Tuesday, May 11, 2010
BDSMN - Epilogue; race today and you
In the epilogue Tyson says, "we want to transcend our history without actually confronting it" (318). What does this mean? How is a national confrontation of our history possible? What prevents this catharsis? What is to be gained from such a process?Later Tyson comments, "America owes a debt that no one can pay, and yet it probably remains what Lincoln called 'the last, best hope' of human freedom.... And the enduring chasm of race is still with us, in some ways wider than ever." (320). How do you reconcile these statements? Tyson wrote his exporation before President Barack Obama (and Reverend Wright) became figures of wide, national prominence. Like Tyson, the Obamas (both Barack and Michelle) have invoked the notion of hope. How do you understand hope in the context of United States - both domestically and internationally?
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This blog is solely for educational purposes and the use of students in periods 1 & 8 - Honors U.S. History. All posts are expected to be mature and respectful. Any posts by outsiders or anything deemed inappropriate will be removed by the administrator.
ReplyDeleteWhen Tyson states that, "the problem is why we cherish that kind of story: because we want to transcend our history without actually confronting it", he implies how problematic we as Americans have come to be (318). I remember in middle school, we watched a video about the Holocaust that interviewed a high school student, who firmly believed that we should not teach the Holocaust and WWII in the school system because America is harping on the past. This teenager represents most, if not all, of America, who chooses to ignore the racist past that has led us to this moment in present day history. By ignoring our faults of the past, we thwart any recovery and reparations we could make in the future as to bringing this country together as a whole. Tyson brought up in the epilogue that the Destrehan Plantation refuses to inform the tourists about how they had treated slaves (313). The tour guides are expected to act as though this shameful part of our history never occurred, but how is that fixing any issues of racism, etc? We need to acknowledge our past mistakes in order to improve ourselves for the future. America is almost notorious for sweeping our mistakes under a carpet to erase any evidence that we even made a mistake! In a way, America is like the court room where Henry Marrow's murder trial was held in which our country is a lot like a shoeshine parlor. If we've made a scuff mark, we can easily "shine" it off as though it never happened. It takes the cooperation of every single person of the United States to fully confront our true history in order to fix this unfortunate society that we have created. Everyone has to be willing to accept that though we would like to be perfect, we cannot, and that yes, mistakes happen, but to better ourselves, we must confront them. This method is nearly impossible to reach because people are extremely stubborn.
ReplyDeleteOn the topic of reparations and debt, I completely agree with Tyson in that, "America owes a debt that no one can pay..." (320). We have been so neglectful of our mistakes, so immature with how we as Americans have dealt with our faults, our mistakes. By showing the maturity to own up to our blunders, we would already paying back some of the debt because we at least owe that much to all of those who we have hurt. This, "... enduring chasm of race is still with us..." and can only be fixed if we stop justifying our mistakes (320). Time after time, America constantly tries to erase the guilt of our faults by justifying our mistakes. As a nation and as individuals, we cannot bare the feeling of guilt on our shoulders. Even Robert Teel tried to years later justify his actions of murdering Henry Marrow by suggesting that Marrow, "...committed suicide, wanting to come in my store and four-letter-word my daughter-in-law..." (293). Teel implies that Marrow knew what he was getting into and brought it upon himself. Do we really want to be considered cowards and fools for not owning up to our responsibilities and mistakes?
~Brittany B.
This also brings me to the topic of hope in the United States. Personally, I believe that we try to force ourselves to believe there is hope. If a poor person from lower-class America suddenly becomes extremely successful, we think that everyone can "pull themselves up by their bootstraps", as Schager always says is a false generalization. We say this to try to ease the guilt of having people in lower-class because truthfully, it is our fault that these people have to suffer. Our government is set-up to keep the wealthy people wealthy and the poor people poor. We rarely see someone go from poor to successful, and when we do, we assume that the rest just aren't trying hard enough. Well, until we realize how immature and neglectful we are towards our mistakes made in the past and present, there really is not any hope domestically for our improvement of our inner selves. If we are able to confront our past and acknowledge that we have made mistakes, then yes, there is hope that our nation will become, as Lincoln says, "...the last, best hope of human freedom" (320).
ReplyDelete~Brittany B. (continued from first post)
I agree with Brittany that the first step to making reparations is to confront our mistakes, but I think the time and the generations that have passed since our mistakes have a big role in our hesitating to confront it. Ideally, our government should be giving benefits to American Indians, African Americans, and other immigrants who have been treated unequally in the past, but today's generation would argue that they aren't responsible for how those people were treated, so they shouldn't have to pay for that mistake. Similarly, many people are not happy with the idea of having to pay more taxes because they have a higher income (just like Brittany said, society is set up to keep the rich people rich and the poor people poor). And they are also unhappy with the fact that their tax money could help make health care more affordable for people who cannot pay for it themselves. In my opinion, it all comes down to who we choose to hold responsible. And I think the rich population who chooses to keep their money to themselves and keeps their kids away from minorities is responsible for the inequality we see in society today. Perhaps the best thing we can do now is to make sure our children, the future of our nation, are open-minded and aware of our country's mistakes. I think this is what Tyson was trying to accomplish with this book; not only was it an introspection, but it was a way to teach our generation the importance of not forgetting our past.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Shweta when she said that this book is "a way to teach our generation the importance of not forgetting our past." I think that as a country, we do remember our past, yet we only recall the good parts of it. One quote that stood out to my quarter group was, "the self-congratulatory popular account insists that Dr. King called on the nation to fully accept its own creed, and the walls came a-tumbling down.This conventional narrative is soothing, moving, and politically acceptable, and has only the disadvantage of bearing no resemblance to what actually happened" (319). Like we discussed in class today, when most people think of Dr. King's death, they picture people crying and sadness. However, what we do not imagine are the burnings and riots that actually took place. Another example of how our country fails to remember the bad times in our past is, "in the intervening years, the nation has comforted itself by sanitizing the civil rights movement, commemorating it as a civic celebration that no one ever opposed" (318). We all know that the civil rights movement did not occur overnight and did indeed have a lot of opposition. When Tyson says "we want to transcend our history without actually confronting it," he is saying that as a country we want to edit our past to only recount the positive stories in our history. Nevertheless, in order to learn anything from history, both the good and the bad most be reflected upon.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both Shweta and Brittany. But let's look briefly at an attempt to "confront" history and try to commemorate history. Martin Luther King Day is on the third Monday of January, solely based on remembering the past. But throughout middle school I actually had no idea what was going on, on that day at all. No history class in middle school went indept at all on any of the history of the prosecution of any minority. I remember in the seventh grade wanting to learn more about the Ku Klux Klan, wanting to understand it more, and why they were so hateful. When I asked a question about them, my teacher barely answered the question. As if it was inappropriate to talk about, but I just wanted to learn more. Basically all I can remember about African American prosecution is the "I have a dream" speech. All though it is meaningful, it doesn't answer any questions, it more like summarizes what the U.S. needed to work on. Students need to be enlightened from the beginning, and not their sophomore year in high school. I admit, a third grader does not need to learn about the details of lynching, etc. but to mold the events into a PG rated story, when a kid is 13 years old is not necessary. They can take it. By learning earlier about the prosecution, terror, and remorse of the road to "equality," hopefully it will shape a child's attitude. To no longer take, take, take.
ReplyDelete"America owes a debt that no one can pay".... it is true. How can you change history? We're beyond that now, but still racism is still very much intact. When reading the "Savage Inequalities" chapter on St. Louis, I found myself asking, "What year was this written?" Are things really still so separated? A girl tells a story of going to the white side of St. Louis to buy a book. "Everybody lookin' at us, you know, and somebody says, 'What do you want?' And lookin' at each other like, 'what are these black girls doin' here in Fairview Heights?' I just said, 'I want to buy a book!' It's like they're scared we're going to rob them." The view of any different race besides white is somewhat primitive. It is instilled inside the majority of American whites that some how blacks are not the same. Is it racism if you can not help thinking that a black person is not the same? Yes, they have voting rights, etc. But still, they are looked at differently, but there is little to no way to change these perceptions. Can you change the way a child thinks? A white person may think they are not racist, and are an advocate for human rights, but when a poor black man walks next to them down the street, they still clutch their wallet. It's internal racism. To me there is no flat out way to change it. Unless you start as a toddler, being brainwashed, every day reminded that everybody in the world is the same. Regardless of money, skin tone, in the end you are still one person and the person next to you is still one person and so on. I believe that the U.S. is beyond repair in this category. It may be unintentional, or it may not be but racism is still very much alive.
sorry! i posted that before refreshing the page
ReplyDeleteI think that both Brittany and Shweta both make excellent points about the confrontation of mistakes, but I believe that a more crucial point is that people are simply too accepting of the way society is, even today. By not delving into past societal issues and trying to decipher the causes and the solutions, people put society into a vicious circle of civil injustice. Howard Zinn and Ronald Takaki attempt to do this in "A People's History of the United States" and "A Different Mirror", respectively, and I feel that this type of investigation is crucial to the emotional and moral success of our nation. Even just the title of Takaki's book illustrates the change he wants in society; Americans have to look through a "different mirror" that has not been scrubbed clean, this mirror being one that still has all of the mold from all of the civil injustices of the past. Although it is difficult to easily see a reflection in this "different mirror" due to the mold, people must take the initiative to look closely and learn how to prevent these injustices from happening in the future. The whole situation with the plantation made me shudder, as it is difficult to believe that people would glorify a place that was once known for making slaves work endless hours, obviously without any salary. While this may not affect, say, white tourists simply visiting to see the mansion, Tyson's students were clearly affected by this misrepresentation of the past.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, regarding Lincoln's depiction of "hope," I personally believe that hope cannot exist without action. As I mentioned earlier, people simply accept the society that they live in and feel like they are being protected by a large cushion. Obama's campaign had a lot to do with "hope," and I found this to be a major flaw. The famous expression, "Actions speak louder than words," applies here. I am sure that many voted for Obama simply due to his nice looking posters for his campaign and his messages of "hope" and "change;" for me, I can only "hope" that politicians will do what they say they are going to do during their campaigns, as I never feel that I can fully trust the government. I also "hope" that America will understand its prior civil injustices and try to improve for the future, for, right now, there are many different mirrors through which one could see the past, and many are squeaky clean as if nothing happened.
(similarly to Kate, I didn't refresh the page before posting; sorry about not mentioning the other comments besides those of Brittany and Shweta)
ReplyDeleteI agree with Shweta that Tyson’s goal was to teach youth of our country the importance of not forgetting the past. Arguably, the main goal of learning history in school is so that we don’t make the same mistakes we made in the past. As it was previously stated our society revolves around white rich men and it is very difficult to go from living in an impoverished neighborhood to a successful neighborhood. Tyson wrote, “The civil rights movement knocked down the formal and legal barriers to equal citizenship, but failed to give most African Americans real power in this society” (318). I agree with Tyson’s statement because it is clear that even in the modern day African Americans have little power and the same statements can also be directed to other minorities. In America, having power is all about having money and rich white people do not care about what is going on in inner cities. They want to see the money from their taxes helping their local schools and are not concerned that in a 9th grade class of 20,000 students, only 7,000 graduate high school and only 500 go to college. As it is was said by Brittany when we see a person cross the lines from poor to successful, we say why can’t the rest of them do that, they’re not trying hard enough. How are people supposed to be given an equal opportunity in society if they are not being given an equal chance? In life there are things that people cannot control. An eight-year-old black kid in Harlem has no choice in where he grows up. He also cannot chose what skin color he is, so now he most carry all the assumptions and stereotypes on his back, the same way his ancestors did 40 years ago. I think the objective of Tyson’s message is that we have to reflect on the past to learn from our mistakes and not forget them.
ReplyDeleteThis is Caroline.
ReplyDeleteI think that everyone so far has brought up very valid points, and I agree that Tyson is trying to say that we have to face our past, not escape it. However, I disagree with Shweta that "it all comes down to who we choose to hold responsible." I thought that Tyson was trying to say that everyone was responsible, not just the extreme racists, and "truth and falsehood keep house on both sides of the color line, and we all have our own stories to tell" (247). As Dr. King said, the moderates were just as responsible (and sometimes even more so) than the outspoken racists and the Klan. When people started laying blame, they absolved their own guilt and made it seem as though they had no part in the crimes. After Robert Teel killed Henry Marrow, "though he had been the champion of white resistance in the summer of 1970, aided and applauded by the country club and courthouse crowd, those same people had dropped Teel like a dirty tissue after the trial ended" (288). The white country club and courthouse people (and many others) blamed Teel as the perpetrator of the violence, thus eliminating their involvement and escaping their own past.
As for Logan's point of politicians and change, I had been following the UK general elections lately, and one thing that stood out for me was how, after the votes were counted and the Conservatives had won a minority government, negotiations between senior party members of the leading parties, many of them who have not been elected to their positions, were the ones responsible for organizing the future of the goverment (and in effect, the country). Even though Britain is a "democratic" country, there are many things that are still not democratic or fair. Likewise, there are many things that are not fair in the US as well, and these unfairnesses are part of the "debt that no one can pay" (320). But the mere fact that we, as students, are discussing this issue right now is perhaps a step towards bridging the differences and inequalities in our society. It is not nearly enough, and there are still many things left to do, but our awareness of the issue is our way of facing our past, and beginning to confront it.
(Sorry, this is Caroline Wu. Forgot to clarify.)
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with Brittany's point that America tends to cover up its problems. In fact, I think this is more an issue of human nature. Tyson writes, "It baffles me that people think that obliterating the past will save them from its consequences, as if throwing away the empty cake plate would help you lose weight" (296). Unfortunately, ignorance is bliss, and in a life centered around the pursuit of happiness, it is no surprise that we have a natural tendency to forget the things that upset us.
ReplyDeleteAnother beautiful quote that sums up Tyson's point of view when he writes, "It's true that we must make a new world. But we can't make it out of whole cloth. We have to weave the future from the fabric of the past, from the patterns of aspiration and belonging - and broken dreams and anguished rejections - that have made us. What the advocates of our dangerous and deepening social amnesia don't understand is how deeply the past holds the future in its grip - and, even perhaps especially, when it remains unacknowledged" (307).
In addition to being a great example of methods of persuasion such as using powerful words such as "anguished rejection" and "social rejection" and referring to the audience as "us," Tyson demonstrates how really this human pattern has become similar to a disease, maintaining a "social amnesia."
I also agree with Caroline Wu's point that Tyson was arguing that everyone was responsible. The reporter says earlier in the book,"All of this was our fault, not theirs. It was all our fault" (243) Although she wasn't out there lynching blacks and creating segregation laws, she wasn't an advocate for the "right" side, a position that I think Tyson believes is just as bad.
Do you think that bystanders are justified to feel fault? Do you think there's a difference between someone feeling guilt for their actions verse feeling guilt?
I definitely agree with everything that Brittany and Shweta said and everyone else that agreed with them. But I also think Kyl'es point of "Arguably, the main goal of learning history in school is so that we don’t make the same mistakes we made in the past." is 100% correct! I think we strive to make the future generation better, and yet we are almost worst off today than we are back then. As people today are still racist and prejudice to black people even knowing all that we have done to them and knowing that we can never repay the African Americans, just like Tyson said. Another terrible thing about our history, is that we still have not learned from our past, because this is not the first time we have treated people different from whites badly. Americans treated the Native Americans badly when they put them into reservations.They treated the Japanese badly when they put them into internment camps. And they treated the immigrants badly by forcing them into bad areas. So even though we are known as a country with open arms who accept everybody, we are not. And like Tyson says in his book, “The civil rights movement knocked down the formal and legal barriers to equal citizenship, but failed to give most African Americans real power in this society” (318). They be legally accepted into society, but that might be all. And even with Obama as President, the country is still not free of racism. There are still people trapped inside a bubble who have grown up with racism, and do not break the prejudice but instead they live with it, and seemingly have no problem speaking out about it, like the people in "Right America, Feeling Wronged".
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSarah Lavy
ReplyDeleteI agree strongly with Brittany's ideas and think that Instead of hiding a History filled with events that we know were wrong and unfortunate, we should admit to the wrongs that have been done and perhaps teach today's generation about the mistakes that were made in order to prevent future ones. Choosing not to discuss ALL of History can be dangerous to our society. America take some responsibility to admit that the treatment towards many minorities (Native Americans, Japanese Americans, African Americans) was completely inhumane and wrong.
My quarter group and I discussed the part of BDSMN where Tyson decided to go to the Oxford Library a few years after the trial of Henry Marrow had ended. To his surprise, Tyson found nothing in the entire library regarding the trial. The librarians told Tyson that "the records for the Teel murder trial had disappeared" and that "they did not really save court records" (295). This really shocked me, because it seems quite impossible for records to just disappear. The fact that the Teel murder trial was followed by extreme racism, recorded documents regarding the event were removed from the library just comes to show how America only reflects on the "good" past instead of the entire past, which includes the bad. Even if America is ashamed of what occurred, it should definitely not be hidden or forgotten. Education about such events is crucial in helping our society to advance and learn from our mistakes.
Adding to Misha's last tidbit about Obama and Logan when he talked about Obama's "hope" I think one thing the Obamas bring to the office is a hope of tolerance. Americans should in the very least be able to tolerate their president, and if that president is black then it begs the question directed towards those intolerant of blacks as to why other black people cannot be tolerated. When Tyson's class goes to the Destrehan Plantation and "the presence of a mixed-rage group [makes the 'young women in swirly skirts'] visibly uneasy," we can see that there is a lack of tolerance in the form of fear (314). This among other parts of the trip work together to alienate the group, resulting in the their development of a prejudice towards the people who have a prejudice (315). Although bleak, if American's cannot do something as simple as tolerating eachother, how are they supposed to face something as uncomfortable and huge as slavery and inequality?
ReplyDeleteI disagree with Logan when he says that he believes that "hope cannot exist without action." On the contrary hope is what people have in place of action. If action were taking place then people would be able to make judgements about what was happening and decide how it should be tweaked, rather than sit in a bar and talk about what they hope will happen. This same idea goes back to Civil Rights and tolerating people. If America sits at a round table and leisurely chats about how they hope racial equality will happen and how they hope that their country can move on, nothing will get done. The impatient Americans need to start by tolerating each other, then talking about their differences and slowly accepting their past in an effort to move on. I believe that this would be possible if people put their differences aside long enough to listen to others. The problem with that is unfortunately i do not think we as a people can sit still for as long as is necessary to correctly address this problem of the American past.
~Caroline Smith
Like everyone else, I completely agree that America is a country that tends to cover up its problems rather than acknowledge their existence—the whole phenomenon can be likened to what Tyson writes when describing his family’s view on his grandfather’s journey from KKK member to Methodist preacher: “[m]ost of us would rather claim to have always been perfect than admit how much we have grown” (176). I think that this quote, while depicting what Tyson repeatedly reiterates about pretending the past never happened, also shows what I think many have failed to acknowledge: from the race riots of the 1960s and ‘70s to 2010, America has made considerable progress in bridging its racial chasm. Whether racial equality does or will ever exist is a moot point, but like many others have said, part of Tyson’s writing this book lies in his desire to “teach our generation the importance of not forgetting our past” and in that, teach our generation that we can transcend our past as well—if, and only if, we make the effort to recognize the flaws of those involved in creating that past. Playwright George Bernard Shaw once wrote that “we learn from history that we learn nothing from history”, and Tyson, from what he’s written in Blood Done Sign My Name, is likely to agree with this point and urge us to stop this cycle.
ReplyDeleteThis idea of learning nothing from history brings me to the questions Anya posed, for I find that bystanders are justified in their guilt because by not making an active effort to end the problem, they are prolonging it. The woman at the case sobbed, “[it’s] all our fault”, not it’s all their fault because she realized her part in the perpetuating of the canyon separating white and black in America. Though, as Anya commented, “[the woman] wasn't out there lynching blacks and creating segregation laws”, she was, in several ways, contributing to the problem. She was, presumably, one of those who Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. refers to as a person “who prefers negative peace…to the presence of tension…[and] justice” , and therefore, a person who was prolonging the injustice that was and is threatening justice everywhere (3). I find that feeling guilt for one’s actions and feeling guilt in general have no difference; it all goes back to Tyson’s discussion of original sins—these sins, primordial and not acquired, are yours to have, regardless of you doing anything or not. Likewise, the guilt of the bystanders is theirs to bear, whether they have come in direct contact with the racial prejudice and violence or not.
-lola.
(continued from 1st post)
ReplyDelete1619 is the year of the first slave ship arriving in America, and it is plausible to believe that not all people living in what would become American at the time thought slavery was okay—as Zinn repeatedly says, the color needed to be drawn, and therefore does not exist as an inherent demarcation between races. These people would evolve, in part, into what history would dub moderate Republicans in the decades leading up to the Civil War, and who, by Tyson’s time, would be called white moderates. The existence of these groups of people throughout history proves Shaw’s point excellently: these people, years and years apart, were fighting for the essentially the cause with essentially the same methods. They had not learned from history that their techniques were ineffective; they had not learned that what Dr. King called their “devot[ion] to order” was undermining their cause. I think that this brings up an interesting point: throughout the book, Tyson makes it known that he believes America requires a brutal confrontation with its past. Who is he suggesting begin this process of self-checking—those he condemns as moderates to scared to do anything, or those who engaged with the struggles firsthand, but now pretend to have had no part?
Both Brittany and Logan do a good job showing the lack of hope for racial inequality in America that stems from people's ignorance of past and current disparities in the country. And in a sad way, hope in the context of domestic American history seems to be a faint anticipation of an improvement in society. The abolition of slavery and even the Civil Rights movement failed to completely shatter white supremacy, although the political boundaries have been significantly reduced over this time. Our march towards equality is losing steam because, as Milan Kundera stated, "The struggle of humanity against power [...] is the struggle of memory against forgetting" (321). Over a century after Lincoln called America "the last, best hope" of human freedom, our country is still hoping, not foreseeing, a socioeconomic and political equality among all races. Fading memories of the past that needs to be confronted are being neglected, and "look[ing] our brutal history in the eye," as Tyson did, is growing harder and harder.
ReplyDeleteLincoln's quote also brings up an interesting point on what hope means for the United States in international terms. The United States is placed in an interesting position, being a country that grew off a system exploiting slaves yet claimed by Lincoln to be the last hope for human freedom. Hope is still portrayed as a small chance of something successfully happening, but instead of focusing on American ideals at an intimate level, it stresses the manner in which countries are run. The only difference between the United States and other countries that I could think of is that the United States was the newest advanced civilization that was neither under the rule of an empire nor the source of the empire itself (aka Britain). This makes sense during this time period since Britain still politically grasped much of the world and didn't experiment with democratic ideals as radically as the United States; Britain and all of the countries it ruled over didn't have a true democracy under Lincoln's terms. Therefore, Lincoln was suggesting that while the United States was functioning like less democratic countries, creating racial caste systems and having socioeconomic and political disparities, it was closer to a blank slate than other countries and under only its own influence. The United States had conditions more conducive to a true democracy than any other country in the world.
Sorry, didn't see Sarah and Ololade's comments before I posted
ReplyDeleteGoing back to the picking and choosing of what history we should remember as a nation, Tyson makes a great point when he writes, “It remains easier for our leaders to apologize for the past than to address its lingering impact on society,” (Tyson 321). I find this to be true in various cases, but one that stands out to me is slavery. We can be taught over and over about the horrors and brutality of slavery in the United States, but what isn’t usually talked about is how these negative feelings have carried over to now through some people’s own instinctive feelings about racism. An example of this is earlier on in BDSMN when Tyson is behind a black boy in line for a water fountain, and he instantly has the urge to just not use the water fountain after because a black boy had just used it.
ReplyDeleteI like what Sarah said when she talked about the importance of education with these controversial events. It seems that there are very little ways to discover the truth about some of these events, such as when Tyson went looking for the records of the Teel trial and everything was missing, as Sarah discussed, or the riots after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated as Maddie pointed out. My quarter group talked about a quote on page 275 about education, stating, “And it appeared clear to me-partly because of the lies that filled my history textbooks-that the intent of formal education was to inculcate obedience to a social order that did not deserve my loyalty,” (Tyson 275). To me, this statement is true because by leaving certain events out of textbooks, there seems a mold that people seem to want us, as students, to learn and know about our past. This mold sort of sugar-coats the civil rights movement by “grinding off its rough edges” by the people in power that had been against the movement in the beginning (Tyson 318), showing that the “winners” do, in fact, write the textbooks.
The idea has been brought up of the country addressing its mistakes and Sarah has brought up her opinion of education helping to allow us to learn from our mistakes, but what else, in addition to education of history, do you think can our society learn from our past mistakes?
@Caroline Smith
ReplyDeleteThat was bad wording on my part. I essentially meant that rather than hoping to change society, people should take the initiative to change scoiety, if that is a bit clearer.
Sorry, I didn't refresh before posting.
ReplyDeleteMatt, I think you bring up a great point, which also makes me wonder: what needs to exist in society for "hope" to be possible? Is it necessary to have this "blank slate," or is that more deterrent because with that we are erasing the past? How can we look to a new future without erasing the past?
ReplyDeleteI think that the explanation of the meaning of blues by Ralph Ellison that Tyson included in the epilogue answers. Ralph stated, " 'The blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one's aching consciousness... to transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from it a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism.'" By including this, Tyson gives a hidden call to action - we must "confront our rage, contradictions, and failures" to achieve the beautiful music of progress. However, we must find a "near-comic lyricism" in our lives - in other words, remembering the cruelties past doesn't mean that we can't find joy and happiness within ourselves. Do you think that looking back on slavery and other racial injustices, we should not only feel guilt, but sadness? Remembering doesn't mean mourning.
Quote from page 316
Oops... I actually refreshed and Margi's post didn't come up until after I posted. Sorry not to have addressed your points!
ReplyDeleteCaroline, I liked what you said about how "everyone is responsible" for the racism the United States has experienced for centuries. Of course, the strongly opinionated conservatives are responsible, but the moderates, black and white, were especially weak during the Civil Rights movement. However, I disagree with Caroline when she wrote, "The white country club and courthouse people (and many others) blamed Teel as the perpetrator of the violence, thus eliminating their involvement and escaping their own past." I do not believe the first segment of this statement is the true reason why these people abandoned Teel. A lot of the whites in Oxford did not care that Teel “perpetrated” the violence against Henry Marrow. They believed that the hint of a threat of a sexual relationship between a black man and a white woman was enough reason to murder a black man, even if it was in cold blood. Tyson writes, "When they discovered the changes the black freedom movement brought did not land a black man in every white women's bed... the white upper classes did not wish to be reminded that they had sanctioned public murder and had turned a violent tragedy into a late-model lynching," (page 289). Therefore, Caroline was correct in that they did try to escape their past crimes. However, it was not just because the white "country club members" and others blamed Teel for perpetrating the violence. It was because it was no longer as socially acceptable to simply murder black people without just cause. When the trial was over, the white population began to reflect on the murder and realize Marrow’s actions really did not deserve a brutal murder.
ReplyDeleteA lot of you have mentioned Tyson’s message and the goal of learning America’s history as “learning from our past”. People say that we must “confront our past, not escape it”. This is an easy idea to discuss. However, the actions regarding the idea, besides simply attempting to treat everyone as equals, are much more complicated. What are the best ways we can truly act in "confronting our history"?
In response to Lola's question on whether Tyson expects white moderates or more racist whites to being searching the past racism in the country, I believe that Tyson would ideally want everyone to begin this journey of self-realization but expects and especially wants white moderates to do so. In Martin Luther's letter from Birmingham Jail, he stated that "the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate." Tyson also blames reluctant citizens for continuing inequality in the United States, citing that "most whites- and many middle-class blacks- recoiled in fear of [the federal government's actions] and huddled in the suburbs of their own indifference" (318). This hesitation on the citizens' part allows more racist and aggressive whites to exploit this fear and passiveness to not only instill a sense of inferiority in blacks but also draw white moderates into this false sense of superiority through a group mentality. Since Tyson wants the country to eliminate racism, he most likely would want white moderates to first confront the truth of America's past racism. The more racist whites would then have fewer people to exploit and garner for white supremacy, possibly turning to face the truth themselves.
ReplyDeleteDavid Kalb:
ReplyDeleteI'm going to take a different path from everyone else, and say that I have to completely disagree with the current line of thought in this thread. Shweta says "Ideally, our government should be giving benefits to American Indians, African Americans, and other immigrants who have been treated unequally in the past." This, to me, is the pinnacle of racism in today’s world. Why should the descendants of a slave owner pay the descendants of a slave money for wrongs committed by one distant ancestor to another? As the bible says, “the son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father" (The Holy Bible). It is the pinnacle of racism to take money away from someone just for being white, and give it to another just for being black. Race should be ignored in the eyes of the law. Justice is blind, right? Yes, it is obvious and apparent that a disproportionate number of blacks are impoverished, and a solution should be thought up to solve this. But wait... justice is blind. So to rephrase that, some people have less money than other people (if a black person can say straightforward that a specific white man wronged him, it’s a different story though still separate from race). But that’s capitalism. It can be cruel, and unfair, but (as Americans) we generally regard it as the best system. I think it is, because only in a capitalist system is it possible for a talented individual to rise up from poverty. The fact that it has happened before means that it can happen, and will happen again. But I digress, enough about how capitalism is awesome.
As Kate said, "A white person may think they are not racist, and are an advocate for human rights, but when a poor black man walks next to them down the street, they still clutch their wallet." I will have to disagree with her assumption that clutching your wallet is an act of internal racism. I think that the key word in her statement was "poor," as crime rates are much higher in poor neighborhoods and that poor black man is more likely to mug you than rich white person from Westport.
Maddie says that "it is our fault that [the poor] have to suffer." I do not think that it is the responsibility of the upper class to give money to the poor. If you want to donate money yourself, I am actually all with you. But it cannot be said that their poverty is our fault. I have always been disgusted by the notion that because I have something nice, I am therefore cheating the person who does no have something nice. And to say it is our fault is to say we must do something about it. The only thing that can be done would be to give them our money, so then we would all have the same amount of money. This is blatant communism, and at the moment I will not go into why it is bad (unless you ask :D).
And I keep hearing from these posts how racist America still is, and how evil those racists are. Personally, I have never actually experienced racism, despite the fact that I have been all over America and to nearly ever state. So, rather than judge what I have not experienced and do not know, I will quote Tyson's Daddy's prayer: "we ask your help, Lord, that we not become prejudiced against those who are prejudiced, or whose prejudices may not be our own."
-A fellow sinner, David Kalb
wow... a LOT of people commented in the time i was writingn that :P
ReplyDeleteWe convince ourselves that racism doesn’t exist with statements very similar to the girl with the “blackface” paint, when she said “it’s okay, I have black friends.” We condone our racist actions because we have a black president, because the schools are legally desegregated, because we listen to Jay-Z; that these small actions somehow make up for larger ones. This “social amnesia” is an easier way of interpereting the truth, and filtering out what requires thinking. Of course, these are my opinions, and although they are what I consider to be “right” someone from Mississippi might disagree.
ReplyDeleteI love Sarah’s idea that we could just “admit” to the wrongs, but I think we go into things with a quite different idea of what is wrong than the rest of America. After looking at how confident these people are in their opinions, I don’t think some of them considered actions that we consider terrible to be that bad. We consider many people in America to be ignorant about social issues, and write them off. However, we need to realize just as much as they do that we all have rights to opinions, and there is nothing that is inherently truthful. However, there is a way to avoid ignorance. According to Thomas Paine, “reason and ignorance, the opposites of each other, influence the great bulk of mankind.”
I think Paine’s idea that it isn’t knowledge, or way of opinion that makes you not ignorant, but the ability to see the opinions of others. I think if everyone reasoned their way through problems, there would be a lot less war, fighting, and prejudice. Of course, even reasoning is subjective, but if we want other people to change, and agree with us, we have to be at least willing to see their side of the story too.
-Alix Neenan
aaah sorry I didn't see David's comment before I posted
ReplyDeleteIn response to Margi's question on what else we can learn from past mistakes in history, it depends on whether people are confronting past events that they could directly relate to, such as their parents exercising white supremacy, or whether people are learning about historical events completely unrelated to them. In the first case, we can learn what Tyson stresses throughout the story- acknowledging what happened in the past allows people to realize not only the extent of horrors that may have occurred, spurring a drive to eliminate remnants of those horrors, but also that time builds ignorance of the past. On the other hand, confronting the past on a personal level may have the opposite effect and spur people, such as the women in the Destrehan Plantation, to ignore slavery and other darker elements of the Antebellum South (314). In the second case, we learn from history, as Lola stated, "that we learn nothing from history." History from all parts of the world can be stripped down and described in terms of human emotions and desires, and often it boils down to either smart or unwise decisions people made. However, these two cases of history mentioned blur together, and examining history at a more intimate level may reveal what an examination of more worldly history can.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Mischa's point that we can never really repay the people the government has misaligned, because that comprises pretty much every member of every non-protestant religion, every non-white person, and every non-heterosexual. I believe in order to truly make amends, the government has to give every person equal treatment. That being said, the government first has to adhere to the standards it created in Brown vs. Board of Ed. It cannot sweep the events of history under the rug, as it were, and expect minorities to keep up in society knowing that it was the government who first denied them access to adequate housing, education, job opportunities, and all the things that the upper classes take for granted.
ReplyDeleteObliterating the events of history does not serve to make a blank slate that can be filled in with only the good. Awareness of events makes them all the more certain that they will not happen again, or they will, depending on the situation. The suppressing of information about the bombings of Dresden, Cambodia, the celebration of Martin Luther King Junior versus the misquotation of Malcom X, and the lack of awareness of the stark inequalities between suburban schools and inner city schools all serve as guarantees that history, the true history, will be lost. Tyson had a great quote that Anya used earlier– “We have to weave the future from the fabric of the past, from the patterns of aspiration and belonging - and broken dreams and anguished rejections - that have made us.” We need to learn from what has not worked, and what has worked, in order to ameliorate any situation in the future.
I liked Kate’s point about the sugar-coating of history for the benefit of children. A part about the reading on St Louis that really struck me was the reading of MLK’s “I have a dream” speech year after year. That, I thought, is no way to teach history or the struggle for civil rights, but it does provide a meaningful message that children– and let’s face it, even the young adults are taught to be spoon fed information like children– can believe in and associate with the civil rights struggle. If they were mature enough to handle it, children should be told every detail of lynchings and race riots, but the fact is they’re not. With that in mind, they should at the very least be given two sides to every story from a young age and taught to question, not to accept.
Through out middle school I was one to fall into the trap that the United States of America is perfect. Maybe it’s because I thought we were supposed to be untied, I thought we were. When in reality, this country is far from being United States. Examples such as the Civil War have shown how diverse this country is. This just makes me think, where the melting pot and mixing bowl came from because the pot has not melted and the bowl has not yet been mixed. I believe a lot of the trouble started when Americans first brought slaves over from Africa. This quickly set different moral of the Americans on whether this was the right or wrong thing to do. It was the primary cause of the American Civil War and still is a major factor in the racism this country has.
ReplyDeleteThis epilogue stressed the importance of looking into our past to help set a better future. I agree with Timothy Tyson, Brittany and few others that also agreed, the first step of creating a more acceptable future to live into, is to understand the mistakes America has made in the past. If majority of the country came to an understanding that the direction we have been headed for the past few hundreds of years is wrong, then maybe together as a country we can change it. We have been headed in a direction of cruelty towards blacks having rights in the ‘white mans country’. Although as a country we have come a long way, there are still lynching crimes that are being reported. Because blacks are poorly treated citizens in America, it further proves the lack of melt and mix in this country. We now have racist whites, non opinionated whites, and poorly treated blacks trying to live together in a nation with a long history of mistakes.
I really like what David said about the poverty and disadvantages of racial minorities not being our fault but that of our ancestors. Yes, our ancestors put their ancestors at a disadvantage;
ReplyDeletewe did nothing to them. But it is presumably because of our ancestors that these people are less fortunate than we are, and because of OUR ancestors that we are able to live in an affluent community. (There are definitely exceptions, but in many cases, people are wealthy because their parents paid for their education, and their parents could afford to do so because THEIR parents paid for THEIR educations, and so on.) So if we realize that because of our ancestors, we are in a position to be giving money to people who need it, also because of our ancestors, shouldn't we help them? My family didn't own slaves, but if someone else's did, shouldn't that person give money to the descendants of the people enslaved by his great-great-grandfather? The said person might not even have money were it not for the slaves that one of his ancestors owned.
I also think that Mel's point about being aware of history so as not to make the same mistakes is great. I think that yes, people can learn from past mistakes and misjudgements, but I would argue that sometimes people choose not to learn. I mean, look at Darfur. We know that genocide, the killing of a specific group of people, is horrible (as we learned from the Holocaust), but thousands of people continue to die throughout Sudan. It seems like an understatement to call something like the Holocaust a "mistake," but so it shall be termed, for lack of a better word. The other problem with this theory is that in order to even have a chance at learning from mistakes, the mistakes have to be made, and sometimes those mistakes end in worse ways than we can imagine.
When reading Shweta's point "a way to teach our generation the importance of not forgetting our past" I was immediately reminded of a quote by George Santayana where he said "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." To me this quote was very applicable to the epilogue because many of the mistakes we have made in the past have been repeated, for example we expressed hatred towards not only blacks but many other minorities making them feel as if they are inferior to us. And time and time again people who are different are constantly discriminated against. "...when we look into the mirror, no matter our color, none of us can forget that the Gator lurks in there somewhere..." (317) Even though it may on the surface seem that we have begun to learn from our mistakes after we have looked back and realized how foolish and uncivilied we were in the treating of Blacks, there will always be a color line between blacks and whites. As Kenzie pointed out it isn't the people who are being discriminated against fault that their ancestors were considered inferior. And as horrible as it is and was back then, it is hard for me to really comprehend how we have not moved on from this yet. Although it is not the same and it seems that the minorities don't express hatred towards us, why do we have to treat them as inferior still? Why in jobs does there have to be a certain quota of races, why can't people be hired for their ability instead of alone their skin color? This to me is why there is still a color line between the races.
ReplyDeleteDavid, that was intense...and I kind of agree with you. I think that we as a mostly-white community view racism as something of downgrading other races, but the opposite can be just as damaging. The resentment and, in a way, embarrassment, that whites feel makes it hard for them to accuse someone of picking a black person over themselves because they were black. If our society were truly without racism, any person would be considered for any job and have an equal opportunity to get that job. However, the torture the whites put the blacks through makes it difficult for subconscious barriers not to exist.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I wanted to bring up a quote from page 315 that I really liked. Rev. Tyson said, "For we acknowledge and confess to you that we...have been tempted to love things and use people, when you have called us to love people and use things." Obviously, he is talking about racism in this case, but the reason that I think that quote is so powerful is because it can reach across so many topics. For example, wars such as the Vietnam War were fought for money and for land. Innocent people were killed every day. People were used to promote violence. No example, however, is as powerful as World War II because Hitler used his racism and his antisemitism to persuade the Nazis to eliminate the Jews and the blacks. Rev. Tyson's words resonated with me because it is a lingering issue, one that has never gone away.
Sam Weiser
David Kalb
ReplyDeleteShira said "Why in jobs does there have to be a certain quota of races, why can't people be hired for their ability instead of alone their skin color?" yes, i completely agree with this. affirmative action is racism, pure and simple. im tired of all the political correctness. recently i was going around on college tours, and someone said that one school, who's black population was 20%, wasn't diverse enough ethnic wise. first of all, who cares about that? who cares what color the student population is? and second, 20% is alot! the national percentage is only about 13%! and you know, the same thing is done with women. the company my dad works for makes it a company policy to promote women over men. the crazy part is they actually openly say it, flaunting their political correctness. The whole thing with affirmative action is unfair and discriminative.
affirmative action=discrimination!
In regards to Kenzie’s last statements, I feel she addressed the fact that through our point of view we have made mistakes in the past; however, she neglected to think about the oppositions thought process. In Darfur, the Holocaust, and every large movement, the parties are trying to do the same as Blacks during the Civil Right Movement, construct change. As Tim Tyson summed it up, “History teaches us that they fall because a large enough number of people organize a movement powerful enough to push them down.” I’m not saying Black people are Nazis but it could be noted that both groups of people were trying to change their position of power in society while trying to flip-flop the social structure in their nation. This brings up my question of is it really a mistake when we use violence and deaths to construct change? Because whether we like it or not the violence used by these people and groups did evoke change. I mean people did die when the Revolution of the United States occurred, a lot of people, and a new nation was born. Even the tiniest change can be seen when a death occurs, because when someone is gone we move on and the world and community is not what it used to be. Thus, I believe it is very arguable that our history may not have mistakes and events happen for specific reasons. Tim Tyson states, “My ascendant spirits, like my future of our country, depend upon an honest confrontation with our own history.” Therefore, I believe the past movements that can be regarded as mistakes are not at all, they are pieces and hints to solutions to our future. All of the past happens for a specific reason and it is our job as people to learn from the events that occurred for the greater education to avoid situations that we may not want to confront in the near future. Tim Tyson quotes William Faulker when he states, “The past is never dead. It isn’t even past.” The past lives with us every day, it makes us who we are second to second, and with that it is our duty to keep building on that past, and try to steer it in a direction that we desire like blacks and equality.
ReplyDeleteDavid, while I agree with your opinion on affirmative action, I would just like to play devil's advocate.
ReplyDeleteYour insinuation that the sole purpose of affirmative action is to make up for wrongs of our ancestors belies the true essence of affirmative action. On some level, the purpose of affirmative action is solely to get the smartest and best equipped person the best education at a collegiate level. The true question regarding affirmative action, however philosophical it may be, is nature vs. nurture.
Simply put, as students of staples we are better equipped for college than the majority of the country. Our CAPT scores in 2009 showed a 98% pass rate. Bridgeport had a 32% pass rate. Unfortunately the problem with those scores is they hide the extensive prep work we get on how EXACTLY to take the test (cheese anyone?). In doing so, this test measures preparedness, not ingenuity. If pressed, I am completely confident one could find someone in those intercity schools smarter than anywhere else.
My very long-winded point is simple. Just because teaching is poor in intercity schools, does not mean they are less smart. They could just as, if not more so, qualified than people coming from staples. THAT is the goal of affirmative action; not to create a diverse school, but to have a school full of kids with the POTENTIAL to succeed. This is an EXTREMELY Romantic view of the situation, yet I believe that it is the true goal and justification of affirmative action.
When Tyson states, "we want to transcend our history without actually confronting it" he's referring to the fact that Americans today are trying to keep up our quintessential image, by ignoring our faults made by our ancestors. I was going to address the idea that in order to nationally confront this situation, we must undo our mistakes by making sure "benefits" as Shweta said, are established for those who aren't treated equally due to their race. However, after reading David's post, I came to realize that we are in fact just continuing what our ancestors started. Maybe not intentionally, but by giving another race more "benefits" than another, we are spreading racism. Britt also brought to my attention that by justifying our wrongful actions taken in the past, we will never be able to fully fix the problem that, "America owes a debt that no one can repay". To address Ben's question of, "is it really a mistake when we use violence and deaths to construct change", I personally believe that in this particular situation, violence was one of the only ways for blacks to fight back. In class, we watched that youtube video of one of the leaders of the KKK telling the story about how he harassed a particularly brave a black man and the man simply reacted with kind words, it was extremely shocking. Even though the man overall "defeated the KKK" according to the leader, he also didn't construct change because they moved on to the next person of color. However, I'm not saying that fighting back would have evoked change, but as a whole I think that the violence acts were necessary to construct change by getting the attention needed.
ReplyDeleteI was referring to David Kalb by the way, sorry I didn't refresh before I posted to see that David Katter responded, haha woops!
ReplyDeleteI agree with what everyone has said so far however, when reading the epilogue I also looked at it in a different way. After reading the epilogue I realized that there are two sides to Tim Tyson, just as there is two sides to us as Americans. One side of him (his father) is the romantic, the minister and preacher, and the one that always wants to glorify history. This side of Tyson, and of historians, wants gloss over the gory details (like the violence and blood and opposition to the Civil Rights Movement.) The other side (his mother) is the cold hard fact teller, the realist, and the one who tells the story as it was.
ReplyDeleteOn page 312 Tyson says “I aint no damn preacher, I told myself, I am a historian.” Tyson draws the parallel between what all historians struggle with (can there be a true “objective” new of the past or isn’t it always sometimes tainted by the woof the story teller and how he/she looks back at past events). This applies not only to historians but the way we as a country view our past. We think of history like the “mother” but in reality we sometimes try to ignore the bad things that happened and focus on the positives (as mentioned before) more like the “father”.
I think the issue of “transcending history without confronting it” is highlighted by the struggle Tyson describes between the two sides of himself and his family. Tyson describes this struggle when he observes “I aint no damn preacher…I am a historian” (312). I think Tyson is describing both the struggle that all historians have between their “father” and “mother” and between their view of the past and the harsh reality. I also think that all countries have this same struggle with their pasts.
This is why Tyson highlights the story of their groups visit to the Destrehan Plantation. The white washed version of history told by the guides of the plantation is the “good old days” (313) version of history with no mention of the horror and bloodshed that poured slaves “lifeblood at Destrehan” (313).
I think that we, as a nation, do try to “transcend” history and not confront the hard facts. As a nation we’d rather “hear the gospel stories” (pg 317). But I don’t think that it is always done intentionally or that historians are necessarily bad for trying to “sweep things under the carpet”. To some extent, I think that it is just human nature. We want to tell stories to each other. I think our brains are wired to tell (and to hear and imagine) stories. And when we tell stories, it is inevitable that we try and neaten them up a little, make them simpler and more romantic than they may have been in reality.
So I think what is preventing America’s “catharsis” is our tendency to sing the “gospel” and not the “blues” and to look away from the hard, violent past in many aspects of our history, not just in race relations but also in places like Vietnam. Many say that history is “doomed to repeat itself”. Iraq is an example of how forgetting the lessons of Vietnam can lead to history repeating itself. The same applies to race relations with this country. Just because we were progressive enough to elect a black president, does not mean that the civil rights movement is over or that all our work is done. The work of racial integration and equal rights for blacks, women and other minorities is just beginning.
I thought that what the other Jamie brought up was intriguing about the two different sides of Tyson. I definitely agree that there was a "romantic" side versus a "realist" side. Although they do contrast at times, providing a severe shift in mood from the preaching to the cold, hard facts, they also complemented each other nicely to create the whole text.
ReplyDeleteUsing these two different approaches to presenting history to students' eyes, Tyson tries very hard to bring us back to see what really happened. I have been told time and time again that the point of learning history is of course to learn about what happened before us, but also to learn of our ancestors' mistakes so that we do not make the same ones ourselves. The fact that there's still a problem-- the main example from the text being the discrimination at the bar that Tyson went to with his African-American friend-- shows that we haven't learned from our mistakes yet and that we still have to fight. Tyson's quote on page 318 that "we want to transcend our history without actually confronting it" makes it clear to me that although America technically sees the mistakes that its ancestors made in terms of treatment of different races, we have too much of this "romantic" view and not enough of this "realist" view. The struggles, hardships, and violence are reduced to a few important, glorified events that attempt to show what a "strong" country we live in. But we glaze over the fact that there was so much more to the fight than just a few big events. I'm sure that any American had and has a definite viewpoint on race, so everyone is involved in one way or another. It can't all be summed up in a few days' study of a few prominent boycotts or sit-ins. The fight still goes on. An agreement may never be reached, and by the ominous tone of Tyson's book, it doesn't seem like it ever will.
Partly the reason we tend to accept society is because we are not given the other side to the story, according to Mel. What the idea of “the other side of the story” does is it breaks down the wall our loop-holed history often has with the adversary of the story – and we make them out to be the adversary by either covering up their side or sweeping the whole matter under the rug. To acknowledge the past so that we can make changes for the future includes confronting not only the past as a whole but the opponents of the historical event or period, if that is what we make them out to be. In the case of Malcolm X versus MLK Jr., we often make Malcolm X out to be the “violent” one when few people know that it was MLK who had arsenals in his house. I agree with many others especially Lola in that we can only transcend our past if we recognize the flaws we did that created the past (to end up the way it was). In 1619, the flaw there was that there was not enough questioning of the slaves brought over. It is likely that there were people who opposed to the idea of slavery, but who knows if these people spoke up or not. The idea of the white moderate being an enemy of blacks is not just true in that situation, but in all situations. Those who see and do not act are the ones who will end up feeling the pangs of guilt later in history. Anya said previously, “Do you think that bystanders are justified to feel fault?” Well, no offense but that is not the brightest of questions in my opinion. Bystanders by default are faulted because they may have prevented the situation if they acted. Thus, sure they may or may not feel the fault, but they definitely have fault in the situation.
ReplyDelete(my computer is being weird and only lets me post it in sections)
ReplyDeleteIn addition, anyone who tries to dust off the covered-up history tends to be an adversary to society. Is it any wonder that Tyson was taken down to a basement and told not to write his story? Because honestly, who wants to be looked at in a bad light? This is all because, as many others have said, we cannot look the "bad" history in the face because we have difficulty accepting what we did because we may be too proud or we may feel too much guilt to admit it.
Jamie said, “the fight still goes on.” The fight for equality? The fight to erase the color line? While reading the Camden, New Jersey article, according to the black principals of a poor high school, “equality is not a realistic part of their ambitions.” Is that because equality is too difficult to achieve realistically? I know that something as large as equality has been fought to recieve for centuries, but it is the realist young historian in me that says that equality will never fully be achieved unless we flip society on its head and shake the pockets (try to picture this as a bully holding its victim upside the head and getting lunch money to fall out of their pockets) of society and what falls out is racism, the under-the-rug history, and our inability to confront. If it all lies there in front of us, we can confront and move foward. However, with certain bombings and other events being suppressed from text books, it is hard to move foward. To avoid making the same mistakes we made in the past, we must be able to expose all the mistakes we made. But until we can confront our history, some may never see those mistakes. Tyson says, "We have to weave the future from the fabric of the past" (307) and to do that, the fabric of the past must be taken out from under the rug, put into the textbooks, and out in the open.
I think it doesnt matter what the fight is. I think that it means that all those fights (color line, equality for all, even to an extent womens rights) still go on. If you limit it to just one fight, than you limit the others by ending them, even though they all have lightyears of issues to still be resovled. Yes, talking about these issues are important, but taking action will make the biggest difference. It doesnt make a change to speak in a classroom enviornment if none of us do anything about working on improving these causes outside of that room.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with Maya, to say that anyone who tried to “dust off history” is an adversary in society, however, in regards to hope, understanding the past is vital. If a new generation of children hears only half of the story, if they are grown up under the influences of their parents, solely, then we are just going to face years and years more of racism.
ReplyDeleteRacism is a spiral. Ever since blacks were “emancipated” there has been conflict between blacks and whites, this conflict, like a roller coaster, got worse and then better, and then worse again, however now it is getting better and better. If you had asked last year, as a student at a public high school in CT in 2009, I would have told you that racism is basically gone, and that the issues of equal rights were resolved since after we finished abolishing segregation. However, after being exposed to pieces like Right America, Wronged I have realized that this is not that case, and that we still have a far way to go until we reach total equal rights. The people in this movie who said that the nation wasn’t ready fro a black president are troubled. They have been exposed to a life in which the old views of their parents, and of other elders, have been pushed on them. Because of their lack of further education, they have never been forced to seriously confront the issue. I’m sure they’ve heard people tell them that they’re wrong, however, they don’t feel as though it is their responsibility to change anything.
So therefore, in the north, where ideas are spread and modern customs are developed, there have not been huge issues with race, here Obama’s followers seek foresee change and hope because they have faith in the progress of their nation. However, those who don’t support Obama because of his race, are turned off by anything he has to say, so hope is lost.
I agree with what Maya was saying about confronting our history by putting it in textbooks from the very beginning. I think that this was a theme that Tyson used throughout BDSMN by saying that the racism he felt and saw around him started at a young age. One part of the story of Tyson's youth that I really had trouble grasping was when his shop teacher "took me aside and urged me to beat up Robert Hardy...ablack boy" (262). At first I questioned this and wondered if he had just made up the story to prove a point. But when we got to class, I started to wonder instead if it matters if the stories are true. Even if this did not happen to Tyson himself, we know that many people, including the teachers and children, were unhappy with the integration of schools. And, as Elaine said, this fight for equality still goes on.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Elaine meant by "if you limit it to just one fight, then you limit the others by ending them" even though they are not fully resolved. I agree because this is similar to when many blacks who had not supported or acted in the Civil Rights movement denied the movement even after it's "success". By declaring that the government's actions had ultimately brought integration to the south, these people said that the movement was over, though, as we know today, equality never was and never will be reached.
In the Chicago chapter of Savage Equalities, a fourth grade teacher explains that the children witness the inequalities in their schools and "some of them act like the game's already o er." The Chicago Tribute says that the dropout rate is "close to 60%." And Designs for Change, a reaserch center, says that out of the 6700 children that enter high school "only 300...graduate and read at or above the natural average." This inequality is mainly because the federal contribution to these schools is so small. The chapter continues that these children feel like "victims" in this situation, and then goes on to wonder if the kids would be more likely to succeed if they dropped out.
I agree with many if you that knowing our history and how it has affected the current inequality in schools makes us bystanders to be like Tyson and spread the knowledge of our past and present.
I completely agree with Kate in saying that racism is an internal battle because many people don’t even realize how they act based on race. This is an extremely difficult subject to discus though when everyone is willing to admit that others are racist; it is hard to find someone willing to admit that they are. I don’t consider myself a racist at all but there have still been times were I’ve thought to myself “how could I think that?” The thing is if people are not even willing to admit their own individual prejudices how is America as a whole supposed to overcome racism.
ReplyDeleteJust the other day I had an away lacrosse game in Stamford and when we were walking into the school there were a couple groups of black students outside. As we were walking inside one of the girls on my team heard someone say “they act as if they’ve never seen black people before.” I was taken aback by this comment because I did not think that we were looking at them any different, and maybe we weren’t. But that is not the point. The point is that when we looked at the black kids, they immediately came to the conclusion that we were judging them based on their race. CNN did a poll in 2003 and found that “72 percent of whites thought that blacks overestimated the amount of discrimination against them, while 82 percent of blacks through that white underestimated the amount of discrimination against blacks.”
That is why I loved the Tyson's epilogue because he was telling stories such as the college trip in the south where racism and the unwillingness to confront the past was still present. As people first read this story, they probably thought this was a long time ago but no. It happened in 2001. America has accepted the fact that racism did exist (emphasis on the past tense) because people aren’t willing to accept and confront the fact that racism is still alive and kicking.
When Tyson states, “"we want to transcend our history without actually confronting it" (318). I have to agree with everyone so far that has said by ignoring our racist history, it is getting us nowhere as a country because we are not confronting our problems. We have to acknowledge our past or else we will not be able to pursue the future. I have the same views as Brittany when she said in her first blog post that “America as a whole has been neglectful with our faults” and have dealt with them very immaturely. The result of our actions has caused the racial barrier between blacks and whites to still be present. Today, Americans still have their own thoughts whether if they are expressed verbally or not, on the racial color line. Some people have been influenced by the past and therefore can not get rid of their racist nature which is very upsetting. Because of segregation and not confronting all of our racist beliefs, I support the many people before me who have expressed that our history has shaped the inequality in our schools today.
ReplyDeleteI like what Augustine said about how difficult it is for people to accept that they are racist. It’s surprisingly easy for us to slander racist people from the past like Thomas Jefferson, but admitting it about ourselves is a different story. I’d like to add that in addition to people not wanting to admit that they are racist, a lot of people just don’t know it when they are. They don’t realize that even a racist knee-jerk reaction is significant. Like the judge in BDSMN, he didn’t realize that his paternalism is racism. That’s why it’s so important to study our history from an unbiased light. We can see what people living back then did not see. We can discern the subtleties of racism that could easily go unnoticed. Doing this helps us learn what it means to be racist. Once we know that, it is infinitely easier to overcome it in the present. I, myself, am a perfect example. Before this class I probably would never believe that I held any prejudices. However now with such critical studies of our history and with the help of Zinn, Takaki, and Tyson, I can quickly tell when a racist thought crosses my mind. I don’t like having prejudices, but it’s hard to prevent certain knee-jerk reactions. The best I can do is recognize them more and more so that I can learn how to stop thinking them. What do you guys think?
ReplyDeleteI find what Caitlin had to say about it being easier to identify racism in others, rather than ourselves is very interesting. However, I would like to pose the question: do you think that we do not realize our own racism, or that we just find it more convenient to ignore our feelings? I think it is a combination of the two. First of all, I believe that everyone believes themselves to be moderates. We discussed driving in our class; everyone going faster than you is a maniac, and everyone going slower than you is an idiot. I believe a lot of people do not question their racist sentiments because they do not view them as abnormal. Many people have grown up with these racist thoughts around them in their houses and just never questioned them. These same people can look back in history at people like Robert Teel and say, “Oh, well I would never be racist like him.” While there is a fair chance that most people would not have killed Henry Marrow, I feel that it is also likely that people have the same inert sense of self-righteousness. Robert Teel did not even feel that he did something wrong. He states, “That nigger committed suicide, wanting to come in my store” (293). Although, I also feel that we do ignore our feelings and our past. Tyson states, “The self-congratulatory popular account insists that Dr. King called on the nation of fully accept its own creed, and the walls came a-tumbling down. This conventional narrative is soothing, moving, and politically acceptable, and has only the disadvantage of bearing no resemblance to what actually happened” (319). We shut out parts of our past or any other inconveniences in order to make ourselves feel better. This, coupled with the self-righteousness of many people, provides an atmosphere in which people do not identify racism within themselves.
ReplyDeleteCharlotte makes a great point by saying that just last year, I believed that racism was such a minor issue in our country because it barely existed. This is because of the environment that I have grown up in and known all my life--Westport, Connecticut. It is expected that I would not have been expose to racism, living in a predominately white town. This year in H.U.S.H., I have learned about other parts of the country through our readings that has shown me a different reality. Throughout the country, you can find people with white supremacist attitudes that they are completely open about. In Westport, something like that would be completely looked down upon because of the kind of education and knowledge that is abundant in our town. I think that the most surprising part for me in Blood Done Sign My Name and the Civil Rights unit was the inability and unwillingness of people, even in the present day, to admit that their racist ideas are wrong and immoral or to confront the mistakes that their ancestors made in the past. In the epilogue of BDSMN, Tyson describes the tour that he went on with his students and father in a New Orleans plantation. A student wrote in their journal that the tour talked about “‘prayer schools, parlors, ladies’ portraits on the wall, tall ceilings, hand-carved banisters’” (Tyson 314). Tyson notes that the tour neglected the “mention of slaves or slavery, let alone the 1811 revolt” (Tyson 314). The student writes, “‘it was surreal’” (Tyson 314). Reading this story and many of Tyson’s other stories were exactly that to me—surreal. It was so hard for me to imagine that people are unable to admit their ancestor’s mistakes and confront the fact that racism is wrong and immoral. I think that this is what is holding our country back in our journey to equality the most. People are unwilling to put their pride aside and move away from racist ideas even at the expense of the millions of lives that are being affected by these mindsets.
ReplyDeleteI think that both Caitlin and Robert bring up interesting points about how we view racism in regards to both others and ourselves. While I agree that some people do not realize their prejudices, I also think that many people who do simply do not want to change or want to pretend that everything is alright. I think that Billy Watson, the attorney for the Teel’s demonstrates this pretty clearly. He is presumably racist, or else he would not have taken the case or tipped off the police that Tyson was writing about all of this. Watson describes how race has never been an issue in Granville County, but throughout the whole discussion he seems to be trying to prove to Tyson that he is not a racist. Tyson explains, “Even his acute understanding of power…could not penetrate the wishful thinking and guilty apologetics that kept him from understanding the power dynamics behind the paternalistic relationships he described…most of what he thought he knew about race…was ludicrous” (297). First, he fails to realize that his paternalism is racism, and second, he wants to pretend that everything was always fine. To me, it seems as though regions of the country where racism is more prevalent today are simply putting on a show; the racism still exists, but it is no longer overtly shown. For example, Tyson explains how a police car tailed him, saying “He was playing some kind of game, and if it was supposed to scare me, it was damn sure working” (299). Furthermore, the former chief of police said to Tyson, “You can’t write about this. All it will do is stir up bad feelings and cause trouble” (298). As evident from the “Savage Inequalities” chapters, racism, prejudice, and inequality are still present, but the areas in which it is most common are the ones which are least likely to confront it. I think the reason for them not wanting to confront the past is because they realize that it still exists today and are unwilling to change.
ReplyDeleteI would also like to comment on the affirmative action discussion from earlier. David K, I would agree with you that affirmative action is discrimination, but only if equality existed today. The thing is, however, that affirmative action is not just making up for the past, but also helping those who are still disadvantaged today. Compare Staples to East St. Louis. While Staples is almost completely white, East St. Louis is 98% black. The area is so poor that the mayor was considering selling the city hall and fire stations for cash. The sewage overflows into people’s houses so that there is risk of an outbreak of cholera (a bacterial disease seen in third world countries). A teacher there says that it has become “a repository for a nonwhite population that is now regarded as expendable.” However, the governor refuses to give any money and argues, “It’s unfortunate, but the essence of the problem in East St. Louis is the people’ who are running things.” Those students have no chance at competing with students from a school such as Staples without the help of affirmative action.
Sorry I didn't clarify, I meant David Kalb. Also sorry Abby, I forgot to refresh the page.
ReplyDeletebut david, affirmative action is not based off of what school you went to, or how well you were prepared for college. affirmative action is solely based off of race. i think it is absolutely ridiculous that college application forms, among other things, have a bubble to circle in for race. that is racism, pure and simple. if affirmative action were based off of educational backround instead of racial, i would agree with it. but it doesnt. and anyway, there are already scholarships based off of financial need. it is not necessary for colleges to know the color of the student.
ReplyDeleteand jessica... is race the reason for st. louis's bad school system that puts their kids at a disadvantage? the obvious answer is no, it would be racist to think otherwise. the real reason is money. and if affirmative action helped disadvantaged kids off the basis of money/school system, i would wholeheartedly agree. but no, affirmative action is based solely off of race (and gender btw).
-david kalb
and i'd just like to say my viewpoint on why racism exists (in everyone, at least on a subconcious level). as humans, it is our natural inclination to group things together in our mind. we were talking about this in US, how Teel in the epilogue essentially grouped the NAACP with communism, on the ignorant assumption that they are both evil (but communism actually is :P). that said, humans tend to put themselves into groups where they fit. you can see where the problem arises- races seperate out (de facto segregation)(this also causes ignorance about the other race). and, due to the ever present human narcisism, each group thinks theirs is the best. i read about a study a while ago, where the kids in a kindergarten classroom were given either a red or a blue shirt to wear. over about a week, the red shirt kids played mostly with each other, and the blue shirt kids played together. when asked what they thought of the kids with the other colored shirts, they viewed them as lesser. thus, racism forms. everyone is at least a little bit racist on the inside, but i think it can be gotten rid of with the proper upbringing, with parents who address problems of race.
ReplyDeleteoh yeah, and little tangent: alexandra said that "even reasoning is subjective." i just had to point out the fallacy of this statement. reason is the only absolute. only false reasoning is subjective. if reason were not absolute, we would know nothing of science or math, and we would have nothing off which to base any conclusions. every correct decision you have ever made was based off of reason. as it is absolute, it can solve any problem. you may be wondering wait... how can reasoning solve problems such as global warming, stabilize the economy, or whatever it is politicians and stuff do? there is never one answer to these problems. but, just as any polynomial expression in math can have more than one correct answer, so can any problem in the real world. the trouble is choosing which correct answer. reasoning gets things into simplest terms. if it were subjective, we would know nothing, there would be nothing. wow... that was random...
I think this discussion of affirmative action is very interesting. As David!!! stated, it seems illogical and hypocritical to give advantages to people based on race. However, Jessica made the interesting point about how that is assuming that people all races are treated equally otherwise. In “Savage Inequalities,” I read about a school in Camden, New Jersey, and it discussed how the school itself was like the opposite of integration, and the principal did not have a problem with it. The author, Jonathan Kozol, asks the principal, “Are we back to Plessy, then?” The principal answers, “What do you think? Just look around the school. Should I beat my head against the wall? This is reality.” The principal may not be a supporter of “separate but equal,” but he does not see a way around it. These students are now given a worse education because of their race. We are all in the honors track at the FORMER #1 high school in Connecticut; therefore, we are thought to be “the best.” Some of the students in those schools could be smarter than us, but since they were never given the opportunities we were, simply because of their race, they cannot escape. They are stripped of social mobility because of their race. However, it is possible that we are smarter, and in that case, affirmative action would be detrimental to the colleges and to the smarter students. However, since students across America are not given equal opportunity, it would be illogical to directly compare them. It is a difficult conundrum, and these are just some things to consider.
ReplyDeleteI find the study that you bring up, David, with the kindergarten class very interesting because, as you said it shows that everyone can have that voice inside them that unconciously makes them think they are better for one reason or another. The comment that David made that I really agree with, however, is when he said "i think it can be gotten rid of with the proper upbringing, with parents who address problems of race." I agree that this is one of the fundamental steps towards future generations being able to embrace the past and end racism. Many people in class have talked about their grandparents having somewhat prejudiced opinions and even their parents. These withstanding outlooks on race and other prejudices that older generations still uphold and preach to their children and grandchildren is one of the huge problems that simply keeps racism going strong. This really reminds me of Right America, Feeling Wronged because I know watching the rallies that were filmed in the film, there were just as many kids and teenagers sitting there with their parents, embracing the environment they were in a taking in the comments and prejudices that were being publicly screamed in their ears. This experience in children from day one is part of what creates the unconcious thoughts in children's heads when they think for no reason "this person is different" or even "I'm in some way better than them," just like Tyson didn't want to drink out of the water fountain after the black boy.
ReplyDeleteThis also leads to generalizations about a certain races. Because of the statistics that show that crime is higher in predominately black communities in some cases, I think there becomes this stereotype that causes people to be somewhat scared when in those types of communities, relating to the point someone made earlier about being afraid someone was going to take their wallet. The same thing is happening right now, today with Middle Eastern people. Because of our ongoing war in Iraq, people in America are unconciously more suspicious of people who look like they are from the Middle East. The environment that we live in greatly contributes to the ideas and generalizations that are put into our heads, so sometime, one generation has to be the one to do what Tyson says and somehow embrace the past and not run from it in order to save future generations from a racist and stereotypical environment.
Sorry Robert didn't see yours there!
ReplyDeleteDavid, you say that affirmative action is based solely off of race and gender, and that you would only support it if it were based off of money and the school system. However, there is a clear correlation between race, gender, and income. In 2004, a typical black family had an income that was only 58% of a typical white family’s, and this disparity is growing as whites continue to make more money than blacks. Due to the unfair difference in income, African Americans are still at a disadvantage. You are correct in saying that the East St. Louis school district’s poor education system was caused by a lack of money, not race, but overall minorities do not make as much money, causing the difference in education. In addition, you commented on how it was unfair that your father’s company promotes women over men. However, that is to make up for an imbalance, because generally women make less money than men do. If companies such as your father’s did not give preference to women, than the inequity would continue.
ReplyDeleteCheck out these links for more information
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21759075/
http://www.project.org/info.php?recordID=186
Tyson brings up many times throughout the book addressing the past to move on and move forward into the future. One quote from the epilogue that I find especially interesting is the quote from Milan Kundera saying, "the struggle of humanity against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting" (321). So many lessons can be learned from the Civil Rights Movement but most importantly, the idea of using the past as a motivator and a guide for the future. A similar idea was brought up in chapter 12 when Tyson says, "it baffles me that people think that obliterating the past will save them from its consequences, as if throwing away the empty cake plate would help you lose weight" (296). I like this thought and the idea of forgetting and trying to avoid the past makes it somehow not have happened. The Civil Rights Movement is obviously still so important today because of the still so apparent inequalities. I definitely agree with a lot of the comments other people have made and especially Caitlin about future generations needing to take hints from past generations when creating and following racial stereotypes and biases.
ReplyDeleteDavid K, when you state that, "Race should be kept out of policy", I believe that you are placing your expectations of America far too high. Yes, I agree that race should not factor into school, the economy, etc., but this is a far from perfect world that we live in; an even farther from perfect country we live in. This isn't a matter of black vs white, though. All races are effected by our imperfections. A woman from India explained that, "in Calcutta, this [school system] would be explicable, perhaps. I keep thinking to myself, 'My God! This is the United States!" (St. Louis Document). Everyone has such a false perception of what America truly represents: they make it out to be the perfect society with the "American Dream", where everyone is successful. They are then disappointed because they realize that America isn't as it was perceived to be. The extremely wealthy people of America, mind you, that is a VERY low percent, are represented as the "American Dream", living carefree lives, and expect that everyone else can just "pull themselves up by the bootstraps", and if they can't, they just aren't trying hard enough. So in response to your comment, yes, racial matters should not be included in the policy, but you're expecting a goal that is quite a stretch for most of America. If we can all agree as a nation that EVERYONE, men, women, blacks, hispanics, whites, everyone and ANYONE is equal, then maybe, your standards won't be such an unattainable goal for the nation.
ReplyDelete~Brittany B.
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ReplyDeleteIn this case I would have to agree with Brittany in her statement that in many ways the idealistic view of America as a place of equality and a place where dreams come true is a false perception. Like David and Brittany, I see countless examples in which just the opposite is being illustrated, for instance many immigrants come here looking for an education, which going along with this false pretense they see as much better in America. And, though this may be true in a comparison between a school in their home county and a school like Staples in a very rich and affluent area, a minority, it much more realistically is not true in a comparison between schools in their home country and the schools many immigrants are forced to go to because of their lacking financial stability; schools lacking proper funding and consequently lacking in quality.
ReplyDeleteJust as immigrants are forced into these poor schools by this false American dream idea, minorities, like blacks, similarly are stuck in the same situation once again because of their economic instability. And it is because of this that I would have to disagree with David that, "the reason most black people are impoverished is coincidence (at least for this generation). they are not poor because they are black. they are poor because they're ANCESTORS are black. so why punish other races because they're ancestors discriminated and enslaved?" Like I said before a large majority of blacks find themselves stuck in poor education systems, and I believe it is because they are stuck in a socio-economic cycle in which they don't have the money to get proper educations and consequently don't make proper incomes and consequently continue to have to remain in the poor state many find themselves in without a realistic way to get out. Furthermore, I believe, as Zinn argues, that in many ways the government is at fault for not providing more paths to breaking the cycle, and whether that is done purposefully, as Zinn argues, or not, I think it is because of this that the government can be held responsible for the struggling situations the majority of minorities find themselves in. And for that reason I disagree.
ReplyDeleteThis also leads me to David's idea that race should be kept out of policy. I once again, disagree with that statement because as I stated before minorities have not been provided with enough paths to breaking the depressed socio-economic cycle they are born into. And because of that they are born into a disadvantaged situations and less likely to become successful right from the start. Because of that I do think race should be kept IN policy so that minorities are given more paths to breaking the cycle, like affirmative action, which helps to offset the racial imbalance.
I disagree with a lot of people on this thread. Many people are talking about how only when our past racism is fully acknowledged will we be able to even come close to eliminating racism. My line of thinking is the exact opposite of this line of thinking: I believe that only when our past is forgotten will we be able to begin the final step in eliminating (most of) racism. Like tyson implied, we all have the original racism that come with us from being born into a inherently racist society. This racism comes from the racist society that came before us. Even if our ancestors had no part in this intolerance, we all have the “original sin”. If we remember what came before us, this original racism does not go away, only becomes more apparent. However, if we forget, totally and completely forget, what racist actions happened in the past, then the original racism goes away also. Because we have no racist actions to remember, we are a “clean slate” when it comes to racism. People may still be racist due to opinions formed later in life, but there will be no original racism.
ReplyDeleteAlso, although this is off topic, I noticed david was giving communism a bad rap while praising capitalism. So, lets have a look at the evils of the communist agenda, strait from marx's writings.
“1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10.Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.”
source: http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html
as you can see, although some ideas are very against the tenants of US society, a lot are incorporated into the USA. Many more exist in part, or are practiced in spirit. Additionally, some, like public education, make the class mobility that david praises possible in the first place. So, if you're going to insult communism, read the manifesto first.
I also apologize for my many grammatical mistakes. I do proofread, I am just very bad at it.
David Kalb:
ReplyDeleteZach said: "the government can be held responsible for the struggling situations the majority of minorities find themselves in." so the government is responsible for poor people? you're saying there should be no poor people and that the government should make it so? that's communism. this is capitalism. there are going to be rich people, and there are going to be poor people. we are a capitalist country (mostly kinda)(but still the most capitalist country around), and just to let you know how well it works, i'll supply some statistics. the average American makes about $55,000 a year. this is more than 97% of the rest of the world. the federal poverty line is about $22,000 (below which citizens recieve welfare). a person making $22,000 is richer than 90% of the world's population. capitalism seems to be working. and what you suggest is that the government redisttribute wealth in order to eliminate poverty? thats kinda the definition of communism.
and now, michael, i will explain why communism is bad. sure, it works on paper. infact, its brilliant on paper. no poverty, 100% employment, happy happy joy joy. but the people are not working for their own pay. they are, in essence, working for the government. i cannot think of a single example in which the american government did something efficiently. remember recently, in the news, it was discovered that all the employees in a government office were spending their whole time watching pornography? thats what happens when it's not your paycheck you're working for. "equal obligation of all to work." this means people can't be fired (they'll probably be sent to a work camp instead). but yeah, the government employs one hundred people to do the job of ten (although thats actually probably the unions :P). and then what happens when the country starts becoming poorer and poorer due to this inefficiency of labor? people start stealing. most people are by nature selfish and greedy. many people criticize capitalism for working based off of mankind's greatest flaw. but is it a flaw? selfishness is only wanting the best for yourself. it leads to greater production (suggested reading material: anything by Ayn Rand :D).
and michael, you said that racism exists only because it is continued from racism in the past. untrue. i said it earlier, racism is a natural occurence- there was a study done on it. and burying the problem of racism under the rug would only make it worse, because if it is not spoken about, people are forced to draw their own conclusions. in the same study i mentioned earlier, but with a different group of kids, they found that kids whose parents do not address race tend to be much more inclined to racist beliefs than kids whose parents talked to them on the issue of race. so BAM!!
I like what Alex L. had to say about the "false American dream." I think the fact that the American dream has been left with limited access to so many Americans says a lot about our current state as a county. I agree that our government is at partial fault for the current state of minorities in America, but I also think that the citizens of this country, particularly those who have long had access to the American dream, are also to blame.
ReplyDeleteIn denying our past as a country and attempting to move on, we simply ignore history until later generations are forced to face it. The history and its lingering effects are undeniable, and often draining.
I’m reminded of Tyson’s grandparents and their “paternalistic racism.” It’s through this type of racism, a blind eye toward injustice and a pat on the back for being good Samaritans, that has lead to the state of disarray in inner-city schools, which are mainly populated by minority children. According Savage Inequalities, “In recent years … corporate leaders in Chicago who opposed additional school funding and historically resisted efforts at desegregation have nonetheless attempted to portray themselves as allies to poor children, as they sometimes call themselves ‘school partners’ … and even offer certain kinds of help.” The denial of racism is one which many would rather not admit themselves. In turn, though, it has led to a different type of racism, one fueled by self interest and self-imposed ignorance. By ignoring America’s history of racism, a new one is being written, creating the same cycle that many have tried to ignore. It is not the fault of just the government, but a joint effort of citizens and those in power that has lead to America’s unwillingness to face her past (Chapter 10).
I agree with Shweta, it would be ideal to compensate the minorities in our country who have been indirectly stricken by racism. Life is unfair, and I am beginning to see this more and more as I grow out of my adolescence. But in truth, America makes life more unfair….and unjustly attempts to cover up this fault by ignoring it (hence, the relentless power of ignorance seen throughout our country, and the world).
ReplyDeleteAn ugly truth, that is remains prevalent because of the still lingering sense of white supremacy…and the lack of punishment for this cruel disease, is the heavy burden minorities, but more specifically blacks, must carry. Slavery was existent and lavishly practiced and abused in our country. As a nation, we all seem to remember this factor of our past….but forgot that after slavery was abolished, blacks were left with nothing and degraded to be less than human.
Since the marking of their so called “freedom”, close to nothing has been done to compensate for the four-hundred years of abuse that would degrade them to sub-human, the following centuries, and to this day, that would prevent blacks and our country form getting jobs, making money, supporting their family, becoming educated, and their own lively hood. As Tyson points outs out, “The long-term result of this taboo was the epidemic of the lynching of black men.” (319). These invisible chains would coerce the blacks in our country, especially the infamous south, to actually believe they were inferior to any man or woman with white skin.
This is the ugliness, the blindside of America. This is why racism still exists, we ignore our faults and act like the abolishment of slavery was enough of our reparations. We are long overdue, and today we see little progress. But fortunately, with the help of education and open eyes, there is hope and there is progress.
Besides the fact that Obama is brilliant and brings forth ingenious ideas to our country, the color of his skin expresses progress with in our country. Prior to this day in America, I’d presume it highly unlikely for a black man to capture the heart of America, and pour their faith and issues into his soul. But luckily today, enough people in our country has seen the light and have to some degree understood that white skin is in no way superior.
We must look back and reflect upon our history, feel and understand the wrong. Then act upon it. President Obama is just one example of hope in our country, and encourages myself to believe that a brighter future lay ahead of us.
Maeve said "Besides the fact that Obama is brilliant and brings forth ingenious ideas to our country, the color of his skin expresses progress with in our country." I've heard this about Obama all the time since he was elected. Everyone seems to think he is amazing. but what i always ask is for the person to name some of his ingenious ideas, say exactly why he is a good president. I've never heard an answer. I don't like Obama, and I will say why. lets start with obamacare. the recent bill wasn't actually shown to anyone (neither the public nor many lawmakers) until about 3 hours before it was voted upon. it was 2000 pages long. no one knew what they were voting on, just that it seemed politically correct or something. anyway, first of all, his bill forces people to buy full-coverage (ish) health insurance. for most people, many of these full-coverage things they are paying for is unecessary. a single person with no kids still has to pay for pediatric insurance, for example. the insurance agencies are no longer able to give the customer what they want. and what kind of message does this send, in terms of personal responsibility? this bill says that you can eat whatever fat you want, smoke all you want, drink all you want, and you're health care will still be gauranteed to be the same price as everyone elses. is no one responsible for themselves? plus, now the government decides what the doctors get paid. translation: very little. maybe half what it was before. there will be fewer doctors, and it will be harder to see a doctor. in europe, where they have had a similar plan for some time now, it is impossible to see a doctor except in absolute emergency. thats just one of Obama's ingenious ideas. and what about when he first entered office, he went around the world, apoligizing to everyone for america? he bowed down to the king of saudi arabia! I dont like that apologist attitude. and he never does what he says he'll do. he lies all the time. that alone is my biggest reason for not liking him. check out this website: http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnHawkins/2009/08/04/7_lies_of_the_obama_administration
ReplyDelete"the color of his skin expresses progress with in our country" does it really express progress? 96% of black voters voted for Obama. thats a pretty racist vote. whatever, i just don't like obama. i've said my reasons. would someone please enlighten me as to why you like his policies? really, because i've never heard why.
Maeve: "we ignore our faults and act like the abolishment of slavery was enough of our reparations. We are long overdue, and today we see little progress." Of course the abolishment of slavery was not enough for reparations, and i agree that reparations should have been given. to former slaves. but it's a bit too late for that now. we cant give money to people who were slaves at one point, soshould we give money to people based solely on their race? it would be racist to do so. you would be judging someone based off their race. you would be treating someone differently beased off appearance. ignore race! it is the only way for everyone to be treated equal! the only eay to establish equality among races is to ignore race in all decisions, in all policies. it is as inconsequencial as what color my hair is.
this is continued... i ran out of space...
ReplyDeleteand im tired of everyone's defeatist attitudes that someone can't pull themselves up by their boot straps and live a fulfilling live (yeah, i know, i just opened a bees' nest and they're gonna be swarming :P). it IS possible. it has happened before. my god-father was a street urchin in argentina, and now he's a successful architect (or something) in California. but yeah, i know you guys will just say that that is just one story, it does not represent a population. but what about the Irish? they came to America with nothing, doing hard, low pay, unskilled jobs, and one generation later they were the middle class. they were the skilled laborers, they had risen in society. the same with the jews. they have successfully assimilated into many societies, have always been persecuted, and have always risen and become affluent. both the irish and the jews were discriminated against. and im not saying that the blacks as a race are any lazier than you or i am, they just have to realize that it is possible. they can reach the american dream.
Okay, david, a couple things:
ReplyDelete1.capitalism in its pure form fails as well. It always, and I mean always, ends up with there being like 97% of the country in extreme poverty while 3% live large. That, although debatably fine, usually results in the other 3% of the population getting their heads cut off or being shot an buried in a shallow grave(France, Imperial Russia). Additionally, in a pure capitalism, there is almost always no class mobility, because there is no government funded aid to give the lower class the tools they need to get out of the hellhole they call their daily lives. So, before you go and insult communism, ask yourself: “what was marx reacting to when he thought up the theory communism?” I'll give you a hint: it is a theory of economics that looks good on paper and is horrible in reality.
2.As I said before, the US of A is not a purely capitalistic economy. There is a good dash of communist theories thrown in there, and they make a BIG difference.
3.I find it absolutely hilarious that you are insulting government while sitting in a house with electricity and running water, commenting on a blog post for a PUBLIC school assignment, while living in a town with a police department and fire station.
4.I cannot think of one things the BANKS have done correctly. They moved themselves into a market which was only so lucrative because it had yet to be regulated, and then when they( quite predictably) failed, they went and cried to the Fed and asked to be bailed out.
5.Speaking of bailouts, lets look at into today's financial crisis. The only reason all of these banks are still in business because the Fed( for all purposes the USA's national bank) worked their magic with bear sterns and the Govt. bailed them out. Futhermore, believe me, this bailout would have been 10x worst than what's going down now if the banks had been left to fail, just like pure capitalism would dictate. So, if it weren't for an institute of the federal govt. inspired by communism, this recession would be a great depression * 10^5.
1.Neither of us are qualified to draw any reasonable conclusions about healthcare reform. Period full stop. We are not doctors, we are not politicians, we are not economists, we are do not work in the insurance industry. It would be totally naïve of us to even try to draw any conclusions on something we all know only a little about.
ReplyDelete2.I am, however, going to clear up a few blatant falsehoods in David's post. The healthcare bill was always readily available to both the general public and to US lawmakers. The FINAL version of the bill, with only VERY minor( even for politicians) changes was only available three hours before, which is standard practice. Just because most commentators and lawmakers decided to ignore the bill does not mean it was not right here:http://dpc.senate.gov/dpcdoc-sen_health_care_bill.cfm . Additionally, Europe is a continent, not a country. It is full of different countries with different policies on healthcare. Talking about europe as one nation in terms of healthcare is a very flawed viewpoint.
1.I still think Huckabee is this true voice of the american people and was robbed of the nomination, and by extent the election, due to Mitt Romney and John McCain's ties to the big Donors. So when I'm done saying what I gotta say, don't try pegging me as some Obama zealot.
ReplyDelete2.Obama isn't jesus. He's a politician. He kinda HAS to do all the apologizing stuff to ensure that the good ol' US of A has allies and not enemies. It's his job to go around and be nice and say yes to everyone, that's what politicians do. You criticize healthcare as if it were all his idea, forgetting that he just said what he wanted, and the house and senate wrote the actual bill. Sure, he had an influence in it, but it was a bipartisan effort that made the entire thing possible. Yes, he goes back on campaign promises, all politicians do. If Huckabee, the best man for the job, had become president, he would have done the same thing. Frankly, for a politician, he's done a hellva good job sticking to his promises, even when it would have been much easier to just avoid the whole mess. So lay it easy on Obama, cause he's just doing his job, even if it makes him look bad.
1. Michael, i actually agree with that first point: pure capitalism is not good. but i still think the best system to have would be one that leans more heavily towards capitalism than any other system. capitalism is greatly improved upon with socialized education, and i also agree with welfare, social security, and medicare and medicaid (though i think they can all still be improved upon... i know a guy who is about 68 years old, a milionare, and uses his social security checks to maintain his giant boat). (and i'd also like to say that the 97% poor to 3% rich ratio is in large part due to the dictatorial monarchies at the time). and capitalism allows social mobility by definition- those who are able and intelligent rise up and make money, and live better (and arent they, the intelligent and able, the ones you want running things anyway?).
ReplyDelete2. i know that the US is not purely capitalist (as i said, i dont think it should be). but anyway, it is still the most capitalist world power around.
3. am i insulting government? i am offering critisism on how i think it could be improved. it is my constitutional right to do so.
4. yeah, so the banks failed and got a bailout. "[bad stuff] happens." i am not familiar with the background, so im not going to say much about it, but i do know that the banks paid the government back in full with interest. it was a good deal for everyone involved.
5. the federal government was inspired by communism? not really. didn't we learn last year that john locke inspired most of our constitution, and that he is pretty capitalist? "Everyone has property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his" (John Locke).
1. you say neither of us can draw conclusions about health care reform because we are not doctors, economists, etc? well then, i guess neither of us can draw conclusions about anything. well then, how can any of us say anything at all? after all, we are just kids who have not even graduated high school yet. but im actually not drawing my own conclusions. i just read a lot, and when i see an idea i like, i adopt it. all i know about health care reform was taken out of new york post editorials. so yeah, those conclusions i made were made by doctors, by economists, by people in the insurance industry. yes, i know, i know very little. my education is not complete. but i know a good idea when i see one.
2. as i said, all the information i have i got from editorials (and articles) which, by definition, are biased. I did not know that the health care bill was actually available beforehand. but that still does not change the fact that a nation wide poll showed two thirds of America OPPOSED the health care bill. and of course europe is many different countries. but they are almost all linked through the EU, they are all heavily socialist, and have similar health care. and i'd like to add that that comment had little to do with the discussion, it was just an inconsequencial side-note.
and michael: "Obama isn't jesus." THANK YOU! sorry, you're just the first person i know to say that. and you say obama did not write the health care bill, that he just stated his point and that was the end of it. but no, he signed it. he made it possible. and bipartisan effort? i don't think one republican voted for it. and yeah, all politicians are liars. i just wish they weren't.
side note on communism: communism means a collective ownership of everything, right? the people own everything. but someone has to be there to regulate it. so really, this just means the government owns everything. meaning tyranny. what i like about the american system is that the people have rights, and they give power to the government. in heavily socialist countries in europe, the government has the power, and gives rights to the people (because the government runs all the big businesses-they have all the power)
1.the same rule of communism applies to capitalism: theory does not apply himself to practice. Capitalism in practice keeps the working class down in poverty. The only reason this is not entirely the case in the USA is because of the communist and socialist elements of this country.
ReplyDelete2.Okay then
3.you said “i cannot think of a single example in which the american government did something efficiently.” That was clearly meant as an insult.
4.The point I was trying to make is that subverts capitalism. In capitalism, things are allowed to fail on their own. That is actually one of the main points of capitalism. In this case, the banks were bailed out and partially owned by( aka. socialism) the US govt. for a time, therefore saving the economy. So if socialist methods had not been used, and only capitalistic theory had been applied, then it would be Mad Max: Road Warriors right now
5.I said influenced, not inspired. Big difference
6.Let me rephrase that: if you read the bill and understood it, then you can talk about it. But nobody here read the bill, so nobody has any real idea what their talking about.
7.The EU is an economic partnership, not a social one. True, their economic policies are interlinked, but their social ones are totally different, and the countries in europe have very different ideologies from each other, especially if you include turkey. Many countries, such as russia, are not socialist in the slightest.
8.Do yourself a favor, don't read the NY post. It is almost as bad as the NY Times.
yes, okay, i already said/agreed that no pure system is good on its own. and i know that europe is not all solialist, but many of its countries are. when i said europe was largely socialist, i was saying many of its countries are. whatever, you're arguing non-essential points that detract from the argument. anyway, i dont agree with communism, and i think that (leaning towards) capitalism is always best. if you wanna argue about that, just clearly state your reasons for and against communism and capitalism respectively.
ReplyDeletebut whatever, we should get back to the debate at hand.
Like Tyson, the Obamas (both Barack and Michelle) have invoked the notion of hope. How do you understand hope in the context of United States - both domestically and internationally?
To be honest, I never completely understood what Obama's message of 'hope and change' meant. hope for what? hope that we can overcome racism by electing a black president? if thats it, then obama's message says to vote for him because he's black. i do not think that hope should belong in politics. I remember how Obama said in a speech in 2004, "do we participate in a politics of cynicism, or do we participate in a politics of hope?" (Obama). I heard this and wondered, what about politics of action? hope will not solve the economic crisis. hope will not solve the problem in the Middle East. Hope will not put bread on my table. Action will. It is the foolish bystander who hopes. It is the leader who acts. In the context of the United States, I understand hope to be the opposite of what should be done. Hope instills a feeling of contented wellness, a feeling that all is well, and someone else will take care of it. A feeling in complete disregard of the reality that America is in crisis. Ignorance and hope are bliss. Knowledge and action are painful necessities.
Getting the facts dead wrong also detract from the conversation too, and I never said that a capitalist leaning society wasn't the best.
ReplyDeletebut, whatever
I think the whole “hope” part of the campaign was not so much a policy as “lets hope Obama gets things done”. The average American wants nothing to do with politics, and would much rather be ignorant and have hope in an authority figure than actually get involved themselves.
As for the politics of action, lets not forget that the opposite of progress is congress. Action and politics only go together when it when... actually never. They never go together at all.