Category: history

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Slavery isn’t the primary problem, I have with the founding fathers. As apologists for the founding fathers have pointed out numerous times, slavery has been around since the dawn of civilization. They behaved just like every other winning civilization when given the opportunity to take advantage of free labor. They took it.

And if we could stop here with the Founding Fathers, I would be OK with that. But there is more to the story.

The African slave traders who sold their fellow Africans into slavery didn’t say that all men were created equal. The Founding Fathers did. This created a number of problems for them. First, how do you explain taking land from a native population and African slavery. I mean, if all men are created equal. There has to be a good explanation and that explanation was racism. These people were less than the European settlers. The African and the Native American were robbed of their humanity — their equality with their fellow men.

The African slave trader was involved in a money making operation with no regards to the humans they captured. They didn’t write the Declaration of Independence. They didn’t write of noble ideas about how men should behave and what the future would look like when men could elect their own government and thus determine their fates. The Founding Fathers, however, did.

This difference caused an expository problem. If all men were created equal, what of the Native American and the African slave. How can all men be equal given the treatment of these non-European peoples. The answer was they are savages. They are less than the White European, that Whites were superior to everyone else. The superior race deserved to run the show.

This sentiment is a much more damaging idea. It turns an unfortunate prisoner of war into less than a human. It poisoned the White population into believing they were better than everyone else so that when the Civil War ended — the slaves might be free but an ideology of racism still existed. Many Whites still believed they were better than Blacks and Native Americans. Treating them differently was OK because they were inferior beings.

But why do we have to dwell on that. Why not just look at the noble ideas and forget the racism. The noble ideas, after all, are what is important. Well, yes, to a degree this is true but we are also teaching children about the past. The Civil War, Civil Rights and the Settlers expansion into Native American Territories are very much a part of this history.

If you don’t give the context of racism, how do those events make any sense?

Noble ideas are starting points in history. This is what we want the world to look like. But, as with all human institutions, the Founding Fathers failed to live up to all of these noble ideas. We do not live in a perfect world and never will. Indeed, we all, even to this day, could do better and this isn’t such a bad idea to leave children with – we can do better.

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The continuing debate regarding slavery and the Civil war is baffling to me. There is this faux confusion about why slavery is such a big deal. A good example of this odious opinion can be found in Jason L. Riley’s post in the City Journal. He makes two contentions regarding slavery in USA.

The first is that slavery was pervasive all over the world so why should the American version be seen as evil while every other country gets off the hook. Riley ignores the racist defense of slavery which justified the enslavement of Blacks but also persisted long after the Civil War ended. There was big difference between Roman slavery and American slavery. For most other countries who engaged in slavery, the slaves came from the defeated population after the end of wars. It was just bad luck that the losing side became slaves to the winning side.

Americans, on the other hand, and probably because it was a glaring contradiction with American values, justified slavery with the pernicious view that Blacks were racially inferior to Whites and thus their subordination was justified. It is the only way someone can understand why the subordination of Black people continued after the Civil War. White Discrimination, then, limited Black progress for, at least, 100 years following the Civil War and, sadly, even today, some Whites cling to this racist ideology.

Furthermore, particularly for conservatives who liked to sing the praises of American Exceptionalism, saying that everyone is doing it has all the moral weight of a teenager caught with a can of beer. So what if everyone was doing it? The question pertinent to American History is why did some of our forefathers have slaves. It doesn’t really matter that some African Blacks sold other African Blacks into slavery. Yes, it was wrong of them but their history isn’t what we are looking at. We are looking at American History. It was Americans who thought that these African Blacks were the equivalent of cattle and hogs and so there was nothing wrong with making them slaves.

Then there is Riley’s contention that slavery did very little to the advancement of American Capitalism which, OK, maybe but it hardly matters when Southerners, both slave owner and non-slave owner, believed that the continuation of slavery was vital to the economy of the South. They believed it so strongly that they were willing to defend slavery with their lives. They were willing to break the country in two to defend it. They thought their way of life was under attack. The percentage of GNP that slavery brought to pre-Civil War America seems a irrelevant to understanding the actual conflict.

The reason that Riley is confused about American Slavery being such a big deal is that he overlooks racism. The reason that Conservatives won’t look at racism is that it would involve some uncomfortable discoveries. The painful truth is that White people, either actively or passively, treated Black people badly for quite a long period in American History. It is painful to think that great Grandfather and Grandmother weren’t such good people. They had flaws. They really didn’t represent American ideals. On the other hand, it would certainly make such landmark events like the Civil War much more comprehensible to people like Riley if he introduced racism to the conversation. and, after all, isn’t understanding our history what learning is all about.

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One of the historical debates I remember in school was why did so many German Jews stay when they could see what Hitler was doing. Wasn’t the coming Holocaust obvious to them? Of course, anyone living after post-World War II know this but how could someone living at the time know it. No one until World War II could imagine such a horror as happening. Now, however, the world remembers the Holocaust as an example of how things can go terribly wrong with Facism and Nationalism. So much so that it taints every reference to Facism/Nationalism. People could end in concentration camps if this goes on much longer. Unlikely but still has to be seriously considered given our knowledge of history.

I am thinking about this now because friends recently discussed leaving the country because of Donald Trump. I am not talking about Ellen Degeneres or Rosie O’Donnell either. People I know. And my first thoughts were why on Earth would they leave the country. Things just aren’t that bad. But, because Donald Trump is Donald Trump, I have to question myself — what if I am wrong?

The key to getting out is to leave before it gets too bad. It is best to leave while you can still get your money out and other countries are accepting political refugees, before the madness turns from you are a terrible person to you are so terrible that deserves to die. So, because I am Gay and stand very near to people Trump hates, I need to assess the situation. There must be some sweet spot between leaving too soon and leaving too late. Right now I still have a great deal of hope and I am not particularly worried.

I just can’t imagine my neighbors sitting idly by while I get sent to a concentration camp. Even the ones that voted for Trump would raise the alarm and, so far, I think I am right. Every Trump outrage has been met with some resistance and, while under tremendous strain, Democratic institutions are functioning as they should. It doesn’t mean that this won’t change.

Trump is arresting immigrants and shipping them off to foreign country jails without due process. There are people who argue that potential immigrants don’t deserve due process because they aren’t citizens and therefore are denied the Constitutional
Rights Americans have to prevent autocratic rule breaking. The vast majority of Republicans seems to be willing to go along with this in order to stay in power. So we have a bully with a strong authoritarian streak we need to keep our eyes on.

Right now this all seems manageable but I continue to have this nagging feeling of what if I am wrong. The problem with Trump isn’t the man but his voters. I honestly can see what people see in him. All I see is a buffoon, a clown unworthy of his office. I didn’t think he would be elected president and yet he was which means I am missing something really important about his voters.

I clearly don’t understand them, their grievances or their anger. This is what scares me then. Maybe I am so out of touch that I am misunderstanding all the signals which are telling me to leave. Again, I don’t think so but it is a gamble on my part which makes me think I might end up like the German Jews who staid because they thought things would get better. Am I blinding myself to the obvious and keeping my sunny disposition about the future here in America because I can’t see what everyone else is seeing? Does this mean I will end up on a train car to Auschwitz?

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Donald Trump thinks that Abraham Lincoln mishandled the Civil War. He should have tried more peaceful methods to end the conflict in order to avoid avoid the 600,000 deaths the war caused.

Wow. That is just gobsmackingly arrogant and stupid even for a man who is known for being gobsmackingly arrogant and stupid.

When someone talks like this, it gives me the impression that he has thought long and hard about the Civil War and that, through his study of the war, he saw some alternate peaceful approaches that Lincoln missed in 1860. Well, Donald tell me more. Trump is, after all calling into question the actions of the most esteemed president in American History regarding the pivotal issue of his presidency — the very issue that most people think makes Lincoln great. It requires a thorough explanation of Trump’s reasoning in order to understand how Lincoln erred so badly in his decisions.

Unsurprisingly, Trump just leaves it at that — Lincoln could have done better. Which leads to a different impression of what Trump said. Mostly that he doesn’t know a God damn thing about the Civil War and has no business expressing opinions about it.

The Lincoln of 1860 was quite willing to let the South keep their slaves. He drew the line at expanding slavery to any territory wanting to join the USA. He wasn’t seen as a hardcore abolitionist and was willing to do anything — including selling out the slaves — to keep the Union together. Something that many modern historians rightfully are critical of. What more could he have done to peacefully end the conflict? Particularly after the South attacked Fort Sumter which started the war. Yes, the South started the Civil War. Not Lincoln.

The most terrifying thing about Trump is that he is both painfully ignorant and he has his finger on the button that could send nuclear missiles flying through the air. He, facing his own divided country, delights in antagonizing his political opponents to such a degree that people are talking about a new civil war. Well, if Trump wants to show how to bring peace to a divided country he now has an opportunity to show it. Let Trump heal the divisions plaguing our country now.

Trump criticizing Lincoln. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

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Heather MacDonald writes that Donald Trump took “the most important step it can to restore meritocracy. to American society” by eliminating disparate-impact. When exactly was there a meritocracy in the United States? Certainly no time before 1964 when discrimination against people of color and women was legal. Not directly after the passage of Civil Rights laws in 1964 when White resistance to the new laws was so fierce it required the implementation of Affirmative Action in order to ensure that Whites complied with the new law. Since MacDonald finds any tool that aids people of color a boost is an affront to meritocracy, it certainly isn’t the recent past So MacDonald needs to identify the golden age of meritocracy in USA because from the evidence I can see, there never has been a meritocracy.

MacDonald glosses over 200 years of American History. She assumes that the 1964 Civil Rights ended discrimination and nothing more needed to be done. For her racial prejudice is obvious, racists are obnoxious assholes in a Ku Klux Klan robe screaming the N word. It certainly couldn’t be nice middle class whites who hire employees or admit students to Ivy League colleges. They wouldn’t be caught dead in a Ku Klux Klan robe, so how could they be prejudiced.

The advantage of the public bigots is that they are easy to identify. The problem is the more prevalent form of racism that Blacks encounter is from polite and powerful White who, just the same, might be disinclined to hire someone different from them. They don’t say we are picking a White over a Black. They know the game. They say that the White guy is just more qualified for the job than the Black guy. For this reason, discrimination is difficult to prove. This is the barrier that Blacks face. MacDonald doesn’t appear to be bothered much by this more subtle form of racism or even acknowledge that it might exist.

Disparate-impact was one of the tools that the government used to show discrimination. If an employer has never hired Blacks, year after year, in a community where the population is 25% Black, then the government can see that there might be a problem with discrimination in hiring. Without disparate impact, how does MacDonald propose to identify non-compliant businesses and schools?

She doesn’t. She views discrimination as a phantom problem that doesn’t occur any more so there is no reason to investigate. People are only looking for the best – Black, White, Man, Woman. Race and Gender don’t matter only quality. Well, maybe, but how do we know this is happening unless we evaluate?

Finally, for the record, there will never be a meritocracy as long as rich families hand over their businesses to their children. It is never going to happen as long as some people have connections and others don’t. It never is going to happen as long as people with money can buy their children’s ways into universities. It never is going to happen when White middle class people can avoid “bad” school districts. It never is going to happen as long as poor Black children are given a second rate educations while White middle class children are given a first rate one.

How does MacDonald feel about those problems? Until she addresses them, I don’t believe that she gives a damn about meritocracy.