This kind of historical revisionism needs to be loudly denounced at every opportunity. There is nothing honorable about a nation sticking its fingers in its ears saying “la la la la I can’t hear...
Exemplary
This kind of historical revisionism needs to be loudly denounced at every opportunity. There is nothing honorable about a nation sticking its fingers in its ears saying “la la la la I can’t hear you” about the documented, indisputable historical record. Likewise it should be considered a giant fucking red flag when the government’s official policy is to deliberately refuse to learn from the mistakes of the past, by stubbornly denying they ever happened.
Also, can we just acknowledge that this administration’s goal is openly stated as the eradication of liberal thought? They use condescending, alienating phrases like “woke insanity” and “lunatic fringe” but that’s literally just code for “not conservative.” Their posture is that if you do not think exactly like them, it’s not just a matter of political disagreement or differing values— no, to them your voice does not deserve a place in American discourse. To them you aren’t worth a moment’s consideration. You aren’t a constituent, you’re nothing. To them the only place for a liberal is in the crosshairs of derision and mockery.
I don’t recall a time in my lifetime when politicians were this actively hostile toward the other side. They would always use phrases like “we have our differences of opinion” but generally treat the opposing party with civility. Now, if you’re not MAGA you are the enemy. Not just the enemy of the Republican Party, but the enemy of America. There is no room for bipartisanship or dissent.
I wasn’t around for McCarthyism so I don’t know what it felt like in that moment, but it always seemed strange to me that the official position of the United States government was the demonization of people with a particular political ideology. In short, thoughtcrime. Well, this is that all over again but the target (“wokeism”) is broader and more poorly defined, and includes a higher percentage of the country’s population, and it’s accompanied by the biggest undemocratic power grab in plain sight that the country has ever seen. It’s a brazen steamrolling of anyone who doesn’t fall in line.
America used to be a melting pot, a tapestry of pluralism. There was room for everyone here. That devolved to “America: Love it or leave it.” Where we’re at now is even further down that road… if the administration doesn’t like you, you have no protections. They will (as official actions of the U.S. federal government) bully and publicly humiliate you. They will strategically silence and disenfranchise you. They will use every tool in their toolbelt (and many that aren’t) to starve you of whatever funding you have. They will deport you to a country you’ve never been to or send you to a hellish prison even though you were in the country legally and committed no crime. They don’t give a fuck.
It feels extreme to type these things. It’s like something out of a dystopian YA novel, but it’s literally, unexaggeratedly, what is happening right now. And it doesn’t feel like there are many people pointing it out for what it is.
And I’m baffled how any Americans can be living through this and cheer it on. The doublethink is astronomical. In what tradition or culture or ethical framework is any of this considered a good thing for a nation to do, let alone all of it? How can any thinking person still be on Trump’s side?
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the notion that The United States has truly been a "tapestry of pluralism" ... is just not supported by its own historical record. The nation was founded...
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the notion that The United States has truly been a "tapestry of pluralism" ... is just not supported by its own historical record. The nation was founded by slaveholders, for slaveholders. We were not among the first European nations to criminalize slavery, and when we did, it was only the import of slaves. Black Americans have only had the ability to attend integrated colleges for two generations. Two.
McCarthyism was not long ago. It is not the product of some bygone age. The kind of rank racism and hatred that birthed McCarthyism is still going strong in US politics to this day. It never went away. It barely even went undercover. Look up what Reagan's policies and views were and tell me they weren't just a continuation of McCarthyism.
If you're a white American male, particularly one fitting the stereotypically cis-hetero archetype, and if you're some flavor of Protestant Christian ... you've probably never really been affected by the ways that the US treats anyone else. That was the case for me, for most of my life. But if you're anything outside of that narrow demographic, then your experience in this country has been very, very different. Particularly if you're Black.
As for how Americans can be living through this and cheer it on? That part's easy. It's the same reason they've always been cheering it on. Because there's a significant - not a majority per se, but still significant - chunk of the population that agrees with the racism, because they are racist. The Klan never went away. Neither did the Nazis - in fact, the USA not only imported many, many Nazis from Germany after WW2, but things like Jim Crow laws and "The Trail of Tears" directly influenced and led to Nazi thought.
What we're seeing now, is what generations of non-white Americans have been experiencing for generations. Just, now it's starting to affect some white people too.
I’ve been watching some old tv shows from the 1960s-1980s recently and I notice there are quite a few plots that involve right wing characters who do or say things that would exactly fit in with...
I’ve been watching some old tv shows from the 1960s-1980s recently and I notice there are quite a few plots that involve right wing characters who do or say things that would exactly fit in with current republicans. This is fiction but definitely reflects society at the time
Probably the same kind of people who lived through and cheered on African chattel slavery Irish race riots Jim Crow laws the Chinese Exclusion Act Japanese Internment Camps not allowing women to...
And I’m baffled how any Americans can be living through this and cheer it on.
Probably the same kind of people who lived through and cheered on
African chattel slavery
Irish race riots
Jim Crow laws
the Chinese Exclusion Act
Japanese Internment Camps
not allowing women to vote until 1920
the betrayal and massacre of the filipino independence army
STILL having multiple colonies
...and plenty more
in other words, the average American of voting age throughout history.
Some years ago, I was searching for something completely unrelated on the Internet. I don't even remember what anymore, but eventually I came across something that looked like a very old...
Some years ago, I was searching for something completely unrelated on the Internet. I don't even remember what anymore, but eventually I came across something that looked like a very old restaurant menu. At least, the format resembled it.
I looked a bit closer and saw that it rather was a card of people to be sold. Their characterises, gender, age... and the initial auction price for their lives. Just like food on a menu on a restaurant, that's what it was. Selling objects. Just a business to be performed, I guess. For all I know some of the children, which were on the lower part of the 'menu', were the children of the mother on that same piece of paper higher up.
I don't think I'll ever forget that picture. Despite it not being the most graphic, or emotional 'testimony' of the horrors of slavery, it really showed to me in a deeper way how people were treated as an object.
In what looks to be an intensifying quest to reshape American history and scholarship according to his own preferences, President Donald Trump this week targeted the Smithsonian Institution, the national repository of American history and memory. Trump seemed outraged, in particular, by the Smithsonian’s portrayal of the Black experience in America. He took to Truth Social to complain that the country’s museums “are, essentially, the last remaining segment of ‘WOKE.’ The Smithsonian,” he wrote, “is OUT OF CONTROL.” Then Trump wrote something astonishing, even for him. He asserted that the narrative presented by the Smithsonian is overly focused on “how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been.”
I think the media has gotten caught up in a misread of Trump's comment, or maybe it's better described as a convenient ambiguity borne from his ineloquence. I don't think he was trying to say it...
I think the media has gotten caught up in a misread of Trump's comment, or maybe it's better described as a convenient ambiguity borne from his ineloquence. I don't think he was trying to say it wasn't as horrific as everyone makes it out to be... although he quite likely has no real appreciation of it, because I'm confident he's never cared to learn. I believe he was basically an expressing what he would call a positive mindset - he doesn't want any display or talk about negativity in relation to America because We're #1!TM.
All of this is a distraction tactic anyway. He was throwing everything at the wall to get people off his back about the Epstein files, and this and the "taking back DC" talk finally stuck. This man's lunacy is nothing new; we shouldn't prioritize wasting time unraveling his rigmarole - that's just taking his bait.
I agree we don't need to pick apart the tangle of his stupidity but he clearly thinks that we shouldn't talk so much about slavery, and clearly does not include the triumphs of Black (and other...
I agree we don't need to pick apart the tangle of his stupidity but he clearly thinks that we shouldn't talk so much about slavery, and clearly does not include the triumphs of Black (and other "DEI") Americans in his complaints about not celebrating success, because that's just "wokeness."
This is a man that rigged the results of a reality show so he wouldn't have to have a black man win, except he called that man the n word. We don't need to spend an ounce of time defending him or trying to sanewash his ramblings.
The National Museum of the American Latino characterizes the Texas Revolution as a “massive defense of slavery waged by ‘white Anglo Saxon’ settlers against anti-slavery Mexicans fighting for freedom, not a Texan war of independence from Mexico,” and frames the Mexican-American War as “the North American invasion” that was “unprovoked and motivated by pro-slavery politicians
And
The American History Museum’s exhibit about Benjamin Franklin focuses almost solely on slavery, directing visitors to learn more about his “electrical experiments and the enslaved people of his household,” noting his “scientific accomplishments were enabled by the social and economic system he worked within.”
We don't need to try to defend him. He's racist, surrounded by racists and wants to erase the horrors of slavery and the reckoning America has often barely tried to have with that history. Even in just these two examples he wants to deny the impact that "wanting to have slaves" and enslaving people has had on our history.
From Wikipedia on the above topics, emphasis mine
"Mexico had officially abolished slavery in Texas in 1829, and the desire of Anglo Texans to maintain the institution of chattel slavery in Texas was also a major cause of secession,[2][3][4][5][6] although slavery is never mentioned implicitly or explicitly in the Declaration of Independence of Texas.[7] Colonists and Tejanos disagreed on whether the ultimate goal was independence or a return to the Mexican Constitution of 1824."
And
"In his early years, Franklin owned seven slaves, including two men who worked in his household and his shop, but in his later years became an adherent of abolition.[7][259] A revenue stream for his newspaper was paid ads for the sale of slaves and for the capture of runaway slaves and Franklin allowed the sale of slaves in his general store. He later became an outspoken critic of slavery."
Which IMO reads like a defense of him rather than history. I suspect the Smithsonian is quite well sourced. Also the links in the White House propaganda are from The Federalist what looks like mostly the same article. So meh. Propaganda.
The Texas thing isn't talked about enough and is usually brushed off. The Anglo Texans initially began to move in from the US to Mexican territory during a period where Mexico opened its...
The Texas thing isn't talked about enough and is usually brushed off.
The Anglo Texans initially began to move in from the US to Mexican territory during a period where Mexico opened its immigration policy up and encouraged it.
Anglo Texans rampantly violated laws and practiced slavery, which was already illegal.
Mexico closed down immigration from the US, and Anglos continued to illegally immigrate, eventually starting a war of secession.
After capturing the president of Mexico and forcing him to sign a treaty, the "Texians" drafted a constitution for Texas that 1) prohibited the government from restricting slavery 2) prohibited the freeing of slaves and 3) required free people of African descent to leave Texas.
All in all, it's the usual pattern of settler-based annexation, with slavery as the motivating factor.
I also like to point out that Mexico is a collection of regions with pre-Columbian indigenous cultures, and the southern border is, once again, just Anglos drawing a line and pushing Native Americans over it.
Fully agreed. Drawing lines on maps and putting flags in them is, apparently, my culture. Alas. But it's frustrating how easy it is to erase slavery from the narrative as if millions of Black...
I also like to point out that Mexico is a collection of regions with pre-Columbian indigenous cultures, and the southern border is, once again, just Anglos drawing a line and pushing Native Americans over it.
Fully agreed. Drawing lines on maps and putting flags in them is, apparently, my culture. Alas.
But it's frustrating how easy it is to erase slavery from the narrative as if millions of Black Americans just appeared here, somehow magically without coming through "Ellis Island" or equivalent, and no further questions need to be asked, no history is missing, and no one, even the Confederacy, used a desire to enslave people as the purpose for anything.
(We still don't grapple with the extreme prevalence of sexual assault against enslaved people either. Ugh)
This kind of historical revisionism needs to be loudly denounced at every opportunity. There is nothing honorable about a nation sticking its fingers in its ears saying “la la la la I can’t hear you” about the documented, indisputable historical record. Likewise it should be considered a giant fucking red flag when the government’s official policy is to deliberately refuse to learn from the mistakes of the past, by stubbornly denying they ever happened.
Also, can we just acknowledge that this administration’s goal is openly stated as the eradication of liberal thought? They use condescending, alienating phrases like “woke insanity” and “lunatic fringe” but that’s literally just code for “not conservative.” Their posture is that if you do not think exactly like them, it’s not just a matter of political disagreement or differing values— no, to them your voice does not deserve a place in American discourse. To them you aren’t worth a moment’s consideration. You aren’t a constituent, you’re nothing. To them the only place for a liberal is in the crosshairs of derision and mockery.
I don’t recall a time in my lifetime when politicians were this actively hostile toward the other side. They would always use phrases like “we have our differences of opinion” but generally treat the opposing party with civility. Now, if you’re not MAGA you are the enemy. Not just the enemy of the Republican Party, but the enemy of America. There is no room for bipartisanship or dissent.
I wasn’t around for McCarthyism so I don’t know what it felt like in that moment, but it always seemed strange to me that the official position of the United States government was the demonization of people with a particular political ideology. In short, thoughtcrime. Well, this is that all over again but the target (“wokeism”) is broader and more poorly defined, and includes a higher percentage of the country’s population, and it’s accompanied by the biggest undemocratic power grab in plain sight that the country has ever seen. It’s a brazen steamrolling of anyone who doesn’t fall in line.
America used to be a melting pot, a tapestry of pluralism. There was room for everyone here. That devolved to “America: Love it or leave it.” Where we’re at now is even further down that road… if the administration doesn’t like you, you have no protections. They will (as official actions of the U.S. federal government) bully and publicly humiliate you. They will strategically silence and disenfranchise you. They will use every tool in their toolbelt (and many that aren’t) to starve you of whatever funding you have. They will deport you to a country you’ve never been to or send you to a hellish prison even though you were in the country legally and committed no crime. They don’t give a fuck.
It feels extreme to type these things. It’s like something out of a dystopian YA novel, but it’s literally, unexaggeratedly, what is happening right now. And it doesn’t feel like there are many people pointing it out for what it is.
And I’m baffled how any Americans can be living through this and cheer it on. The doublethink is astronomical. In what tradition or culture or ethical framework is any of this considered a good thing for a nation to do, let alone all of it? How can any thinking person still be on Trump’s side?
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the notion that The United States has truly been a "tapestry of pluralism" ... is just not supported by its own historical record. The nation was founded by slaveholders, for slaveholders. We were not among the first European nations to criminalize slavery, and when we did, it was only the import of slaves. Black Americans have only had the ability to attend integrated colleges for two generations. Two.
McCarthyism was not long ago. It is not the product of some bygone age. The kind of rank racism and hatred that birthed McCarthyism is still going strong in US politics to this day. It never went away. It barely even went undercover. Look up what Reagan's policies and views were and tell me they weren't just a continuation of McCarthyism.
If you're a white American male, particularly one fitting the stereotypically cis-hetero archetype, and if you're some flavor of Protestant Christian ... you've probably never really been affected by the ways that the US treats anyone else. That was the case for me, for most of my life. But if you're anything outside of that narrow demographic, then your experience in this country has been very, very different. Particularly if you're Black.
As for how Americans can be living through this and cheer it on? That part's easy. It's the same reason they've always been cheering it on. Because there's a significant - not a majority per se, but still significant - chunk of the population that agrees with the racism, because they are racist. The Klan never went away. Neither did the Nazis - in fact, the USA not only imported many, many Nazis from Germany after WW2, but things like Jim Crow laws and "The Trail of Tears" directly influenced and led to Nazi thought.
What we're seeing now, is what generations of non-white Americans have been experiencing for generations. Just, now it's starting to affect some white people too.
I’ve been watching some old tv shows from the 1960s-1980s recently and I notice there are quite a few plots that involve right wing characters who do or say things that would exactly fit in with current republicans. This is fiction but definitely reflects society at the time
Probably the same kind of people who lived through and cheered on
in other words, the average American of voting age throughout history.
Some years ago, I was searching for something completely unrelated on the Internet. I don't even remember what anymore, but eventually I came across something that looked like a very old restaurant menu. At least, the format resembled it.
I looked a bit closer and saw that it rather was a card of people to be sold. Their characterises, gender, age... and the initial auction price for their lives. Just like food on a menu on a restaurant, that's what it was. Selling objects. Just a business to be performed, I guess. For all I know some of the children, which were on the lower part of the 'menu', were the children of the mother on that same piece of paper higher up.
I don't think I'll ever forget that picture. Despite it not being the most graphic, or emotional 'testimony' of the horrors of slavery, it really showed to me in a deeper way how people were treated as an object.
Archive
I think the media has gotten caught up in a misread of Trump's comment, or maybe it's better described as a convenient ambiguity borne from his ineloquence. I don't think he was trying to say it wasn't as horrific as everyone makes it out to be... although he quite likely has no real appreciation of it, because I'm confident he's never cared to learn. I believe he was basically an expressing what he would call a positive mindset - he doesn't want any display or talk about negativity in relation to America because We're #1!TM.
All of this is a distraction tactic anyway. He was throwing everything at the wall to get people off his back about the Epstein files, and this and the "taking back DC" talk finally stuck. This man's lunacy is nothing new; we shouldn't prioritize wasting time unraveling his rigmarole - that's just taking his bait.
Trump is a widely known racist. He absolutely was trying to downplay the horrors of slavery. He does not deserve any benefit of the doubt here.
I agree we don't need to pick apart the tangle of his stupidity but he clearly thinks that we shouldn't talk so much about slavery, and clearly does not include the triumphs of Black (and other "DEI") Americans in his complaints about not celebrating success, because that's just "wokeness."
This is a man that rigged the results of a reality show so he wouldn't have to have a black man win, except he called that man the n word. We don't need to spend an ounce of time defending him or trying to sanewash his ramblings.
Here's what The White House says about how Trump is Right about the Smithsonian
And
We don't need to try to defend him. He's racist, surrounded by racists and wants to erase the horrors of slavery and the reckoning America has often barely tried to have with that history. Even in just these two examples he wants to deny the impact that "wanting to have slaves" and enslaving people has had on our history.
From Wikipedia on the above topics, emphasis mine
"Mexico had officially abolished slavery in Texas in 1829, and the desire of Anglo Texans to maintain the institution of chattel slavery in Texas was also a major cause of secession,[2][3][4][5][6] although slavery is never mentioned implicitly or explicitly in the Declaration of Independence of Texas.[7] Colonists and Tejanos disagreed on whether the ultimate goal was independence or a return to the Mexican Constitution of 1824."
And
"In his early years, Franklin owned seven slaves, including two men who worked in his household and his shop, but in his later years became an adherent of abolition.[7][259] A revenue stream for his newspaper was paid ads for the sale of slaves and for the capture of runaway slaves and Franklin allowed the sale of slaves in his general store. He later became an outspoken critic of slavery."
Which IMO reads like a defense of him rather than history. I suspect the Smithsonian is quite well sourced. Also the links in the White House propaganda are from The Federalist what looks like mostly the same article. So meh. Propaganda.
The Texas thing isn't talked about enough and is usually brushed off.
The Anglo Texans initially began to move in from the US to Mexican territory during a period where Mexico opened its immigration policy up and encouraged it.
Anglo Texans rampantly violated laws and practiced slavery, which was already illegal.
Mexico closed down immigration from the US, and Anglos continued to illegally immigrate, eventually starting a war of secession.
After capturing the president of Mexico and forcing him to sign a treaty, the "Texians" drafted a constitution for Texas that 1) prohibited the government from restricting slavery 2) prohibited the freeing of slaves and 3) required free people of African descent to leave Texas.
All in all, it's the usual pattern of settler-based annexation, with slavery as the motivating factor.
I also like to point out that Mexico is a collection of regions with pre-Columbian indigenous cultures, and the southern border is, once again, just Anglos drawing a line and pushing Native Americans over it.
Fully agreed. Drawing lines on maps and putting flags in them is, apparently, my culture. Alas.
But it's frustrating how easy it is to erase slavery from the narrative as if millions of Black Americans just appeared here, somehow magically without coming through "Ellis Island" or equivalent, and no further questions need to be asked, no history is missing, and no one, even the Confederacy, used a desire to enslave people as the purpose for anything.
(We still don't grapple with the extreme prevalence of sexual assault against enslaved people either. Ugh)