most embarrassing presidency ever!
Although I love American history, I've never felt "proud" to be an American. I feel a degree of responsibility to learn history, and to have an ongoing conversation about America, but Trump becoming president felt humiliating, and any pride I may have had before then was burned away. I think a large segment of Americans have little patience for subtlety and discussion... you either love the country or you don't. McConnell recognizes this. He knows that a large segment of the Republican base is a flag waving, patriotic, love it or leave it kind of voter. If they lose the self-esteem that they gained by electing Trump, then they may stop voting.
What I learned out of my experiences in Vietnam that there is a big difference between loving the country (which I do) and supporting the government (which I mostly haven't). I knew the guy who was Librarian at RAND who let Daniel Ellsberg take the Pentagon Papers out and copy them. His name was Dick Best and he's known in history as the guy who turned the Battle of Midway from an American defeat to a victory by sinking the carrier Akagi almost single-handedly. A true American hero. And he told me he always believed he served his country better by what he did with Ellsberg than what he did over the Japanese fleet. "The American people deserved to know what had been done in their name."
There is indeed a big dif between loving the country and supporting the gov't. And Dick Best had a damn good head on his shoulders. Thanks for these observations.
WOW!
Though mostly true of almost all politicians, in McConnell's case we can always assume there is a calculation of advantage in everything he does. He no longer operates on any principle whatsoever, if he ever did. Like Gollum with the Ring, power is his only lodestar.
At least Gollum was a character that one could feel sympathy for...
McConnell is a real sh!t, and someone who doesn't give a damn about the country. One interesting factoid about him: his three daughters are all estranged from him.
One would think that would tell him something....
Never knew he had pro-created!!!!
It was probably a miracle. In any case, while in some cases, including my best friend and his ex-wife, give 'em a little time and they get along well. But Mitch's ex seems to realize she married a piece of slag (slag is much worse than sh!t because the latter is fertilizer and food for the dung beetles, whereas slag is poisonous).
Didnt even realize that the current wife is No. 2!
"Although I love American history, I've never felt 'proud' to be an American." That is me exactly. I've always been so deeply aware of our flaws that I find it impossible to say we are somehow exceptional.
As a 12 year old living in France for a year, '65-'66, I felt proud to be an American. But now? We're the most backward of the western industrialized nations. We have much more poverty than the rest of them. We have a greater percentage of deaths by opioid overdose, many of which are suicides (I've written about this). Our infrastructure has been left to wither in the wake of the Reagan revolution.
But this critical race theory that is invading college campuses and private high schools is BS. We have a class problem as much as a race problem, and CRT is giving the GOP a new handle on attacking us.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/24/us/smith-college-race.html
There is a lot of problems in the USA right now. It feels overwhelming. The pendulum is swinging wildly and differently around the country. With that said, I also believe that if this country is to become a better place there needs to be space for voices and theories that one would consider to be BS. Again, I am open to at least listening to the conversation. Eventually, I believe the country will land in a different place with a different overall consensus. This excites me.
I do think we have the right leader to lead us to a better place. We really lucked out, between getting rid of Delirium J. Tremens, getting both Houses, and getting the Democrat who is probably most prepared to deal effectively with the country's problems by dint of his experience. But critical race theory is very harmful, and stupid. Far better students should be taught empathy, beginning in elementary school.
I like that and I would add that I would like to see “compassion” as part of more school experiences. For me the word compassion adds the component of action; doing things to contribute to community and the country.
Sounds good to me!
If you had actually studied critical race theory (I had to in order to write something accurate about it) you would find that it is actually very useful in learning how complicit we all can be, and what we need to do to get to where we claim we want to go.
Maybe so, and maybe not, but in practice it often results in harm, as evidenced by the NYT article on Smith College that I posted, and numerous other articles I've read. I think teaching empathy would do everything people want critical race theory to do without the harm.
Empathy, compassion and respect. Truth, justice and The American Way. Parents, school, religion. Throw them all in a melting pot and build back better.
Telling the truth is never BS. We should look to the example of Germany and how they wrote and taught all school children the truth about the Holocaust 20 years after the war!
I'm a Jew, and Germany did an excellent job. I knew a kid from Germany 20 years after the end of the Holocaust, and I saw first hand how well that had worked.
But the truth about privilege, and lack thereof in the US is much more complex than critical race theory makes it out to be. Money often has more power than race in this day and age. Think about all the working class whites in places like Appalachia and the rust belt, whose jobs have migrated to other countries or have been filled by immigrants, the amount of opioid addiction, and the numbers of deaths by opioid overdose--much of which are suicides (I've written about that). Substantial quantities of money trump skin color.
And I highly recommend this article to show you how badly critical race theory is often implemented. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/24/us/smith-college-race.html
I remember reading about that incident. And one of the commenters on there mentioned that there was no investigation into what would have happened if the student was white! Good question. But the whole issue was allowed (& almost encouraged by the college) to get way out of line. The student didnt do any favors for the already dicey race relations on that campus. Doubt it changed any "hearts and minds".
Black and White. Good and Evil. The list goes on and on. I suspect that the oversimplification of religious texts, twitter sized histories and differing senses of fairness have something to do with this. Personally I find this a very exciting time for history and how it is written. I have learned a tremendous amount over the last five year alone. The newer narratives lend a richness to American History that I did get as a young man. I can see how flag waving Americans would hate anything that interrupts the illusion and would make them reconsider. Insecurities and mental illness in people’s personal lives spill over to the public sphere. People are all things and so is history and histories are made up of people who encompass all things good and not good. I for one embrace it.
I do understand how simple narratives can be very comforting, too. Wouldn't it be nice if we could clearly identify good people and evil people and love the one and despise the other? Too bad history gives us no such comfort. One of the reasons we on the left are struggling to attract people who don't want to think too hard is that the truth is complex and the Rs are peddling a simple and easily-understood, though entirely false, narrative.
That's why we have movies and why (with a couple of rare exceptions) one should never think they have "learned" history from watching one.
Makes sense, except Gallup said pride polling dropped 9% amongst Republicans when Trump became president.
I once wrote an essay last century deriding the bumper stickers "Proud to be An American."
In St. Louis high school 1962, I protested saying the pledge of allegiance to the flag every morning (under god) was my complaint. Surprisingly, no one tried to force it on me (A 1940 Supreme Court decision said they could not.) However, backwater schools were still trying to enforce patriotism, and a few brave students challenged it, so I made a more realistic pledge. That was 2002, this is the updated when DADT & DOMA were defeated in 2011 & 2015. When they remove that divisive "under god" I may recite it again.
Questions of Allegiance
Rob Boyte
June 26, 2015
Why pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, or to the Republic for which it stands, that allowed slavery until 1863, denied women the vote until 1920, segregated its armed forces by race until 1948, persecuted political minorities throughout the 1950s, and into the 21st Century still denied full rights to homosexuals to serve in its military until 2011 or to reap the benefits of marriage until 2015?
One nation, indivisible would not disfranchise its Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists or others who do not accept the archaic concept of a "god" by forcing them to read "in god we trust" on every coin of a supposed secular state. "We" do not all agree that ours is a nation "under god" and for the religious majority to assume such is a most divisive insult.
With Liberty and Justice for all, except of course those too poor to afford a slick lawyer in the court system, too black to be presumed innocent by the police or too in love with someone of the same gender.
Very good.
I would expect American Pride to falter. As a privileged and formerly very patriotic white male I have lost pride in this stumbling country. Feel shame for being a white male amongst so many racist, ignorant hiders of the truth.
Semper Fi.
You can always tell a Marine (you just can't tell him very much) :-)
I suspect the reason you now say this and the reason you end as you do are the same.
Perhaps low pride is proof of an American awakening. In any case, "pride" is an interesting concept.
Google tells me, "Pride is a positive emotional response or attitude to something with an intimate connection to oneself, due to its perceived value. This may be one's own abilities or achievements, positive characteristics of friends or family, or one's country." It is derived, however (still according to Google), from the Late Old English "pryde", meaning "excessive self-esteem".
So, while pride may be a positive emotion, a normal feeling common to all people at one time or another when justified by circumstances, clearly there is a point at which pride can become excessive, especially when there is insufficient circumstantial justification. So I am proud when my risotto ai carciofi is up to my Italian wife's high culinary standards, while she is proud when she is able to beat me at backgammon, a game I have played - even with strangers for money - since I was a child, while she played it for the first time when we were first locked down by the pandemic 14 months ago.
But, should my wife be so proud of all the amazingly good Italian food she is able to cook that she dismisses me as a "burger-eater", or should I be so proud of my backgammon abilities that I dismiss her (occasional!) victory as "pure luck, my dear, you'd be nowhere without double sixes"? Pride may be a pleasurable, hard-to-hide emotion, natural and even inevitable in all of us, but when we express it with more than a faint smile it tends to irritate those around us. Natural self-esteem, when even slightly excessive, can become irritating in a big way. Like most good things, there is a limit.
If I had gone to war to fight the Nazis and done my duty to the utmost and survived to tell the tale, would I be entitled to feel proud about that? Sure. If students, after much study and worry and missed social occasions, ace their organic chemistry exam, do they have a right to feel proud? Of course. But if I'm watching the US Olympic Men's basketball team wipe up the court with some other nation's Olympic team, should I jump up (spilling beer all over myself) and begin screaming "USA! USA! We're number 1!"? No, I shouldn't, not unless my brother is Steph Curry or LeBron James.
To sum up, there is the pride of Democrats (faint smile, "Good job, Joe Biden.") And there is GOP pride (raised AR-15, "America, Love it or Leave it!).
JR, do you think that in addition to the Trump Effect, the Pandemic Effect figured into Gallup's poll reflecting American's pride in country? Life was as lousy at it gets in the USA and there were so many deaths. Trump and the Pandemic are inextricably tied - how can you separate the two?
The decline in pride numbers started in 2017. By the time the pandemicbegan it had dropped 20 points.
Many Canadians view America as a country brimming with self-confidence that would easily swell to arrogance at propitious moments (eg the Dream Team of NBA stars at the Olympics in Atlanta), expressed in the insufferable USA, USA, USA chants.
There was a periodically renewed debate within our country as to whether we were too self-effacing and would do well to adopt at least some of the attitude Americans had to their country.
We did adopt a more “take no prisoners” style in our government-initiated “Own the Podium” movement which aimed to support (and harden) our Olympic hopefuls.
And there was an *enormously* successful beer commercial - I’m a Canadian (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WMxGVfk09lU) which brilliantly captured our aspirations.
But, by and large, we felt it futile to adopt the brash American attitude. It seemed to suit you - it wouldn’t us.
Then came 9/11.
When the dust settled, so to speak, we saw a new America. It was (or so it seemed to us, much less confident. The swagger was gone. There was a seeming national introspection - a moment in which Americans felt their bubble had been burst, their invulnerability pierced.
We saw Americans respond by going to war in two countries, that is true. But America seemed subdued and chastened, less sure of its ability to bestride the world like some unthinking Colossus.
Many of us would date American loss of confidence to 2001, not 2017 as has been suggested, maybe verified by studies.
The 21st century has been and continues to be a time of deep reckoning and hard questions for America about itself. Out of that has come a fierce struggle for the soul of the country - a quixotic quest, it seems to me. There are too many America’s for one soul to harbour.
I appreciate your thoughtful analysis. From what I’ve seen, American confidence (not quite the same thing as pride) on the international stage has ebbed and flowed over the past 60 years. Viet Nam seriously dented America’s confidence, followed by the double whammy of the OPEC oil embargoes. Confidence sprang back under Reagan, re-enforced by the falling of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. It remained strong through the Clinton years, and actually rose after 2001, as America felt an outpouring of support from around the world. If anything, after 2001, America was overconfident. Dubyah’s arrogant neocons proclaimed (as they set out to invade Iraq and Afghanistan), “we don’t need to study history, we make history”. That didn’t turn out so well. Confidence (and pride) were strong during the Obama years. Then, it fell considerably during Trump’s presidency, for (I think) two reasons. One is that many of us were ashamed that such an unfit man could become president. Trump was an embarrassment to us. The other is that Trump’s rhetoric painted the world with fear - proposing that we cower behind walls and withdraw from the world, instead of continuing to lead by action and example. Trump’s vision, what little there was of it, was small and bitter. Nothing to instill confidence or pride.
I love this comment. I suppose that there could be reliable tracking by polls which illustrate your thesis. At an intellectual level, it makes tremendous sense to me.
I would put in two further comments to ponder.
The first is that 9/11 was an incredibly successful attack on American soil, considerably more impactful than the difficult periods - Vietnam, the OPEC crises, the Trump era - that you explained.
9/11 was a terrorism event that was shock and awe in a way the world had never seen (in terrorism). It came as a complete surprise - to ordinary Americans. It was televised live in unsparing detail - who can unsee people jumping out of skyscrapers? And the enemy was to most people, relatively unknown for some time.
If they could pull off that, why could they not blow up 10 Walmarts at exactly the same moment a month or two later. The attackers showed power and daring. Who knew what they were capable of?
Then followed the futility of two wars, the creation of the Dept. of Homeland Security, the daily humiliations at airports when we went to travel again.
Du ta was arrogant but Americans soon learned how stupid his response was - and how all sympathy was squandered in pursuing bin Laden and al Qaeda. On a macro scale it just kept worse and worse.
The second point I’d make is this. In Vietnam Americans learned slowly and painfully that they could lose a war. That was a new thing. And it certainly must have drained away confidence.
But the nation was far, far stronger then than it was in 2001. The pillars of any society, rock solid community organizations were virtually fully intact. People went to mainstream churches in high numbers. Schools were trusted. The government was seen as a force for good, although less so as Vietnam dragged on. Family units were stronger. The service club ethos was a binding force (Kiwanis, Lions Club etc). The Boy Scout organization was at the height of its influence. The union movement was at its apex. And so on.
For many reasons middle class Americans believed in the concept of America. On the other hand 9/11 came at a time when America seemed to be crumbling internally.
Despite your very persuasive points, I still cling to my belief that the 21st century has been one bad year after another for Americans. I do not think confidence suddenly eroded in 2017.
Okay, don’t believe it. Your feelings outweigh the data.
You are right. What a drop! Wouldn't you like to see that broken down, for instance, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, educational levels, race, class, ethnology, etc.?
One of the things that immediately harmed my patriotism was the use of the flag, the red white and blue, and some pretty awesome patriotic songs to push white supremacy. Add to that the president's and the GOP's insistence that I believe all the lies, distortions, and gaslighting. I immediately stepped aside.
Excellent point JR.
Hey - Remember when Gallup claimed DJT was most admired?
🤮
I question their “findings”
I recall in Eighth Grade Colorado History (the "official" course) reading about what was then called "the Battle of Sand Creek," in which the valorous white people fought the dastardly Inidans and managed to kill many of them with few losses to the valorous white people. When I raised my hand and said from my reading of battles (I at the time had a College Freshman reading level and was already reading history books for recreation) it sounded like a massacre, I was once again sent to "polish the bench" in the Assistant Principal's Office (I did a lot of bench-polishing back then, which I didn't mind at all since they didn't seem to mind me bringing a book along to read - I don't think I got a report card in 12 years of public miseducation that didn't include "does not respond to properly constituted authority.")
The son of an acquaintance, years back, wrote a well research highschool paper on the War of 1812-1814 from the perspective of the First Nations who were the true losers of the war. Canada won as we kept the Americans out; the Americans won as they freed up the mid west from British control to settlement. Only the indigenous lost. He got a failing grade but his dad was so proud of him
Thanks Allen. Hingston from Kingston, by any chance?
"The French and Indian War," or, as it's called in Canada, The British and Indian War.
French colonials versus English colonials, each recruiting Indigenous allies in quest of supremacy over the revenue-producing resources of the land (e.g. beaver skins, tobacco) for profits of the corporate investors on behalf of the sovereigns of France and England.
Yes but the French wanted to work with the locals through "comptoirs" and create trade whilst the English were there to stay "en masse" and eliminate the middlemen.
Yes, the French went for assimilate, the English more for annihilate, or at least for apartheid. A coureur des bois ("runner of the woods") was a French-Canadian trapper and/or trader with First Nations peoples. Some married Indigenous women and made Métis families and communities in the outback. So the practices vis-à-vis the middlewomen were very different, though Métis were subjected to racist persecution. Oh right, the English won the Battle of the Plains of Abraham and turned New France into Canada!
The French and Indian war was 50 years earlier than the War of 1812-1814
Indeed, but does the War of 1812 have another name in Canada? If so, I'd highlight that contrasting viewpoint too.
No. That is how it is known in Canada. Is it the same in USA?
From this era of and up to, read: Tecumseh, A Sorrow in My Heart -Alan Eckert
Good on his dad!
The Sand Creek Massacre should be taught in every history curriculum, (as should the Ludlow Massacre).
The good news is, Colorado History books in school now teach it as the Sand Creek Massacre and the site is listed as such with explanatory material.
Good show, Daria. Thousands of readers will now scramble to look up "Ludlow Massacre," one of the worst incidents in America's labor wars.
And here you are today, TC, for which I am seriously grateful. Really!
Somehow I am not surprised....
That is intended as a compliment of the highest order.
Signed, "who never lives up to her potential"
Ditto! Speakers of truth to authority are generally frowned upon.
That sounds like a great opening scene ... very engaging.
Good for you!
I Love you TC!!!! I had a Good chuckle reading your last sentence🤣I NEEDED that❣
And oh how polished those benches were!
Sometimes I wonder just for a second whether I'm reading The Onion, as it seems incredible what the Republicans are attempting to do in our country, in reframing history. The gaslighting continues even without 45 "reigning." Every morning I wake up grateful for our current leadership in the White House, but our work continues at the state level.
Thanks, Dr Heather 💜 Rest well.
Unfortunately, it's not just Republicans.
As an author of non-academic nonfiction history, I have found in my own research that most "official history" is mythology at best and bullshit normally. Governmental bodies involved with keeping the official record to this day are busy cooking the books and stuffing that which they find inconvenient down what Orwell called "the memory hole."
In my history of naval aviation in the Korean War, I featured the accurate account of an air battle between a Navy pilot and Russian-flown aircraft that from the day it happened the Navy claimed never happened, due originally to their desire to hide from the Soviets the fact that the then-new No Such Agency (as the NSA is known to those of us who research it); the cover was "blown" back in 1992 when the Russians published the names of the four pilots who were killed in the fight. When I did my original research, I went to the Naval History & Heritage Command site, where I downloaded every Monthly Report of every aircraft carrier that was in the war (Monthly Reports are the basic place to start, since each covers everything that happens on a ship in a given month; they're goldmines of information). One of them was the November 1952 Monthly Report of USS Oriskany, where the Navy's cover story of the incident was done in detail. Before the book came out, i contacted NHHC and told them it was coming and asked if they were interested in revising their history to conform to the actual facts. They replied that "official history can only be changed by the sworn testimony of two US participants in the event, verified by subsequent research of the record." A year after the book came out, I was contacted by one of the retired admirals I interviewed, and was told he was unable to find the report up at the NHHC site. I went there and indeed, there was one monthly report missing from all the others - that one. It has been replaced by the Air Group Report, a far less-detailed document that has the cover story in outline only. I again contacted NHHC and they replied that "unfortunately, not all documents survive to be included in our records, and we have used the best available documentation." I replied "Well, since you're missing this report, I'm attaching a copy of my copy of this missing report that I downloaded from your side three years ago" and attached a digital copy to the e-mail. They have yet to respond.
When I wrote my most recent book, about naval aviation in Vietnam, I started with the (alleged) Tonkin Gulf (non) Incident, which I personally know was a bullshit story as an actual participant and from interviews with other participants over the years. The "official lie" that was used to take us into the War of Lies, the "Ur Lie" of the war as I have called it, was first debunked in the Pentagon Papers by the government itself 50 years ago. I came across verified research done in 2006 that found that the "lights in the water" reported as "North Vietnamese torpedo boats " was the reflection of lightning and moonlight on an enormous school of flying fish that annually transits the Gulf of Tonkin at that time, which was not known at the time. It turns out that the only guy who "got it right" was LBJ who exclaimed on being first informed of the event, "Those poor dumb sailors were probably shooting at flying fish." Yet if you go to that waste of electrons known as the Vietnam Fifty Project, which celebrates the valiant efforts of Americans in that war (!), you will find them STILL telling the Ur Lie of the War of Lies. The guy running that bullshit operation doesn't like me after i posted my chapter on the site (which not-so-mysteriously "failed to post" within 24 hours)
I could go on. The "facts" most people know about "the forgotten war" in Korea have turned out in the light of actual research to be what I called in an interview "wartime propaganda that has fossilized over 70 years into fact-like material that is the historical equivalent of coprolites."
Quite frankly, anyone who believes what I call "American Official Mythology" put out by the US government on any topic probably also believes in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and that the sun will rise in the west tomorrow. Another term one can now use is "Republican History." It's as factual as "Republican Justice."
One studying the history of WW II would do well to keep in mind that, as I understand it, every news report went through military authority before being submitted for publication. There were no imbedded journalists reporting directly to their editors. Nothing got published without first being cleared and, if necessary, scrubbed of inconvenient facts, by military authorities.
It is probably just coincidence that the history of US military adventures hasn't been as rosy since the military can no longer control the flow of information.
Putin has clamped down hard on anyone who dares contradict his approved official history, especially of WWII. He doesn't want Russians to think about how much the USSR contributed to Hitler's initial conduct of the war or how Russians in Nazi held territory were just as cooperative with them in exterminating the Jews in their communities or how Stalin's paranoia as a leader led to the unnecessary deaths of millions of Soviet soldiers and civilians.
Every country produces official white washed versions of history and people like you are necessary to combat it so we know the truth. Thank you.
Don’t forget Stalin’s worst sin, according to Senator Blackburn(TN-R): free child-care.
Ah, yes. The Soviets "tore the children away from their mothers and forced them to go to work". Sounds like capitalism. The mothers are forced to work and care of the children is not the problem of the capitalists
Putin is also enraged that it is public knowledge that he and most of his fellow oligarchs lives such lavish lives and are billionaires while Russian citizens struggle so badly. Some knowledge doesn't benefit his keeping his citizens controlled.
Have you seen Navalney's documentary about Putin's Palace?
I haven't seen it, but it was that of which I was referring. Ouch for Putin and oligarchy friends.
Yes, they all did, all through history. But we have a chance. Let’s take it.
TCin:
Just a thought, do you think those "dumb" enlisted sailors arbitrarily opened up on the "flying fish?" Perhaps, they were ordered to do so? To your point on the "flying fish:
Night of August 4: "The Maddox and Turner Joy moved out to sea, but both reported that they were tracking multiple unidentified vessels approaching their positions. The vessels appeared to be coming from several different directions, and they were impossible to lock onto. Both ships began firing at what they thought were torpedo boats, and again they sought air support. A plane piloted by Commander James Stockdale joined the action, flying at low altitude to see the enemy ships. Stockdale reported seeing no torpedo boats."
I always liked working with officers as a Marine Sergeant as we could have some pretty good conversations as long as I respected the boundaries. I wasn't a sea-going bellhop.
Things are not always as they seem and change after the actuals are no longer around to dispute the facts. Nice story.
I was one of those "dumb enlisted men" (enlisted staff on the command in charge of things). No, they didn't. A month later, I ran across my best friend from boot camp in an Olongapo bar, where he told me the truth: he was the fire control technician in charge of the main battery on Maddox; he refused the order "open fire" three times on grounds the only thing out there was the Turner Joy, and got a General Court-martial and reduction in rank for that. I later met the Asst Gunnery Officer on Turner Joy at Cal where he was a grad student - he was able to convince his captain to hold fire for the same reason.
Several of the naval aviators I interviewed for this book, when told the real story, commented on seeing what they were later told was this school of fish in later years of the war.
I am so enjoying your commentaries. So, well informed. Can you share a couple of the titles of your non-academic historical non-fiction? I am bunkering down in such material perhaps too much as I found myself wanting to suggest one character in one book should connect with another character in a previous novel I read who was doing war crimes investigations and would be a good source for solving the problem in the second book. Thanks for your postings.
This "outs" who TC is, but since writers are always ready to flog sales, here. :-)
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Thomas+McKelvey+Cleaver&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss
There are a few guys whose stories travel through the books. Most particularly the story of my favorite WW2 "hero", John Bridgers, who goes over three of the books from a guy who becomes a NavCad in 1941 for the money ("As a son of the depression, these seemed princely sums") to go to school afterwards and the fact it pays better than being a teacher in North Carolina there, to the guy who graduates from Pensacola as a dive-bomber pilot the week before Pearl Harbor, who is present at the Doolittle Raid, survives the sinking of the USS Yorktown at Midway, survives the "worst" six weeks on Guadalcanal, comes back to the US and is assigned to what becomes the top-scoring Navy air group of the war, and in the end helps sink the battleship Musashi and as a 24-year old Lt. Commander leads the air strike that sinks the last of the six carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor. And thinks to himself on the way back to the carrier afterwards, "I decided that the Navy's investment in me had been repaid."
After the war, he went to medical school on that NavCad money and the GI Bill, and became a hospital administrator who was well-known for creating health care in "under-served communities" for 50 years.
I really love having been able to know so many of that generation.
I'll try to keep your secret. The books I referred to were by different authors who did not know each other as far as I know. SMILE.
About 15 years ago my brother and I visited the Turner Joy, now a floating museum in Bremerton WA. The entire presentation was an uncritical celebration of the Tonkin Gulf fraud that led to America's Vietnam War, along with the war itself. Unless it's been substantially revised since then, Not Recommended.
TCinLAjust now
Another couple of things "down trhe memory hole". A late friend was an AP reporter in Vietnam, and turned me on to the story of the USS Higbee, which was the first USN ship attacked by an enemy air force since WW2 in April 1972. In researching it, I found a site where someone had copied the entry for the ship from the USN Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, which had a paragraph in it that covered the attack in outline accuracy. When I went to the DANFS site, I looked at the official entry and that paragraph was missing. When I queried NHHC, they claimed it had never been there! So I hope they will be interested when the new book has the account of the last living VPAF pilot who made the attack, a photo of the attack map they used, and official USN photos of the ship and the destroyed aft turret. "Never happened" my ass.
That same pilot has another story in the book - about his leading the special VPAF squadron, "the victory-minded air unit" who went to South Vietnam, renovated five VNAF A-37s, learned to fly them (over three days) and made the attack on Tan Son Nhut on April 28 1975 that shut down further air evacuation, which Americans have always blamed "turncoat" VNAF pilots for, since they didn't believe Vietnamese could be smart enough to learn how to fly a "complicated" airplane like the A-37 so quickly. I also have photos the the "victory-minded air unit" with their A-37s that will be in the book.
"The War of Lies" will never stop.
Wow, thanks for sharing this. It’s hard to face the truth, and most of us would rather not, and just “move on.” We need the investigators such as yourself to go after the facts and report on them.
This was a fascinating post. Thank you.
I'm guessing you have seen the movie 1984? And, the movie "Brazil"? Mythologies in progress.
Wow!!
What was being hidden? That the NSA had some connection to the Navy plane?
Yes - that the NSA team on the cruiser Helena was listening to the Soviet radio comms (I forgot to put that in and as we know, Substack needs an edit function!)
It is amusing that McConnell is concerned about "American Pride". I would say it is American arrogance that Mitch wants to protect. The ruling class in America wants to protect it's position and keep the working stiffs busy and out of the way, especially in the education of our children. Like any great empire, we have a lot to be ashamed of and need to learn from the mistakes we have made in the past.
Being aware (educated) and honest about our caste-based foundations as a country, and rectifying them as we go forward in alignment with our Constitution and Bill of Rights, will be the most profound accomplishment our truly multicultural country could ever strive for.
We are a young country, in our ego-centric adolescent stage, where the White Myth is screaming for survival, and its' petrified cries and blatant lies and revisions are impossible to ignore if we are to remain a democracy. We The People are finally maturing into full adulthood as a nation. We are learning as a large mass about the lies we perpetuate and are ingrained in our culture and society. We cannot unsee what we now see or be ignorant of our white privilege and our caste system.
If you keep a nation dumbed down via education, mind-numbing tv, and now lying rallies and media, they are much, much easier to control and manipulate. The previous occupiers of our country have proven that with their mafia-like lifestyles and oligarchic, conspiratorial funding by hostile foreign countries. That playbook worked in 1930's Germany and with the 30% of Americans that want to be falsely superior. If more Americans knew and understood the rise and fall and rise again of fascism and autocracy the Great Liars would have been relegated to the dustbin of history. May that be their destiny, still.
The ancient Romans knew it as well: panem et circenses. Keep their bellies full and their minds occupied with trivialities, and the people are easy to rule.
180 days of public holidays towards the end with games each time at which of course bread was distributed free...the only way many of the spectators could eat.
So well said, thank you Penelope.
Dear Penelope,
Thank You for THIS!!!! I Wish it could be on EVERY FRONT PAGE of Every Newspaper in Our Country TODAY!!!!! And Educate ALL!!!!!😊❣
Yes, we need to keep white Americans fearful and angry in order to continue the ingrained white supremacy that keeps other groups "inferior."
"Amusing?" Only if McConnell would say this on SNL.
Lest we not forget, and as far as we currently know....... the first persons of "colour" to arrive in North America were "white" and entered a world where the skin colour varied from "tan" through "yellowish"to "red" depending which part of the Native American population you frequented. It is only the extreme difference that made the skin colour an issue. The attitude of those white arrivals to the human life that they discovered in this "New World" was something else......although it would seem that many of the locals were not necessarily too shocked by their brutality if you consider the prevalence of human sacrifice in some cultures.
The arrival of Afro-American slaves and their treatment continued a tradition that the White invaders had established over a century previously....even with some of their own being subjected to the same treatment. The Blacks were then, for the Native Americans....who were already somewhat diminished by the incoming diseases and bellicose attitude by this time...were the second "people of colour" to arrive on their shores.
The history of America dates from, on current research, from well over 20,000 years ago and should be taught as such. The Republic, as a political organization, dates from its foundation on July 4th, 1776. Regimes change, some bad, some good....but Nations go beyond the political names and structures that we give them as they change and not the Nation. The Nation is a sum total of all its history and not just that which the interests, ideologies and values of a particular time dictate.
Our fixation on compartmentalizing a land mass for the benefit of some seems to be the core issue here. My coffee table book, "Before Columbus: The Americas of 1491," by Charles C. Mann, challenges the reader to: "Prepare yourself to unlearn much of what you have learned" It doesn't go back as far as 20,000 years ago, Stuart, but I find it a good start!
Great book. I need to buy an updated version.
Agree
I will find it. Thank you.
So we are looking for the 20,000 BC Project.
Indeed...and for a little more respect for the history of the land in its entirety and for those who were here from the start. Building a bridge to the whole of the past would give a firmer base to our perspective of who we are, what it means to be an American and where we go from here.
"American," which reminds me that in fact there are two entire continents of America comprised of 42 different countries. Bit of bothersome hegemony.
I often cringe when I hear "America" as a descriptor to include only those who are a part of the USA
Which is why I frequently use the term US Americans or US rather than America.
Morning, Daria!! Yes, I try to stay cognizant as I write along.
Morning Lynell!! In Europe around 1800, if someone said that an American was coming to dinner, people assumed that s/he was a Spanish speaker. My, how times have changed.
Afternoon, TPJ!! It'd be easier if we were all mutts!
Or used as if somehow the USA (or the land it occupies) is representative of the entire western hemisphere. That rankles too.
Plus all the First Nations.
True but there used to be 13 colonies too. Lines on the map that the white Europeans invaders' dreams of conquest have imposed on an existing, none fully delineated fabric....for the time being!
You're on fire today, Stuart! I'm with you about the "Lines" we people draw.
Even colonies had colonies. Cf. Maine, Vermont, the Western Reserve.
Oh, wait! Who coined the term "America" anyway?
Amerigo Vespucci and his accounts of his travels seems to have the best claim.
Martin Waldseemuller, a German geographer living in what is now France, with his 1507 map of the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Waldseem%C3%BCller
Try this pronunciation with everyone you see this week: (ǎmerícō)
Okie Doke, David!
And why stop there? The presence of human beings is a mere blink of time’s eye. The dinosaurs ruled for millions of years before us and lasted far far longer than we can ever hope to survive. So why not the dinosaur project (which fits neatly with the attitude of the Trump republicans)?
Carl Sagan once said that if you really want to make an apple pie from scratch, you have to start by creating the universe.
Aim high, Ellie. The Big Bang Project.
You writing?
Um . . . It's all I can do to finish a one-paragraph review. And submitting on time? Once in a blue moon.
Big History is a burgeoning field. It takes the story from the Big Bang up to the future. Cf. David Christian and Cynthia Stokes Brown.
"When the delegates to the Constitutional Convention met in 1787 to debate what form of government the United States should have, there were no contemporary democracies in Europe from which they could draw inspiration. The most democratic forms of government that any of the convention members had personally encountered were those of Native American nations. Of particular interest was the Iroquois Confederacy, which historians have argued wielded a significant influence on the U.S. Constitution."
https://www.history.com/news/iroquois-confederacy-influence-us-constitution
Thanks for reminding us of that important perspective.
This is a full embrace of the latest Republican attempt to turn teaching history into a culture war.
It's just reality, Sandy...obviously disliked by ideology.
Stuart, As the fields covering this subject are archeology, geography, science, history and more, a small bite for 10 to 14 year olds would be fascinating. For in-depth learning, however, it is more appropriate for HS, college and graduate students.
'Geneticists now calculate, based on mutation rates in human DNA, that the ancestors of the Native Americans parted from their kin in their East Asian homeland sometime between 25,000 and 15,000 years ago—a difficult time for a great northern migration. Huge glaciers capped the mountain valleys of northeastern Asia, at the same time massive ice sheets mantled most of Canada, New England and several northern states. Indeed, reconstructions of past climate based on data preserved in ice cores from Greenland and on measurements of past global sea levels show that these ice sheets reached their maximum extent in the last glacial period between at least 22,000 and 19,000 years ago. “But these folks were extraordinarily adept at moving over the landscape,” says David Meltzer, an archaeologist at Southern Methodist University. “Their entire existence—and the existence of everyone they knew and the existence of their ancestors—was about adapting. They had a toolbox of tactics and strategies.” (First Americans, Scientific American)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-first-americans/
Of course, White settlers', soldiers', politicians', business owners', etc., relationships with Indigenous Americans is one at the defining aspects of the USA. The conflicts of White people and the 'Others' that's at least a few bibles.
'Native Americans, also known as American Indians, First Americans, Indigenous Americans and other terms, are the indigenous peoples of the United States; sometimes including Hawaii and territories of the United States, and other times limited to the mainland. There are 574 federally recognized tribes living within the US, about half of which are associated with Indian reservations. "Native Americans" (as defined by the United States Census) are indigenous tribes that are originally from the contiguous United States, along with Alaska Natives...'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States
Indeed.
For the 20,000 BC reference: "A Short History of Humanity: A New History of Old Europe", J. Krause, T. Trappe. A fascinating book on a new science-archaeogenetics. All about what genomes are telling us about immigration, among other things. Mostly about movement of peoples in Europe but they talk about the movement from the northwest into what became the Americas. " Europeans and indigenous Americans seem to have drawn a lot of their genetic material from Eastern Europe and Siberia" (P 100 Kindle). They mention in another place that for a long time European ancestors were all what we would today call "dark skinned". (Paled out later.) SO, it strikes me that the colonizing Europeans encountered, drove out and killed their own rather close genetic relatives in the indigenous peoples they found in the "new" world----"new" only to the colonizers, of course!!!! A fascinating read, accessibly written and underlining how theories about pre-written history are shifting due to new knowledge.
From memory, the only fly in that ointment is the discovery of human remains and atifacts in the Amazon Basin which effectively predated know human populations of Europe...Nearer to 40,000 BC.
Would not be surprised. The subtext of this book is that archaeogenetics is "correcting" or at least adjusting some carbon dating- based theories. I am not a scientist but I am in awe of what the DNA of.the finger or teeth or small bone fragment remains of a 40,000 year old ancestor tells us. The book is not dogmatic. It deals in the realms of scientific method and theories.
Just as we've claimed all along.
Stuart, the indigenous people of America regarded Europeans as barbarians. The phrase "many of the locals were not necessarily too shocked by their brutality if you consider the prevalence of human sacrifice in some cultures" is awfully general and broad in application. It implies something that has very limited application as if it were widespread. It was not. Keep in mind that there were thousands of indigenous cultures in the Americas, and still are hundreds.
Very true, Annie. Very much an intellectual short cut on my part as i just didn't want necessarily to emphasize the Spanish behaviour.
First time I have Ever read Anything like THIS Stuart.
THANK YOU!!!❣
The central lesson for today, imho, is that the 1619 Project is a robust and enduring endeavor and .... This letter from McConnell and his tribe will most likely never have standing in our history,, save as a footnote of grievances . So I will not be alarmed by his penmanship.
However, the efforts of southern states to dictate their beliefs upon their educational curriculum is, well, their choice. Education, and much else of life, appear to be a right of the states, and the southerners do LOVE their states’ rights! So, we have a cultural war playing out, again. Let’s see, we have the values discord playing out with differences of “Liberty and Justice for All” pertaining to women and their full freedom of liberty; LGBTQ+ and all others who identify as they desire, in their pursuit of one’s liberty; all others who do not identify as WASP - and let’s include practicing Jews and Catholics, who btw, and deemed as ‘outsiders’ by conservatives, as they pursue one's own personal liberty .....
I’ve drawn my own conclusion here, that our culture war can be reduced to understanding one’s own perspective of “Liberty and Justice For All.”
To most people alive today, wherever one is alive, “All” means no one is left behind. From wherever one’s roots are planted, “all” means “no one is left behind”. So, I suggest we include our friends who cite McConnell, the Klan, authoritarianism, and even fascism, in our collective human family. They have their right to pursue fascistic values. But the tide of justice cannot be stopped, as it is simply a force of both human nature and mother nature.
I will be happy to call out one’s fascistic values, if they do not see that “all” includes, actually, themselves and EVERY brother and sister, in this human family.
“Liberty and Justice for All"
Sure, let “southerners” teach how they like -as long as that means all adults in each state have a vote and a voice, not just a white supremacist subset.
I agree. One’s views ought to be challenged, if they are not inclusive, as well as adhering to our core principles. The right is attempting to define the very term “American” in 2021 to an outdated set of norms, established during slavery and continued throughout the Jim Crow era of the South. Tis no wonder the 1619 Project ruffles their kerfuffle!
I feel we are in a cultural struggle to define “democracy.” As Joe Biden exhibited in his recent address, liberalism is short on philosophy and morals, but long on legislation and policy. We certainly need a short-course on Locke and Montesquieu, as well as TR, FDR and JFK.
Many Republicans I have encountered recently and unfortunately, openly say that we are NOT a democracy and for them we should not be a democracy. From what I read they are pushing this in local curriculums. An example: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/07/us/usa-democracy.html
Christy, this is a telling tale of Michiganders debating the terms “republic” (conservative view) and “democracy” (liberal view).
But to me, this quote from the article is most telling:
I wanted to make sure there was a seat at the table for a conservative worldview,” Mr. Colbeck said. Colbeck is identified as a former Rep State Senator.
The fact that a local state senator speaks in terms of conservative world view tells me we have a looong road ahead to create a progressive world view, and then disseminate throughout the US. Say, 5 years, perhaps??? UNLESS, Joe Biden starts to speak in terms of a progressive worldview
Sad to say, it's not just southern states doing this sort of thing. NH's newly Republican majority in all branches of government (we actually have 4, not the typical 3-it includes the Executive Council, an advisory group to the Governor) have now passed an unconstitutional gag order forbidding ANY discussion/diversity training by pretty much ANYONE.
Catch me up. Did it pass? I thought it had gotten inserted in the budget and Sununu was threatening to veto it if they left it there.
NH does all kinds of weird things. It's a wonder it even functions, even at the low level it does. I occasionally ponder on how two adjacent states of similar size, geography, and history can be so different from each other. It probably makes a difference that VT was an independent Republic for 10 years (while NY and NH each claimed it), but NH prior to 1776 was a Mass county run pretty much by self-serving governors. Sometimes things don't change much.
You're so right. I've lived here all my life and it just feels like we can never get anything done with our overly huge state legislature which tends to be majority GOP most sessions. When you don't pay your state legislators anything to speak of, who you gonna get? Old white guys who want to maintain the status quo from a couple centuries ago.
:(
This thought has been ringing in my head for a few years now: the dilemma of the nation is just how to allow both Liberty and Justice for All! I tend toward justice, others tend toward liberty - and you have hit a nail on the head here.
The radical right has a notion of "liberty" as meaning their personal and collective right to do whatever they want, no matter how it may infringe on or harm the life or dignity of anyone else. "Religious liberty" is therefore their right to impose their religious choices on everyone else - be that insisting that states can make abortions illegal, or insisting that states cannot impose public health measures that treat religious gatherings the same as other gatherings.
I feel we need to call out this fascistic notion. What else would we do, Joan? But we need to name it for what it is - a hierarchical attempt to force a religious on others. A major tenet of America, and democracy, is ... freedom of religion.
I feel is vital to label the right’s attempt to force a view or morality as what is is - fascistic.
As a practical matter, I don't know, other than public discussion and supporting expansion of the Supreme Court.
The settlers of at least some of the original English colonies made the trip in order to be the ones in charge of establishing religion. There were multiple religions in the colonies, and eventually they agreed to leave each other in peace. One of the clear virtues of the writers of the Declaration and the Constitution (with Bill of Rights) is that they made it clear that religion is NOT the business of government...
Well, a bit more nuanced than that, I think, but I agree. It was actually more a desire to protect religion in general (and the right to choose not to be a believer), by keeping any religion or sect from establishing itself as a state religion. Fewer wars that way, and more attention paid to what they thought was the real provence of government: enabling acquisition of wealth.
I’m interested in hearing more, Margaret The Artist, as to how this phrase rings for you.
The two are wedded, to me, simply because they are a part of our “Pledge”. Here’s a bit more about "Liberty and Justice for All"
from Wikipedia:
"Included in our nation's Pledge of Allegiance, the phrase is supposed to represent the idea that each citizen is equal under the law. It represents the concept that every American is free and not to be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” as indicated in our Bill of Rights”
I’ve long felt that this statement ought to be a core tenet of progressivism. The fact that it is from our “Pledge” to our democracy elevates the phrase to a moral certitude, if in this country there ever would be one.
Oh yes! They *should* be wedded and working as a team, the two concepts supporting and balancing society. It seems that in our current polarized country, the two are bifurcated. Divorced. One side screaming about their liberty, the other crying for justice. 2020 in a nutshell. I am hoping Biden can bring us back in balance. Some more tidbits about that pledge (love the juxtaposition of the Christian Socialist celebrating Columbus Day):
Pledge Timeline
September 9, 1892: The pledge is introduced in the magazine The Youth’s Companion as part of a program to celebrate Columbus Day in schools across the country. The words were written by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister and Christian Socialist, and read: "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation indivisible with Liberty and Justice for all."
June 14, 1923: The National Flag Conference, sponsored by the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution, changes "my Flag" to "the flag of the United States of America," in part to ensure that recent immigrants had the US flag in mind and not the flag of their nation of origin.
June 22, 1942: Congress formally recognizes the pledge and includes it in the federal Flag Code.
December 22, 1942: Congress changes the official manner of delivery to placing the right hand over the heart; the previous stance, one hand extended from the body, was too reminiscent of the Nazi salute. The "Bellamy Salute" had directed that "the right hand is extended gracefully, palm upward, toward the Flag."
June 14, 1954: President Eisenhower approves the congressional resolution adding the words "under God" to the pledge. The Knights of Columbus and other groups, as well as Eisenhower himself, had lobbied for the change.
So glad you included the history of the "pledge", the wording of which was originally very different. The so-called "flag code" is not a legal thing, btw: merely an advisory thing. It has no legal ramifications. You can salute or not, say the pledge or not. As a Quaker, I do neither (though I stand in respect to the people I am with if the circumstances are formal). The pledge is not one of our founding documents, and should not be confounded with them. It is about a piece of cloth that is a symbol with varying meanings to different people.
Hello Frederick, hope all's well with you and years. We haven't heard much from you in a while.
Greetings TPJ. Thanks for the vibe. Yes, the “Mrs” and I took time to pack-out of our winter rental, and then a week to drive across our plains and byways. And I simply don’t have the energy to engage here in much dialogue, but I find my two cents on occasion to share my opinion.
I love "hope all's well with you and years." I celebrate years every day.
"Yours" of course. Are you a retired teacher, Andrea?
I'd edit the original, but don't want to lose the Likes that my ego relishes.
Retired two years ago, finally.
Gotcha!
Oh no, I suppose that Frederick appreciates the malapropism, as do I.
Oooo, a looming culture war: Malapropism vs. Autocorrect. That is all my dyslexic brain needs to work on!
Quickly looking up the definition of "malapropism." Ahh yes, I have done such myself enough times. I took on a new editor for my writings.
I love malapropisms for what they are, or what they aren’t, even
Frederick, I should have read this before I posted. You say here exactly what my brain and heart believe. Thank you!
Little did we know during our elementary school years that, at the beginning of each day, how powerful that recitation would ring decades later
It's not just Southern states. Here in NH, and in many other states where Republicans control state government, there are bills moving forward that will make the teaching of anything "controversial" illegal in public schools. If the First Amendment is to mean anything, those laws cannot stand. Given the Trump/McConnell court-packing schemes, though, I'm not sure the First will survive this onslaught.
Gregory Woolleyjust now
Gregory Woolleyjust now
Given how Conservative pundits like Senator Kennedy are saying, on one hand, that "The government and the people are two different things", on the other hand, they're saying that "big businesses are people", it's little wonder that "American pride has plummeted to its lowest level in 20 years", while big business is booming.
That is why I liked when Biden said that "the government is us, you and I." I hope people caught that, because to me it's true.
He hammered it!!
May I quote you Gregory?!
Absolutely.
This is frustrating to the point of anger! OMG!! Lie, Gas Light and now rewrite history.Let us put into our written history how these traitors continue to try and blur the historical record of our nation and change the perspective on what they are actually doing right now. This fight is endless but we cannot let them win.
Oh, lordy! Now the education of young minds is politicised. "Give me a child when they are 6" I guess a future generation of unquestioning Republicans is the aim. That it should be wrapped up in such blatantly false argument - forgive me while I vomit...
Education of young’s minds has always been politicized.
This is a full embrace of the latest Republican attempt to turn teaching history into a culture war.
Yes, the Trumpublicans are turning up the politicization of young minds. But education has always been politicized.
Educated in Maryland public schools, slavery was taught in a mundane, matter of fact part of history... minus the details about how brutal it was. That was politicized history classes, brutality was deemed unimportant, it was deemed unnecessary to shaping young minds. That changed in 9th grade with an amazing civics teacher who taught outside the box. Lucky for me, he transferred to my high school and I was in his class again in 11th grade along with more lesser known history facts.
Pure GOP racism is Trump. Democrats were no better. Worse for decades. Guilt of racist whites inspires logical expectations and all sorts of issues and stuff. Bedt case This process will take generations and patience. No excuse or justification for the passive white idiot savant of American history peddling the best facts on Substack when Q and A might inspire just behavior and constructive embarrassment.
The nuns in my Catholic school taught me very well to be "unquestioning." It has haunted me to this day. Thankfully, having discovered Letters from an American and all the subscribers with their comments, I am starting to break free. Thanks, Constantine.
I have a friend who was thoroughly beaten regularly - and with some pleasure - by the Dominican Brothers. This not only turned him against Catholicism, but *all* organised religion!
Hey, Constantine. I myself switched to Heathen. All that's required is that I do unto others as I would have them do unto me. Vicious, I know.
Heathens' Herd
Indeed, TPJ!
I can only imagine the costs of Catholic education.
This was the late fifties/early sixties. My mother was left a widow when I was only 4 years old. She thought her daughters would be "safe" in a Catholic school while she was at work. I was never aware of what it cost or how she paid for it. We were not wealthy, that I know!
I was actually referring to the costs to the recipients of Catholic education, but your point is valid as well. I have no clue what the tuition is these days, but I do know that the family I mentioned below do not have all the toys that many of their peers do...
And, their kids play sports, take music lessons, and serve as altar boys.
Many of my LEO friends are sending their kids to the Catholic private school(s) here in Eugene (they have been open fully the entire school year of 20-21). The only ones that I know of that are Catholic are raising their three boys in the church as well as the school system... (their Mom, who married one of the kids who was a law enforcement explorer and is now the acting Captain of the patrol division, was a graduate of the local Catholic HS that I met when she was the catcher for their softball team 30 years ago.) I think it is equal parts conservatism and contravention of pandemic policies on most of their parts.
And yet, Catholics aside, folks in the Eugene area have elected some fine, dedicated progressive Dems to the state legislature.
Don't know what they're up to these days, Ally, as I have been a card-carrying heathen ever since those days! All around the barn to say they are very effective at suppressing independent thinking.
That's so brutal. And unnecessary - in fact counter-productive.
I had a Catholic education in the Fifties and Sixties. There was certainly a fair amount of indoctrination in my primary years, but the nuns who taught me and priests who put up with me as an altar boy all had my best interests at heart. In fact (embarrassing), my first crush (age 10) was on my Grade 8 teacher - Sister Josephine. She herself was 21 at the time I found out later and went on to become Mother Superior.
Secondary school coincided with the volatile part of the Sixties. I had numerous teachers who encouraged us to think for ourselves. Catholicism was never questioned, but neither did I ever feel it was rammed down my throat.
Twenty years later I found out some of the horrors committed by Catholic priests and nuns in indigenous residential schools - a chamber of horrors in Canada - as well as in parishes. It stunned me. I had shifted away from Catholicism as it didn't seem rational to believe in God. But because I had enjoyed a happy childhood, I was left deeply at odds with the incongruities I now faced. I think it's where I first really internalized how human beings can be so deeply repugnant and evil and at the same time can rise to the noblest heights. Sometimes it can be embodied in a single individual.
The Church has so much to answer for. Yet I still wish I had the stirrings of belief in me. I'd go back.
I lived in and around a Catholic nunnery (Missionaries of Charity) for 6 months as a full time AIDS volunteer. The sisters had opened up their house/convent as an HIV/AIDS hospice.
I came to love the dedication to service that I saw embodied not just by the nuns, but by the congregation who gave of their time to support the work.
At the same time, I saw firsthand the terrible price that their strict belief system/personal unfinished childhood trauma unleashed on deserving men who didn't deserve to die. It was a stark contrast in opposites and has left indelible memories with me.
Most 'service' organizations do more harm than good, the Catholic Church is among them.
Your experience was a mixture of empathy and enmity, Stephen. Hard to reconcile, for sure.
The world reaction to AIDS was unconscionable. We are always a hair’s breadth away from lapsing into the comfort of a morality play. Group think is so safe and so devastating for those the group turns on. The AIDS crisis was, in the truest sense of the word, a shaming period for humanity.
As for the Catholic Church, it has represented both the excesses of sin and the shining example of redemption with equal favor over the centuries. Rarely within the same person unfortunately.
I would say that the excesses of sin and the shining morality exist in all of us. It takes a saint to allow predominance of one over the other.
Eric, 20 years later notwithstanding, it sounds like yours was a more balanced experience, which is good!
Too bad those nuns weren't influenced by some Jesuit priests! They are encouraged to question everything. Luckily my brother was going to Gonzaga University while I was attending my all girl catholic high school. He lived at home his sophomore year & he challenged our mother's blind faith a lot!
Funny thing, our mother went back to school years later & got her BSRN from GU but to this day has blind faith. Not so much her 8 kids....well maybe 1 of my brothers.
My cousin went to Gonzaga, BetsyC. I guess some of us were/are more susceptible to indoctrination than others?
White supremacist objections to better education for non-elite children go back a long way in this country. There was a new round of it as part of the “movement conservative” takeover, under the false as usual label of ‘teacher responsibility.’ Load the teachers with paperwork and the students with standardized tests, to cut down on time for teaching critical thinking.
Yes.
It's an attempt to UN-politicise the education of our young.
I realise that - but the GOP want to make the understanding of history according to *their* "values"
White, slave-holding men created the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and our system of government. Should we simply erase them all from history because they are now viewed as morally reprehensible? Or would it be the role of history to contend with these contradictory facts? Perhaps Barack Obama will be erased in due time because of the drone program, or his own expulsion of refugees? Is the role of history to teach history in all its conflicting parts, or is it a tool for societal manipulation? I'm not interested in a dismantling of history anymore than I'm interested in a mythical lie. History should move us, it should reveal the people, places and events that are crucial to understanding the scope of the nation and our own place in it. It should no more shy away from terrible decisions and events, then it does the important victories. In other words, stop using children as political pawns, and start opening their minds to our rich and ugly and beautiful and heartwrenching and joyous past. Because it is not just one story, it's all of them.
Pointing out their beliefs and backdrop for their blueprint is not erasure, it is illumination. It is truly ALL of the stories that need to be told, and in context.
Exactly, the same old GOP trick of trying to make it either or instead of all!
Well said, Mister.
Well said. Shine a light on it all.
I am concerned by this: "The department is proposing two priorities to reach low-income students and underserved populations. The Republicans object to the one that encourages “projects that incorporate racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse perspectives into teaching and learning.”'
The department should be concerned about reaching ALL communities because it is imperative that we teach ALL communities about white privilege and systemic racism. Otherwise, predominantly "white" communities will continue believing the myth of America: that "white is right." I'm convinced that lifting "racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse perspectives" alone will not tackle systemic racism. We must also teach that whiteness is a social construct tied to power and keeping power. More and more schools are hiring DEI directors but it will continue serving as a "feel good" fix until we are also willing to voice the reality of White Supremacy and all that that means. Let's do both at the same time!
What is a DEI director? Not familiar with that term.
Thanks
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. My apologies.
“Diversity, Equity and Inclusion”
Listening to the podcast, 'Nice White Parents', was revealing. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nice-white-parents/id1524080195
Lily whiteness is blinding. That is the intention of McMurderer and his klan...to distort history. Yes, they want to keep people of color in “their place”. God forbid they should become scholars, historians, leaders. Again, the white hoods are in full view. We must burn the old history books and rewrite/ teach the truth about how and when slavery came about. How a despicable man became a Russian operative and stole an election from a qualified woman. How white scum attacked the Capitol’s sacred grounds and how seditionists are in powerful roles in Congress.
Recently, one of our forum members asked Dr. Richardson to address the 1619 Project. She offered no information, but she prompted me to do some research on Project 1619. I discovered that despite the loud aggressive attacks on the project, I support the endeavor. Authors of the project have tweaked the preliminary report in response to some critiques, but they have maintained strong conviction in their project with regard to America's future methods of honoring the truth of our real history. I delighted in Hannah-Jones' retort to Mike Pomeo.
Dr. Richardson reports that : Then–Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted that multiculturalism [is]... not who America is.” It “distort[s] our glorious founding and what this country is all about.” Hannah-Jones retorted: "When you say that multiculturalism is 'not who America is' and 'distorts our glorious founding' you unwittingly confirm the argument of the 1619 Project: That though we were ... a multiracial nation from our founding, our founders set forth a government of white rule. Cool."
There will more than likely be more developments to this story.
This is a full embrace of the latest Republican attempt to turn teaching history into a culture war.
Here is how Nikole Hannah-Jones starts the 1619 journey: "My dad always flew an American flag in our front yard. The blue paint on our two-story house was perennially chipping; the fence, or the rail by the stairs, or the front door, existed in a perpetual state of disrepair, but that flag always flew pristine. Our corner lot, which had been redlined by the federal government, was along the river that divided the black side from the white side of our Iowa town. At the edge of our lawn, high on an aluminum pole, soared the flag, which my dad would replace as soon as it showed the slightest tatter."
Having listened to all 5 podcasts, I cannot say everything in it is fact. But what it portrays is enough for me.