During the campaign, Trump was accused of being a beholden to his racist supporters, but that could be dismissed as campaign rhetoric. But the events in Charlottesville last Saturday has seemed to confirm that Trump, as President, is still reluctant to condemn the white supremacists groups.
Here is a video which summarizes the issue. As a serious statement by a well known comedian, it is overtly political without the cover of comedy.
---------------------------------------- Updated 8/18/17 ----------------------------------------
Here are the videos that were shown at the meeting:
Here are the videos that were shown at the meeting:
- How the Violence Unfolded in Charlottesville
- John Oliver - Charlottesville
- Ohio man facing murder charges in Charlottesville
- Aftermath of Charlottesville Clashes
- Jimmy Kimmel on Donald Trump’s Charlottesville Comments
- Charlottesville violence investigated by DOJ
- Police face criticism over violent protest
- Charlottesville police chief stands by response to violent rally
- Donald Trump Is Siding with Nazis Again
Walter Truett Anderson once observed that “the issue that mass democracies are going to have to come to terms with [is] whether we can construct our large-scale public realities in forms that enable us to grow and change and engage the difficulties of life in adult ways, or whether we will inevitably gravitate toward simple fables of good guys and bad guys.”
ReplyDeleteWell, “simple fables of good guys and bad guys” abound, and one of the most insidious is the one that claims that people belong to discrete races, and that these races measure differently on such virtues as industriousness, intelligence, and overall worth. Anthropologists gave up on this idea long ago, but the general public clings to it (probably because it so deceptively satisfies some fundamental human needs.) Gene pools exist, but gene pools do not a race make. The billions of people in the world who identify as white hardly spring from the same gene pool any more than all of those who identify as black, or Persian, or Chinese, or Korean, or Native American, or French, or Egyptian, or, or, or … And if we go back far enough into our evolutionary past, we all sprang from the same gene pool anyway.
So, regardless of the mixed messages of our president, we are unlikely to successfully overcome racism or white nationalism or national socialism, or any other ism until we face the reality that they are all social constructs. We make them up and then treat them as if they are God-given. We make them up because we need to identify with some group larger than ourselves, but like Anderson cautioned, we had best learn how to construct our realities around something that doesn’t require the destruction of someone else’s. Otherwise, many more precious lives will be cut short and their loved ones will go on grieving endlessly.
It is funny that Harry mentions fables because that is what I would like to talk about. There is a term in a West African language called "Sankofa." Loosely translated, it refers to the concept of needing to know where you have been to know where you are going. The United States refuses to learn or discuss its history in an honest and sincere manner. Until it does, the color line is going to continue to be a problem, way past 20th century that W.E.B. Du Bois predicted. We demand Germany confront its past, South Africa holds Truth and Reconciliation testimony sessions, but black Americans are supposed to "get over" malignant actions to which they are continuing to fall victim. The other African term or really proverb that I would like to bring up is the one of the story of the lion and the gazelle and the saying that it is the lion that gets to tell the story. The American story, both history and present, is a manipulated one. The white nationalists claim moving confederate statues from major pubic venues disrespects their history. Most of those monuments were placed where and when they were to intimidate black people organizing for their civil rights. Today they still send the message that black people do not belong and should accept less. They give the supremacists objects to rally around. They create hostile environments. The message must be changed by either moving the statues to less prominent places or by adding addendums to the monument sites to give a more complete and honest story that also tells the tale of the gazelle. The status quo is not acceptable.
ReplyDeleteMy last comment on fables is this: Black history is American history. If you do not know black history, you do not know American history. This country's wealth, both north and south, came principally from the existence of black people in it. Manifest destiny was made possible in good part by black soldiers trying to make a way anyway they could in this country, by clearing native americans, unfortunately. Blacks have given their lives in every war this country has ever had.
I don't have time or space to list all the scientific and cultural contributions to American society, many of which they have never and will never receive credit for. All, despite lynchings, red-lining, and otherwise not being able to take advantage of all of the economic affirmative action given to white americans, esp. in the post WWII boom years. To that end, I would like to highly recommend multiple visits to the new African-American museum on the Mall. It is just a start to correct the problem, but at least it is that.
Yes Jacqueline. I agree that we are reluctant to honestly look at our history, and I wonder if groups like white supremacists, by providing such an easy target for public indignation, let other white folks off the hook. Rather than looking at our collective past, white people can point to the obvious bigotry of groups like the KKK and neo-Nazis. Focusing on such egregious ideas and behavior allows us to avoid confronting the glaring contradiction in our founding documents with the reality of slavery, not to mention subsequent years of prejudice and discrimination. Lost in the confusion and contradictions of Trump's meanderings is an occasional truth that is worth examining. As he pointed out, Washington and Jefferson were slave holders, after all. But he seems to completely miss the point. Such facts should cause us to seriously ask: How could such intelligent and insightful human beings participate in and prosper from one of the most inhumane institutions to ever emerge from the mind of man? And if they could could do that, what blinders are we wearing?
Delete"The predecessor of Citibank...was actually founded by a banker and sugar trader deeply involved in financing the illegal slave trade, bringing Africans into Cuba in the 19th century. When Moses Taylor died in 1882, he was one of the wealthiest men of that century with an estate reportedly worth $70 million or about $1.6 billion in today's dollars."
ReplyDeleteHuffington Post 1/17/2012
The book "Ebony and Ivy" by Craig Steven Wilder describes how slavery funded campuses, built buildings, and salaried professors at Ivy league colleges such as Brown, Harvard, and Yale, among others.
But it is more than about how the country benefited from the abuse of black bodies. It has also benefited from the beauty, intelligence, industriousness, and spirit of black people. For example, contrary to popular opinion, black people have always valued education. After slavery ended, some of the first things black people did was build schools, pay for teachers, and establish colleges to train teachers. Reconstruction conventions had Black majorities in South Carolina and Louisiana. Public school systems in those states were started at that time because of blacks valuing education. The black majority conventions in those states resulted in more progressive state constitutions.The property qualification for voting and holding office were ended. Local government administrations were modernized. Some states ended imprisonment for debt. Of course, Reconstruction ended rather quickly after slavery and many of the reforms were reversed.
I guess my bottom line is that black people have made major contributions to this country from day one despite everything. Any story of America having been great or being great without black people is a real fable.
I am not going to make group today (tennis calls.) I just had one other light comment to make. When I was a child, I had 2 favorite poets: Robert Louis Stevenson and Langston Hughes. One of my favorite Hughes poems is "I, too, Sing America"
ReplyDeleteI, too, sing America
I am the darker brother
When company comes
They send me to the kitchen to eat
But I laugh
And eat well
And grow strong
Tomorrow
I'll be at the table
When company comes
Nobody'll dare say
To me
"Eat in the kitchen"
Then
Besides,
They be will see
how beautiful I am
And be ashamed
I, too, sing America
I think that Jackie's idea of "adding addendums to the monument sites to give a more complete and honest story..." is a good one. The statue of RELee could be flanked by a statue of Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth, etc. I am a strong believer in free speech (and statues can be speech); offensive speech should be countered by reasonable inoffensive speech. After all, speech that we agree with doesn't need to be defended; it is speech that we object to which should be protected.
ReplyDeleteThe US has not really changed its ways since it abolished slavery; now it makes "slaves" of people by destroying their countries, making their livelihood impossible, or by supporting countries that do this; e.g., Israel, Egypt .... It tolerates such things as Abu Graib, Guantanamo, and other atrocities.
The folng is from Mondoweiss:
The Israeli right can’t condemn Charlottesville because its whispered policy is, Nakba
By Yossi Gurvitz
When Nakba of Palestinians is your muttered policy-- when you realize you may have to carry out another ethnic cleansing, as the Israeli right believes-- it’s silly to moan about Nazis somewhere else. After all, you’re holding a very similar policy, and they’re likely to be your only allies. Yossi Gurvitz explains Netanyahu's silence about Charlottesville.
(Lot of things do revert back to Israel, Calvin.)
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Sorry, I won't be able to be at the discussion today; another commitment.