You know what's so maddening about all this --- Eric Foner's THE STORY OF AMERICAN FREEDOM which I believe is over 20 years old BALANCES all the failures of the founding with the fact that some of the principles enunciated were seized upon by those LEFT OUT of the originally constituted "nation" who insisted that the FOUNDING DOCUMENTS must be honored in reality --- and that meant, anti-slavery, women's suffrage, true free speech (which wasn't really enforced till the Wobblies insisted on it during the early 20th century) etc. etc. ---
In other words --- YES, the founding of the US was of a white supremacist, male supremacist, property-owning supremacist republic --- but it left SIGNALS that could be USED by dissenters --- and after the Civil War, the three revolutionary post war amendments ended up being VERY POWERFUL (the 14th amendment guarantees that children born to undocumented immigrants are automatically citizens!!). The idiots who are trying to suppress the 1619 project, and other truth-telling about the US are making a serious mistake --- they can EMBRACE all the good things about US history as stemming from the admittedly flawed (racist, sexist, etc.) first principles of our republic. BUT -- they don't WANT to do that because that would privilege and celebrate those who FOUGHT and STRUGGLED and that would force them to recognize that the current set of demonstrators are just like the abolitionists, the suffragists, etc. who though vilified in their time are the REASONS we are a "better place" than in 1789 when the Constitution went into effect with Washington's first administration. AND by attempting to suppress the truth, they will (in my optimistic view) lose the next generation of adults who are growing up to the reality of understanding US history like many generations in the past have failed to do (certainly when I was in HIGH SCHOOL nobody taught about the achievements of Reconstruction !!) On Wed, May 26, 2021 at 11:21 AM Dennis Brasky <[email protected]> wrote: > The laborious project of establishing truth in the face of official lies > is one that Americans embraced during the racial reckoning of the summer of > 2020, whether it was individuals speaking out about their experiences of > racism at work, or institutions acknowledging their own complicity in > racial injustice. For a time, it seemed that America was finally ready to > tell a more honest, nuanced story of itself, one that acknowledged the > blood at the root. > > But alongside this reassessment, another American tradition re-emerged: a > reactionary movement bent on reasserting a whitewashed American myth. These > reactionary forces have taken aim at efforts to tell an honest version of > American history and speak openly about racism by proposing laws in > statehouses across the country that would ban the teaching of “critical > race theory > <https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/four-states-have-placed-legal-limits-on-how-teachers-can-discuss-race-more-may-follow/2021/05>”, > the New York Times’s 1619 Project > <https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/lawmakers-push-to-ban-1619-project-from-schools/2021/02>, > and, euphemistically, “divisive concepts > <https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/8-states-debate-bills-to-restrict-how-teachers-discuss-racism-sexism/2021/04> > ”. > > The movement is characterized by a childish insistence that children > should be taught a false version of the founding of the United States that > better resembles a mythic virgin birth than the bloody, painful reality. It > would shred the constitution’s first amendment in order to defend the honor > of those who drafted its three-fifths clause. > > “When you start re-examining the founding myth in light of evidence that’s > been discovered in the last 20 years by historians, then that starts to > make people doubt the founding myth,” said Christopher S Parker, a > professor of political science at the University of Washington who studies > reactionary movements. “There’s no room for racism in this myth. Anything > that threatens to interrogate the myth is seen as a > threat.” > > > https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/25/critical-race-theory-us-history-1619-project > > > > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#8759): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/8759 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/83103327/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
