“…Equality For All…”

College Of Political Knowledge

Really?

Equality?

Take a good look around you….does anything look like equality to you?

Just what the Hell is meant by the term?

Equality means “the state of being equal.” It’s one of the ideals a democratic society, and so the fight to attain different kinds of equality, like racial equality, gender equality, or equality of opportunity between rich and poor, is often associated with progress toward that ideal of everyone being truly equal.

Now did our wise and noble Founders mean any of this when they used the term ‘equality’?

But what did the Founders mean by ‘equality’?

What the Founding Fathers meant by equality is this: All men share a common human nature. The assertion that all men are created equal means that all persons are the same in some respect; it does not mean that all men are identical, or equally talented, wise, prudent, intelligent, or virtuous; rather, it means that all persons possess the inherent capacity to reason.

https://fee.org/articles/the-founding-fathers-and-equality/

In the early decades of the Republic, equality meant equality before God; liberty meant the liberty to shape one’s own life. The obvious conflict between the Declaration of Independence and the institution of slavery occupied the center of the stage. That conflict was finally resolved by the Civil War. The debate then moved to a different level. Equality came more and more to be interpreted as “equality of opportunity” in the sense that no one should be prevented by arbitrary obstacles from using his capacities to pursue his own objectives. That is still its dominant meaning to most citizens of the United States.

Neither equality before God nor equality of opportunity presented any conflict with liberty to shape one’s own life. Quite the opposite. Equality and liberty were two faces of the same basic value—that every individual should be regarded as an end in himself.

Apparently the word ‘equality’ does not meaning today what it was intended in the 18th century…..

Maybe a better term would be ‘fairness’.

Simply put fairness means equal treatment…..the quality of treating people equally or in a way that is right or reasonable

Fairness is concerned with actions, processes, and consequences, that are morally right honorable, and equitable. In essence, the virtue of fairness establishes moral standards for decisions that affect others.

Look at that definition……

Fairness is sadly absent in the American society……

Return a  moment to our Founders and their understanding of the term they pinned…..

What the Founding Fathers meant by equality is this: All men share a common human nature. The assertion that all men are created equal means that all persons are the same in some respect; it does not mean that all men are identical, or equally talented, wise, prudent, intelligent, or virtuous; rather, it means that all persons possess the inherent capacity to reason.

Reason?

The capacity for reason has left the room….and each passing year it gets further from returning to our political discourse.

What about logic?

That left the room in 1980 when Reagan was elected president.

And as you have seen it has pretty much never returned and probably will not as long as social media drives the debate.

It is a sad state for this country…..and the withering away6 of the republic will and is being televised.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Idea Of Self-Determination

College of Political Knowledge

Self-determination denotes the legal right of people to decide their own destiny in the international order.  Self-determination is a core principle of international law, arising from customary international law, but also recognized as a general principle of law, and enshrined in a number of international treaties.  For instance, self-determination is protected in the United Nations Charter and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as a right of “all peoples.” 

The scope and purpose of the principle of self-determination has evolved significantly in the 20th century.  In the early 1900’s, international support grew for the right of all people to self-determination.  This led to successful secessionist movements during and after WWI, WWII and laid the groundwork for decolonization in the 1960s. 

Contemporary notions of self-determination usually distinguish between “internal” and “external” self-determination, suggesting that “self-determination” exists on a spectrum.  Internal self-determination may refer to various political and social rights; by contrast, external self-determination refers to full legal independence/secession for the given ‘people’ from the larger politico-legal state.

Now that the much used term has been defined….let’s look at what the UN has to say on this front…..

Essentially, the right to self-determination is the right of a people to determine its own destiny. In particular, the principle allows a people to choose its own political status and to determine its own form of economic, cultural and social development. Exercise of this right can result in a variety of different outcomes ranging from political independence through to full integration within a state. The importance lies in the right of choice, so that the outcome of a people’s choice should not affect the existence of the right to make a choice. In practice, however, the possible outcome of an exercise of self-determination will often determine the attitude of governments towards the actual claim by a people or nation. Thus, while claims to cultural autonomy may be more readily recognized by states, claims to independence are more likely to be rejected by them. Nevertheless, the right to self-determination is recognized in international law as a right of process (not of outcome) belonging to peoples and not to states or governments.

The preferred outcome of an exercise of the right to self-determination varies greatly among the members of UNPO. For some of our members, the only acceptable outcome is full political independence. This is particularly true of occupied or colonized nations. For others, the goal is a degree of political, cultural and economic autonomy, sometimes in the form of a federal relationship. For others yet, the right to live on and manage a people’s traditional lands free of external interference and incursion is the essential aim of a struggle for self-determination. Other members, such as Taiwan and Somaliland, have already achieved a high-level or full self-determination, but are yet to be recognized as independent states by the international community.

https://unpo.org/article/4957

I thought is that if a people in a majority vote want to determine their own future than they should be given the right….but sadly in this world the power does no longer belong to the people but rather to money and those that control it.

An interested look at Self-determination from a post-graduate student…..https://www.e-ir.info/2014/04/17/what-is-self-determination-using-history-to-understand-international-relations/

Now that we have looked at ‘the right of self-determination’ I would appreciate your thoughts on this….

amicus populi

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It’s Those Individual Rights

This is a debate in this country even from the very beginning and the silliness rages to this day.

These days the individual rights thing centers around the pandemic and the use of masks and even the vaccinations.

Let’s us take a look at what “individual rights” is all about….

Rights are essential for a society to function properly. They are normally set by laws and enforced by the government. There are many different rights and democracy is the political system that protects basic these rights the most. When basic individual rights, such as the right to vote, to work, to live and to have a family among other fundamental rights, are prohibited or limited by a government the country might not be living under democratic principles.

Imagine a world where you could not own property or even a weapon to protect yourself and your family. You couldn’t vote for the candidate of your choice in elections, couldn’t speak freely without being arrested, and couldn’t practice the religion you wanted. Imagine you could have your house searched by law enforcement at any time without a search warrant or be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment for committing a crime.

In such a world, you would have no individual rights. The United States was established based on democratic principles, and individual rights coincide with democracy. Democracy can be defined as everyone in society having formal equality of rights and privileges. The founding fathers put these ideals of democracy in the Constitution in the 1700s, and they continue to exist to this day.

Your individual rights guarantee individuals rights to certain freedoms without interference from the government or other individuals. These rights are derived from the Bill of Rights in our United States Constitution. The Bill of Rights consists of the first ten amendments of the Constitution. Within the first ten amendments, your individual rights are specified. They apply to everyone within United States borders.

Now the question is…..do individual rights trump (no pun intended) the public good?

These days your individual rights is not a given….only when it conforms to the present day paradigm.

The GOP embraces the thought of individual rights like the decision to NOT wear a mask….and yet the same people do not support a woman’s right to her body…so apparently those individual rights are only supported when it complies with the orthodoxy of the party…..has NOTHING to do with rights and everything to do with party philosophy.

Depends on who you talk with ….the definition changes with point of view.

For me either you support individual rights on all topics or you do not…..there is NO grey area.

Any thoughts?

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Treatise On Voting

One of the big stories for 2021 is that of voting and the attempts to suppress the turn-out.

Our president has signed into place an Executive Order on voting rights……a quick look at the EO…..

Direct federal agencies to expand access to voter registration and election information. The executive order will direct the head of each federal agency to submit to the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy a strategic plan outlining ways their agency can promote voter registration and participation within 200 days. These strategic plans could include actions such as:

• Leveraging agencies’ existing websites and social media to provide information about how to register to vote
• Distributing voter registration and vote-by-mail ballot applications in the course of regular services
• Considering whether any identity documents issued by the agency can be issued in a form that satisfies state voter identification laws

A good start but so much more is needed….and soon.

The dialog about voting I have heard a couple of statements that I do not agree with at all…..

“God given right” and “Voting is a sacred power”…..

There is  nothing god given about voting it is a right within a social contract……a contract that people sign onto as a member of a society and in turn are guaranteed certain rights….voting being one of them…..

All that said I am recalling some the Emma Goldman once said….”If voting changed anything it would be made illegal”.

After watching our Congress and political circus for all my years I feel she hit the nail on the head.

A little background….I have not voted for a winner since 1976 and Jimmy Carter….since that election I have voted for third parties…..in 2020 I supported candidate Tulsi Gabbard…..and in the election I wrote in my name for I had more principles than the offered candidates.

Enough about me…..

On to the institution we call “voting”……

Voting is a method for a group, such as a meeting or an electorate, in order to make a collective decision or express an opinion usually following discussions, debates or election campaigns. Democracies elect holders of high office by voting. Residents of a place represented by an elected official are called “constituents”, and those constituents who cast a ballot for their chosen candidate are called “voters”. There are different systems for collecting votes, but while many of the systems used in decision-making can also be used as electoral systems, any which cater for proportional representation can only be used in elections. (wikipedia)

Probably I need to say at this point that I think that all Americans need to have a voice in the government…..a voice that carries some weight….as it is now that is not the case.they get their information on candidates from the news and today from social media….however these sources are nothing short of political spin….very little accuracy just slogans and jingoism.

Here is another’s s thought on voting…..

I listened to a Freakonomics podcast today called “We the Sheeple”. I like to think they stay fairly unbiased, which is why I like their podcasts so much.

In the podcast, Steve Levitt was quoted as saying that he identifies someone as smart if they don’t vote (in Presidential elections). In other words, he finds people who vote with the intention of getting someone into office to be ignorant.

I’ve always been taught (or I socially absorbed) that you can’t complain about policy if you didn’t vote. People complain about low voter turnout, but hearing this idea made me wonder why the voting rate is even at ~50%.

Levitt asks, if we all know voting is useless, then why do we vote at all?

“I think the reason most people vote, and the reason I occasionally vote is that it’s fun. It’s fun to vote, it’s expressive, and it’s a way to say the kind of person you are, and it’s a way to be able to say when something goes wrong when the opponent wins, “well I voted against that fool.” Or when something goes right when you voted for a guy to tell your grandchildren, “well I voted for that president.” So there’s nothing wrong with voting. [But] I think you can tell whether someone’s smart of not smart by their reasons for voting.”

Some people would argue that the popular vote gives us a national awareness of how we feel about the President, but isn’t that what polling is for?

Is Levitt right? Are voters stupid? Does not voting obligate us to shut up and stay out of the discussion?

I say this because corporate America owns most of the outlets and these sources will “report” on the campaigns and candidates in the fashion that influences the voter to their way of thinking.

The voter has no actual voice beyond the precincts where they go to vote……petitions are as worthless as the paper it takes to put them together…..mail/email is met with generic ‘thank you’ replies…..townhalls would be a good place but unfortunately these are stacked with supporters and answer are generic and told to the voter only what they want to hear.

So can a voter make an informed choice for their vote?

In my opinion they do not.

For one reason the information the voter gets is skewed and second the voter seldom looks beyond the person they worship.

This makes the vote a worthless endeavor.

Why?

Look at the national Congress or the state legislature……nothing about the bills passed are the ‘will of the people’….all the vote accomplishes is to legitimize the rule of the elites….all this exercise accomplish is to give the illusion that the voter is in control….but actions in the after election days illustrates that they are in control not the voter.

Voting does not determine policies whether state or federal….all it determines is which wealthy elite will rule.

For instance…the recent political battle over the American Rescue Plan to battle the Covid-19 virus….75% of the American people liked the plan and yet not a single Republican voted for its passage in Congress.

Are you sure the elected people are working for the people’s best interests?

Voting has become nothing more than a way to legitimize those in power.

If it were truly a representative action then there would be a solid recall process instead we get lame soft soap BS.

Americans have a choice….either vote or not….if they do vote their single vote means nothing…..

Voting is widely thought to be one of the most important things a person can do. But the reasons people give for why they vote (and why everyone else should too) are flawed, unconvincing, and sometimes even dangerous. The case for voting relies on factual errors, misunderstandings about the duties of citizenship, and overinflated perceptions of self-worth. There are some good reasons for some people to vote some of the time. But there are a lot more bad reasons to vote, and the bad ones are more popular.

Your Vote Doesn’t Count

Americans need to move past the single issue vote…..until they become more informed this country will continue to slide into a political abyss that it may not extricate itself from any time soon.

I do not refuse to vote….the last time I voted for a winner was 1976 with Carter……I vote my principles and right now there is NOTHING offered that would embrace my principles.

The myth of voting has become nothing more than jingoism….nothing changes and the country remains stuck in a manure pile.

I leave you with a few quotes on voting….

“In this country people don’t vote for, they vote against.”
― Will Rogers

“Politics: the art of using euphemisms, lies, emotionalism and fear-mongering to dupe average people into accepting–or even demanding–their own enslavement.”
― Larken Rose

“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”
― Isaac Asimov

“The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy.”
― Thomas Sowell

“Representative government is artifice, a political myth, designed to conceal from the masses the dominance of a self-selected, self-perpetuating, and self-serving traditional ruling class.”
― Giuseppe Prezzolini

Again I do not refuse to vote…..I do refuse to vote for the candidates that do not hold with my principles…I do refuse to ply party politics which I feel is destroying this country from within.

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Armed Camps

These days with all the ease to obtain guns even assault weapons the US is becoming an armed camp….it is becoming ‘us against them’ once again.

While the debate over gun rights rages….the population is quietly arming themselves…..not sure why other than some delusional bullsh*t.

For years now the militias like the Oath Keepers and so many more have been gaining members and arming themselves for the coming fight with the government.

If you are not sure just what these militia groups want or stand for then maybe this will help a bit….https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_militia_movement

I remember back in the 60s when the Black Panthers were photographic with guns the press and country lost their minds.

There was a concern that there would soon be a ‘race war’ in the US and of course the whites started arming themselves in case there needed to be a response to the coming race war….a war that NEVER materialized…it was all hype fed by the media and the NRA…..it help sell a bunch of guns.

And now whenever there is some sort of domestic chaos…..whether warranted or not……the sell of guns goes sky high because of some unfounded fear….helped by the media and politicians with their hands in the pockets of the NRA and the gun industry.

These militias formed as a block for any attempt of a ‘takeover’ of the government from ‘them’……that depends on the minority that is in disfavor with the idiots.

These overweight in-bred morons are filmed constantly with the body armor and the AR-15s (a substitute for their penis) attempting to intimidate people in doing what they desire….

These groups became more and more visible with the rise of those pee brains in the Tea Party.

That explains one armed camp.

On the other side of this issue is the NFAC……a coalition of black/brown militia group…..

I have introduced the readers of In Saner Thought to the NFAC in more detail…….https://lobotero.com/2020/11/03/nfac/

These people joined up with the ever rising tide of excessive deadly force being used against black and brown Americans this group has stepped in as some sort of equalizer….

That is the second armed camp….

This camp will possibly grow bigger and bigger because of the interests that blacks are showing and the interest in owning guns….like their white counter parts…..

Black people are buying guns at a high record rate, partially due to fear and anxiety, according to The Guardian.

Black people owning guns have gone up 58.2 percent, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) — and gun groups like the “Not F**king Around Coalition (NFAC)” consist of armed social justice advocates who demand justice for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, visibly strapped with handguns. 

The Guardian also noted that gun-ownership amongst Black people spiked both when President Trump lost his reelection campaign and when Ahmaud Arbery, a Black jogger who died after he was inspecting an empty house, was gunned down.

https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/diversity-inclusion/546454-gun-ownership-among-black-americans-is-soaring

A third and little known group is that of the SRA……a group founded to be a counter to the power and influence of the NRA……I have introduced my readers of IST to this group as well……https://lobotero.com/2020/05/10/who-will-confront-the-protesters/ …..they are not as visible as the first two…..but that could change at anytime.

I have expressed my concern about the runaway guns in this country…..and now we are dividing ourselves even further into armed camps.

Let us not forget the non-joiners or the ‘independent’ gun owners…..most are reasonable and would like to see changes in the gun availability and most have not chosen sides in this divide…..but that could change any day.

After the breach of 06 January Americans are realizing that these are dangerous times…..and sadly there is no end in sight.

Dark days are a head of us.

Can we survive as a nation?

It is true that Americans are resilient…..but can we stop this spiral?

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Here A Protest There A Protest

These days the whole world is in protest for one thing or another.

Protests in the US for various reasons…..racism, violence, etc…..Myanmar is in protest…the same with India, Brazil, Hong Kong, Thailand…..so forth and so on…..people are rising up and taking to the streets….

Why is the world burning with protests?

Before we answer that question there is another…..

Just what are all these protest accomplishing?

But before we answer that probing question….let us look at historic protests from the not so distant past….

As protests have continued nationwide, more than a dozen other U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, Dallas, and Washington, D.C., have also made commitments to reduce police resources and funding, and make changes to their systems.

Throughout American history, peaceful protesting — which is protected under the First Amendment and is an act of patriotism — has been utilized to advocate for and lead to change. While the overall impacts of the current national protests are still unfolding, they will likely be influential, just like these movements:

https://www.ucf.edu/news/7-influential-protests-in-american-history/

There have been street protest throughout the world…here are some of the more notable protest and their results…..a baker’s dozen of protests……..

To bring perspective to the debate, we’ve looked through the past 200 years of peaceful protests, from tragic to triumphant to just plain weird.

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/29040/13-peaceful-protests-and-whether-they-worked

As you see some were successful while others did little good at all….

Let’s look at protests from say the last 50 years…..were they successful or just a waste of time to provide the media with fodder for their reporting?

Vanessa Williamson of the Brookings Institution and political scientists Kris-Stella Trump and Katherine Levine Einstein shows that the number of Black Lives Matter protests  in response to police killings of black civilians has grown from only a few in a handful of cities in 2013 to over 500 protests in nearly 200 cities in 2014.

But what effect do these protests have?

Political science, it turns out, actually has a lot to say about protests, even though it’s really hard to pinpoint what makes one protest effective and another not. Broadly speaking, though, there are four main ways the literature tries to evaluate a protest:

1. Did it raise awareness?
2. Did public opinion change?
3. Were there institutional changes as a result?
4. Were there electoral consequences, either intended or unintended?

First, protests, at their most basic level, raise awareness about issues that might not yet be in the mainstream. This might not sound all that important, but research by political scientist Deva Woodly of The New School shows that protest movements can fundamentally alter the way we talk — and think — about a specific issue.

(read more)

What Protests Can (And Can’t) Do

The basic question to ask is…..do these protests truly work?

I say it raising social awareness but change the direction it does little.

For instance we are still protesting the extreme use of force by the police and after a decade of protests little has changed….black people are still being legally murdered in the name of the law.

Throughout history, coal miners have been unlikely champions of protest movements. As global economies began shifting away from coal, miners suffered from downsizing, colliery closures, and loss of benefits. In the US and UK, miners used protests to bring their struggles to the public – and won. In 2016, coal workers of the China’s Longmay coal firm prompted the government to admit financial struggles and demand back payment of thousands of workers.  Additionally, the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement was similarly effective in giving America’s lower income bracket a voice, shedding light on the growing chasm between the top 1% of American earners and the rest of the nation. More recently, the nationwide protests across America in response to the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer have brought police brutality and racism into the spotlight, forcing Americans to address the ongoing disparate treatment of African Americans, especially by law enforcement, which has been unchecked for decades.

…

Protests aren’t as effective as demonstrators like to think. Thousands of protests are constantly taking place around the world. While the George Floyd protests across America and the world may have changed how Americans view each other and how the world views America, most protest efforts pass without remark, revealing the miniscule impact of protests in general.  Though the mob of pro-Trump protestors that stormed the US Capitol building in an attempt to overturn the Nov. 3 presidential election results drew the world’s attention (and condemnation), it did not succeed in meeting its aims; the constitutional ceremony to certify the election results was interrupted, but Joe Biden’s presidential victory has been confirmed.

A Princeton study found that public opinion hardly comes to bear on legislation, and the results of most protests confirms this. The anti-war movement against US military involvement in Vietnam that was popularized on college campuses in 1965 had no effect on war activities, which were in fact ramped up until the war’s end in 1973. Protests in the US and the UK against the Iraq war did nothing to curb the invasion. The Women’s Day March of 2016 was even confronted by results that ran counter to their goal of ensuring reproductive rights for women worldwide. For instance, just two days after the protest, President Trump signed an executive order stripping US aid from foreign institutions that offer abortion services, and further rollbacks on reproductive rights in the foreign and domestic arena continue.

(Read More)

Do Protests work ?

Do these protests work?

I say look at the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act as examples.

If they truly worked then why are African-Americans no better off than they were in the 60’s……same for the voting rights….if they worked why are we fighting that battle yet again?

Protests rise awareness….but what has that awareness accomplished.

I have given my thoughts in the past……https://gulfsouthfreepress.wordpress.com/2020/06/04/why-not-try-non-violence/

While I agree that substantial change needs to happen….I just do not think that protests are the best way to make that change.

History show us that any change can be quickly and decisively taken away if the eye is off the ball….and that is what has happened to the voting rights in this country.

I depart with a quote from Emma …….“People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.”
― Emma Goldman

I Read, I Write, You Know

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“lego ergo scribo”

Slavery In The Shadows

Once again the debate on racism has ignited over the death of a Black man at the hands of the police….and the conversation has gone deeper and brought the discussion of slavery and history to the forefront.

If I need to explain what I am talking about then it is a waste of time for you to be reading this….so why bother I am sure something good is on the Cartoon Network.

Slavery in the American South is said to had ended with the defeat of the Confederate forces and the peace that came to the nation. (Debatable)

Today most intelligent people these days are outraged by the institution of slavery….but are they?

Lewis Hamilton has emerged in recent weeks as a figurehead in the Black Lives Matter movement. In an eloquent, thoughtful essay for The Sunday Times last month, the Formula 1 driver wrote about his lifelong experience of racism in Britain; about the heart-breaking warnings that black fathers like his know that they need to give their sons; about his recognition that the murder of George Floyd, despite seeming a faraway occurrence in a foreign land, was in fact a moment that demanded a “global awakening to the systemic racism, witnessed and experienced by every person of colour across the world”.

…

Here’s the problem for Hamilton. Slavery is still with us. In fact, more people are thought to live enslaved today than at any point in recorded history. Most of them are still people of colour. And many are held in nations which happily host Grand Prix tournaments to celebrate their wealth. In 2016, one Lewis Hamilton notoriously voiced his appreciation for his hosts at the Bahrain Grand Prix, arriving in a “thobe”, the traditional dress of the Bahraini royal family, and tweeting: “Nothing but love and respect for this culture, and Bahrain!! Feeling royal.” In Bahrain, 1.9 people in every thousand is thought to be a slave. The royal family has been repeatedly accused of abusing slaves.

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/fast-fashion-modern-slavery-black-lives-matter-western-exploitation-541578

What is that old saying?  “Outta sight, outta mind”?

Human Trafficking is a major feeder of the world’s slavery markets.  I wrote about the consequences for the world’s populations….all four of my series may be accessed here…..https://gulfsouthfreepress.wordpress.com/2018/08/02/solutions-conclusion/

Time to bring the shadowy world of modern slavery into the light and in doing so maybe we as a humans can find a way to end the suffering of so many.

Or is it just something this world should just learn to live with?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

That 1619 Project

Here on Gulf South Free Press we are trying to get the American people to have a “real” conversation about race and the institution of slavery instead of the disingenuous BS from the past.

What significance is the year 1619?

Answer to follow.

In these trying days of protests and the issue of slavery has risen yet again…..there is an attempt to educate the people on the barbaric institution of slavery……that education is being called the “1619 Project”…….

New York Times Magazine launched The 1619 Project on the 400^th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans to Jamestown. Its stated goal was “to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.” Rather than standing with the American Revolution’s radical promise that we are all created equal and possess the same “unalienable rights,” or Abraham Lincoln’s description of America’s as mankind’s “last best hope,” the revisionist view of The 1619 project argues that America was founded upon slavery and that the effects of white supremacy distort every aspect of American public life today.

Prominent historians, educators, and writers have challenged these claims. Noted scholars such as Gordon Wood, Wilfred M. McClay, Sean Wilentz, James McPherson, and James Oakes have publicly questioned its main contentions. And the 1776 Project, a group of black scholars and writers led by entrepreneur and civil rights leader Bob Woodson, has produced essays, and eventually a curriculum, that will “challenge those who assert America is forever defined by its past failures, such as slavery.”

https://www.realclearpublicaffairs.com/public_affairs/american_civics/1619_project/

Is this a look at history or not?

When The New York Times Magazine published the 1619 Project last year, supporters hailed this retelling of America’s founding as a “woke” counternarrative meant to correct the historical record.

Yet in recent weeks, Nikole Hannah-Jones, the lead editor, has stressed that her project to reframe history is not the same as “a history.” Clear enough?

Even Americans who haven’t read the 1619 Project, a series of written work on the legacy of slavery, know the project was launched with fanfare. And the rollout continues: A series of books are to follow, a podcast is available, and public schools are using the material. Lionsgate and Oprah Winfrey intend to adapt the project for film and TV.

For the 1619 editors to now say, “presume not that I am the thing I was” should make us suspicious of the project’s future. Shakespeare’s Hal said as much to his former drinking companion, Falstaff, in “Henry IV, Part 2,” and the audience can afford the presumption because we know his victory at Agincourt is coming in “Henry V.”

The next act, however, for the 1619 Project may be less promising. As the project’s creators spread it across more media and entertainment platforms, the Times, its partners at the Pulitzer Center, and Hannah-Jones have already said 1619 should be considered history.

Creator of New York Times’ 1619 Project Changes Tune to Insist It’s Not History

Thee are those that are afraid of this if it is handled properly because it will crap on the dialog that they have been preaching for decades.

Slavery should be viewed from ALL angles…..but emphasize that it was a horrible barbaric institution.

I stated that we were “trying” to help the American people have that REAL conversation about race…..and so far we have sadly failed….

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Race And Slavery

In case you are interested there are still protests raging across the nation but the reader would never know it if they watch their evening news.

As a matter of fact another black man was killed by police who shot him in the back numerous times…..

And yes there is still a debate on the subject of race and slavery being offered around the nation…..but the reader would never know it for they still do not get actual news in the evenings but rather a form of propaganda.

So to be a better writer I will continue my posts on race and slavery and equality……this post is a look at race and slavery…..

American slavery was a blight upon the nation dedicated to the principle that “all men are created equal.”

Chattel slavery—in which human beings are bought and sold as property—was introduced to America during its colonial period, continued through the American Revolution, and increased in scope (the slave population was nearly four million in 1860) by the start of the Civil War. Though the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment dismantled legalized slavery in 1865, the specter of Jim Crow, rise of groups like the Ku Klux Klan, and proliferation of theories of racial supremacy clothed in scientific rhetoric put off the hope that blacks would be fully included in the American promise for nearly a century.

Though her citizens have not consistently risen to the level of treating every person, regardless of race, as equal human beings and citizens, America is based explicitly upon antislavery principles. Civil rights leaders such as Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr. instructed Americans to live up to these principles and acknowledge that the American promise includes blacks as well as whites.

In his “I Have a Dream” speech, King told the massive crowds gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial “that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed—we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” which applied to “black men as well as white men.”

Unfortunately, glaring disparities between blacks and whites in modern American life have given credence to the view that it is not a rejection of American principles but the adherence to them that causes the widening of these gaps. Some even argue that slavery is in fact America’s true foundation.

This growing consensus ironically echoes the false reading of our country’s history put forward by Chief Justice Roger Taney in arguably the worst Supreme Court decision in American history, Dred Scott v. Sandford. There, Taney argued that the American Founders thought blacks “so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” But this reading of history is incorrect.

https://www.realclearpublicaffairs.com/public_affairs/american_civics/race_and_slavery/

This discourse needs saying….but as of yet the actual debate is not being offered…..instead it is each person’s sanitized version of slavery and that of race….like this post from In Saner Thought…….https://lobotero.com/2020/08/19/yet-another-justification-of-slavery/

There will be NO solutions as long as we keep having the same sanitized version of the institution of slavery and the larger issue of race.

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

White Like Them

Years ago I had this debate with a group here in the South…..it all began when I heard someone bitching about Black music and how irritating it was…..

But it began when a couple of men were talking about mixed race marriages and their offspring…….their big question was which culture is the best to bring up their children?

My first question was what did they mean by culture.

After a few minutes of bumbling and stumbling they moved their conversation to the music.  (okay I got a chuckle out of their awkwardness)

I immediately jumped on this with blaming segregation for these so-called “ills”…..

Here in the South segregation was a enforceable social event.  Blacks were herded into enclaves in cities and towns…..they had the own medical services, education, lingo and music.

Then when segregation was overturned whites began wanting to include the Afro-American people into the land of the Whites.

They wanted Blacks to embrace the white world in all its glory (sarcasm)…..the lingo, the attitudes, the music……but to their disappointment that never occurred….why?

Think about it.

Why would Black people need to change their way of thinking and acting?  Is it because whites think they are better than the Blacks?

This made me think of something I had read many years ago…..the writings of Frantz Fanon…….French philosopher and psychologist…..A psychological study of the effects of the concept of race and racism on black minorities in white majority societies.

Frantz Fanon was born in the French colony of Martinique on July 20, 1925. His family occupied a social position within Martinican society that could reasonably qualify them as part of the black bourgeoisie; Frantz’s father, Casimir Fanon, was a customs inspector and his mother, Eléanore Médélice, owned a hardware store in downtown Fort-de-France, the capital of Martinique. Members of this social stratum tended to strive for assimilation, and identification, with white French culture. Fanon was raised in this environment, learning France’s history as his own, until his high school years when he first encountered the philosophy of negritude, taught to him by Aimé Césaire, Martinique’s other renowned critic of European colonization. Politicized, and torn between the assimilationism of Martinique’s middle class and the preoccupation with racial identity that negritude promotes, Fanon left the colony in 1943, at the age of 18, to fight with the Free French forces in the waning days of World War II.

Frantz Fanon

Fanon’s key works are Black Skins White Masks, A Dying Colonialism, The Wretched of the Earth, and Toward the African Revolution. Black Skins White Masks was published in 1952 but did not gain widespread recognition until the late 1960s. This was one of the first books to analyse the psychology of colonialism. In it Fanon examines how the colonizer internalises colonialism and its attendant ideologies, and how colonized peoples in turn internalise the idea of their own inferiority and ultimately come to emulate their oppressors. Racism here functions as a controlling mechanism which maintains colonial relations as ‘natural’ occurrences. Black Skins White Masks is written in an urgent, fluid style. It is both analytical and passionate, part academic text, part polemic. The book has provided a powerful and lasting indictment of racism and imperialism.

Basically Fanon says there is a cycle…..

White colonials preach black is inferior

Colonized people want to escape their “inferior” position

Only escape is to reject “blackness”

Colonized people start assume superiority

Finally…for the Black man there is only one destiny…..and it is white

Fanon’s book is a very good look at race and racism……read….

Click to access %5BFrantz_Fanon%5D_Black_Skin,_White_Masks_(Pluto_Clas(BookZZ.org).pdf

And since people seldom read anymore….I will give a link to the audible of this book…..

Racism is an ugly word and as soon as we can eliminate from normal discourse the better.

In closing a short video….What If Slavery Never Existed

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”