Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery as a young man. He became a celebrated abolitionist. In 1852, he was invited to speak at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, to commemorate the 4th of July.
This is an early example of critical race theory.
Here is an excerpt of his powerful and eloquent speech:
Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men, too great enough to give frame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory….
Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?
Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation’s sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation’s jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the “lame man leap as an hart.”
But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrevocable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!…
Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, “may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!” To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is American slavery. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave’s point of view. Standing there identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America.is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery Ñ the great sin and shame of America! “I will not equivocate; I will not excuse”; I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.
But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, “It is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, and denounce less; would you persuade more, and rebuke less; your cause would be much more likely to succeed.” But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!
For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian’s God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!
Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look to-day, in the presence of Amercans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.
What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their mastcrs? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.
What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may; I cannot. The time for such argument is passed.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour….
“Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more.” –Renowned historian, literary scholar, and passer of dementia tests, Jabba the trump
Teachers, submit your lesson plans on this historic speech, and you may lose your job after the “thought police” are finished with you..
yup
I cannot submit my lesson plans. After all
These years I have been given too many templates and forms. My mind. Annoy contain them. I guess I will just have to wing it
Former President and his motley cult have no problem with praising Frederick Douglass. They have problems spelling Frederick Douglass, but no problems praising him. Same thing goes for Lincoln, Tubman, MLK, and Rosa Parks. That’s it, just those five, and no more. Five words are all that can be allowed. Remember: person, woman, man, camera, tv. What Former President has a problem with is admitting that there’s still a problem, that Frederick Douglass didn’t win for America. If you say out loud that the Emancipation Proclamation and the “I Have a Dream” speech together didn’t end racial injustice, you risk being attacked with a flag pole by a half naked man wearing a Viking hat.
Teachers, submit your lesson plans on this historic speech, and you may lose your job after the “thought police” are finished with you.
YUP. Such materials are banned now in a lot of states, which presents a problem for K-12 textbook publishers because Douglass’s moving, devastating speech is a staple of 11th-grade American literature textbooks, as well it should be.
Thank you, Diane, FD. Truth.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose! BLM should offer readings of this speech online and in public parks across the US. We are struggling with the same issues more than a hundred and fifty years later. While conditions and laws may have changed, the institutionalized intent to deny people of color the same rights as white people still stands in our society today. Charter and voucher schools are a perfect example of creating separate and unequal schools for students of color, and we shamefully spend federal dollars on promoting such racism. Hypocrisy!
FB’s speech is eloquent and true.
Thank you, Diane.
Can you imagine ANY public figure giving such a speech today? (To say nothing of actually writing it themselves)
I can’t.
Today, we’re lucky if most of our leaders can even read without garbling the words that are displayed to them on the teleprompter.
Good point! The art of eloquence is in decline. When #45 read a teleprompter, it made me cringe. He couldn’t even do that well.
The Fart of Elephants
The eloquence art
Of yesteryear
Is elephant’s fart
Today, it’s clear
Nothing has changed. Slavery isn’t even gone. Slavery has just gone underground and the “slaves” of today are mostly young girls and some boys.
“Human trafficking is the illegal exploitation of a person. Anyone can be a victim of human trafficking, and it can occur in any U.S. community—cities, suburbs, and even rural areas. The FBI works human trafficking cases under its Crimes Against Children and Human Trafficking program. We take a trauma informed, victim-centered approach in investigating these cases.”
https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/violent-crime/human-trafficking
The U.S. still supported tyrants and dictators even they are not socialists and communists and fights endless wars. And since labor unions are considered socialist/communist, the effort to get rid of them never ends.
“35 countries where the U.S. has supported fascists, drug lords and terrorists”
https://www.salon.com/2014/03/08/35_countries_the_u_s_has_backed_international_crime_partner/
Do we have to go as far back as Fredrick Douglass.
Fill in the Blanks.
a non-fatal interracial stabbing led to a riotous crowd of 1,800 to 2,500 ——- hurling projectiles at police while ——-students fled the facility and ———students remained. State Senator ——– State Representative ——–, and ——– City Councilor ——– made their way to the school, and——- spoke through a bullhorn to the crowd and urged them to allow the ——–students still in ———– High to leave in peace, which they did, while the police made only 3 arrests, the injured numbered 25 (including 14 police), and the rioters badly damaged 6 police vehicles.
I have heard the claim many times that BLM should emulate MLK. As if to say they do not . Collecting the footage of BLM protests in NYC the NY Times put out a video expose.
Not unexpectedly it was the NYC , Nassau County and Sulfolk County Police Unions who financed elections of school board members opposing CRT in several long Island Districts.
One need not go back to 1619 , 1852 or 1974 to understand race in America. Race relations are on full display today as 74 million Americans voted for an authoritarian demagogue. And as the fill in above demonstrates the Capital riots were not the first time that police were attacked by white rioters and responded far differently than they would to Black protestors.
In 1978, the great Harvey Milk gave an impassioned, breathtaking speech in which he told gay people, “You must come out.”
Well, today I am telling teachers that in the face of the Thought Police and their bogus attacks on CRT, “You must tell the truth about race in America.”
Nice, Bob. I couldn’t agree more.
In the paperback book edition of…
A Scriptural View of the Moral Relations of African Slavery
by David Ewart of Columbia, S.C., 1849.
Revised and amended in 1859.
CHARLESTON, S. C.:
WALKER, EVANS & CO., STEAM PRINTERS,
No. 3 Broad Street.
1859.
David Ewart begins with:
“If the relation of slavery, as it now exists in the Southern States, is susceptible of defence by the word of God, the relation must be a moral relation. If it is not, it ought to be abandoned. It is to the law and to the testimony we must appeal for the defence and government of every relation in life. If we do not speak and act agreeably thereto, it is because there is no truth in us.
“I will, with all due diligence, and with humble dependence on Divine aid, search the Scriptures with a view to learn what they say and teach, as to this much-litigated question.”
Then, David Ewart ends with:
“I have searched the holy Scriptures diligently, in view of this question, and particularly with a view to discover what the truth is with regard to this much-litigated question. I freely admit that I have satisfactorily convinced myself, as to the fact that slavery is, in deed and in truth, a moral relation, and humbly confess that I did not always think so; but searching the Scriptures brought me to a very different conclusion. Any honest man who will prayerfully read the quotations which I have carefully collated and placed on the foregoing pages, will, and must come to the same conclusion that I have—that African slavery is a Divine institution.
“It appears, from the last quotation which I have made, that there will be ‘bondmen’ on the earth when the last trumpet sounds. This admitted, the hope of liberating all the slaves upon the whole earth must be visionary indeed.”
As far as I’ve been able to find, David Ewart was president of a company a group of Columbia, SC, planters, merchants, and bankers formed around 1830 that then built the water-powered Saluda Factory on the Saluda River in or near West Columbia, so as to take advantage of low cotton prices and diversify into spinning yarn from cotton grown in order to make slave cloth and, later, war uniforms, with nearly all human labor being that of some 250 slaves.
So it would appear David Ewart turned to the Scriptures about 20 years later to justify his reliance upon the system of slavery and thus wanting it preserved.
What might some deep-dive or deep root “Why?” questions to ask and explore as related to the kind of thinking David Ewart manifested that’s still with us today, generating “racism” and other undesirable behaviors?
Unity: “Thoughts held in mine, produce in kind.”
Ackoff: “You cannot explain the behavior of a system by analysis.”
Deming: “A system cannot know itself.”
15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
16 Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD.
17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
–Numbers 31, KJV
10 When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it.
11 And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee.
12 And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it:
13 And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword:
14 But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.
–Deuteronomy 20
10 When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive,
11 And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife;
12 Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails;
13 And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife.
14 And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her.
Deuteronomy 21
And so on and so on throughout the Bible, which emphatically condones slavery. Sickening, right? These reflect the disgusting notion of morality of a different, more primitive time. Unless, ofc, your find yourself in the Repugnican House or in certain parts of Flor-uh-duh or West Virginia, where there has been relatively little progress over those times.
Bob Shepherd, you make a fool of yourself every day on this blog with your bigotry. Do you have a life other than posting your adolescent snark multiple times every 24 hours?You fit right in here among the loony Left.
passages from the Bible = adolescent snark? An odd but interesting observation.
So what does trolling for the extreme right wing pay these days, Ms. Javkson?
But, ofc, these and hundreds of other similar passages from the library of books known, collectively, as the Bible show that through the roughly 800-year span in which these books were written (from roughly 745 BCE to 95 CE), one consistency in the belief system of the people who created this mythology was belief in and practice of the horrific institution of slavery, as well as belief that the institution was divinely sanctioned. This gave enormous comfort, ofc, to the white supremacist slave-holders of the American South (and to many of the founding fathers of the United States), who could point to their God as sanctioning their horrific trade in human beings.
Ms. Javkson,
You have never posted a comment here. Your debut comment is a vicious attack on one of our most valued friends. I will be grateful if you take your venom to someone else’s blog. Bob Shepherd is a brilliant polymath whose expertise about education is unmatched by anyone I have ever known
Of course the abolitionist view found many passages to justify their view as well. The American slave found inspiring words in the story of Moses leading the people out of bondage.
That still doesn’t change the basic fact that the religion of the people of the Bible conceives of a god that not only countenances but exhorts people to practice slavery.
This was a different time. Slavery was practiced in a great many cultures then. But there’s an important moral here, and that’s that one cannot take the writings of people thousands of years ago as inerrant guides to morality or the ultimate nature of the things. These are historical documents that have to be read in their contexts.
I’m much more comfortable with the kind of view that Chardin espoused, that we struggle toward the light. Same idea expressed by the Rev. Dr. King when he spoke of the moral arc.
And Diane, I’m speechless. Thank you.
the very words I would say of you
That Latisha’s got Bob all figured out. That learnin’ stuff is so pretencious, pretents, pernicious…I mean, show offy!
Oh, Greg, hoisted by your own petard, you scholar, you.
cx: hoist, not hoisted; the expression uses the archaic past participle
The bible is enjoyable and enriching, sometimes beautiful, sometimes poetic, sometimes strange, and there are lots of kings and armies and adventures and sword fights. Yep, more than enough blood and gore to keep the pages turning. Good book. I like reading the bible. Not for the squeamish, though. The strangest part, I read it again a week ago: This guy Balaam, who you mentioned in the first quote, Bob, is trying to curse the people of Israel for his king, Balak of Moab. So to stop Balaam, God sends an angel who talks to Balaam through Balaam’s donkey. The donkey speaks the words of the angel, you see. It raises interesting questions. Does the ass become an angel, or does the angel become an ass? Just saying, not blaspheming, everyone relax. No holy wars on the blog, I think.
In the Old Testament, there’s a pretty consistent storyline. People who observe commandments are fruitful and multiply, and people who don’t are, well, not fortunate. Definitely not fruitful. They die. Many different ways. Many. By the thousands. Or they become someone’s property. Not fortunate, that’s what I’m saying. So, that’s the theme: Obey the laws. Thou shalt not not obey them. There are 613 laws. It’s pretty hard to follow all of them. I tried once, but I couldn’t get 7 unblemished bulls and 7 unblemished rams to sacrifice at the harvest moon. I guess I’ll be alright, as long as my ass doesn’t start talking to me.
We’re in the middle of a culture shift. People on the Right get very upset, feeling like their whole culture is being canceled. It’s good by me, in my little part of the Left, to believe in the Word. Or not. Gnostic, agnostic, all good. What I cannot tolerate is when people hold up the bible as a prop instead of as a book. That is what Former President did for a photo in front of a church, after he tear gassed his way there. The bible is a book. It can be read many ways. It must be understood that it is not an object or a symbol. It does not represent purity. History is not clean. The flag, the bible, the national anthem, the 4th of July, these things are all imperfect just as are all of us.
Beautifully written and profound, LeftCoast!
I, too, love all those crazy stories. But there is a LOT of weirdness there. Sons of God looking down and saying, “Man, those Earth women are fine!” and so on.
Beautifully said, LCT
LCT: interesting comments. I had trouble with those bulls as well.
Bob: quite correct. Not only Old Testament writings , but also New Testament statements by Paul suggest support for the peculiar institution. Who was it who said the Devil can quote scripture for his own purpose? I think it was Jesus.
In the NYT attack video on the capitol , one person turned to the camera and said, “We must defend our way of life.” It is a state’s rights battle cry. If racism is part of culture, it’s time to assimilate, evolve and learn to accept all people.
retired teacher
Better yet “American values ” certainly not those expressed by Emma Lazarus. Try asking a Trumpanzee what exactly those values are .
As for Diane’s resident troll. It will change it’s name frequently .
The Bible is not so much the point as are questions that ask and seek to deeply explore and understand why do today’s David Ewarts think the way they do. Why does such manner of thinking arise within them? Within any of us? Why does it persist? And any such other “Why?” questions that might be asked.
I think Nancy Bailey expresses the point in her July 4th post that Diane shared earlier today:
Nancy Bailey: “Get involved and ask the right questions, not condemning but seeking fair and just solutions for all [involved].”
I changed “students” to “involved” simply to invoke a wider, more inclusive context.
Moses likely never existed.
Certainly not the one who parted seas and carried around stone tablets without a forklift.
The Old Testament is a Testament to absurdity.
Moses could have been a bloodline of people instead of one person. Who knows? But a bunch of slaves definitely left Egypt and travelled to the city of Jericho. It’s featherheaded to take literally every word of a book with a talking donkey. It’s equally nonsensical to ignore the historical facts behind, or the importance of a book that influenced nearly every author, poet, and songwriter for thousands of years.
*To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose, under heaven
A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep
To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose, under heaven*
That’s a songwriter’s take on Ecclesiastes 3:2. Heck, maybe the talking donkey in Shrek was inspired by the bible. I won’t presume to know. But the bible connects with just about everything and everyone, including Eddie Murphy.
We on the “loony Left” must be careful not to ignore such an important book or to insult people’s religions. Science and religion can and must coexist.
Christine Hayes, who teaches the amazingly good course on the Hebrew Bible in the Open Yale Courses series, doubts that the captivity and Exodus of a large Hebrew group that worshiped Yaweh ever happened (there are no Egyptian records of this, which would be odd because the Egyptians recorded everything) but, rather, explains this story as a latter creation of a mythologized past. She’s an extraordinarily learned person and a careful thinker, and I trust her on most things. Your general point, however, that all this must be taken with a grain of the salt Lot’s wife turned into, is spot on. I HIGHLY recommend both her course and the book based on it. Mind-blowingly good. https://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-145
But it sure does make for a thrilling story! It just doesn’t get any better.
Why the continued focus on the Bible? Is there something to be avoided by doing so? Is there something about David Ewart’s way of thinking that may be about ourselves we don’t want to see, today?
By the way, science is imperfect too. Unproven theories sometimes become accepted as facts. And don’t get me started on science’s relationship with aliens from outer space. Talk about nonsense! And just like the bible, sorry Bible (Right, Ed, I should capitalize it.), just like the Bible does, science also has a talking ass, Elon Musk.
As for the writings of David Ewart, they are not acceptable after all that has happened. The Second Great Awakening taking place while he wrote is why. In order to be a better Christian, Ewart should have been working to make himself a more heavenly soul, bringing heaven to earth, not making people suffer on earth and wait for heaven. He should have been part of the religious revival that sought to end human suffering. We should learn from his mistakes, not emulate them. Can I get an amen?
So Ewart’s writings should not be analyzed. They should be criticized only.
I take back what I said, “But a bunch of slaves definitely left Egypt and travelled to the city of Jericho.” I can’t say I was there. History is not clean.
Okay, another go. Why focus on the Bible or even on David Ewart’s writing, per se? Why not focus on and inquire deeply into understanding something about why the many David Ewarts’ cognitive processes drove them to think the way they did, and why do such cognitive processes remain with us so much today to drive the same way of thinking today, just is very different contexts? Why? Why? Why?
Spot on re science, a context where the Ewarts’ way of thinking also shows up today. For example, I just finished reading Dorothy Roberts’ “Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century” (2011, The New Press). The book is one those in which I highlighted so many passages that I pretty much highlighted the whole thing.
Anyway, in her Conclusion, Roberts poses the question:
“Some people draw a blank when asked to imagine the scientific study of human beings without classifying them by race. How would scientists organize research on human health and behavior if not by racial groupings?”
She goes on to ask and offer:
“Will Americans continue to believe the myth that human beings are naturally divided into races and look to genomic science and technology to deal with persistent social inequities? Or will they affirm our shared humanity by working to end the social injustices preserved by the political system of race? This is the most pivotal question facing this nation in the twenty-first century because the answer will determine the basic nature of the relationship between citizens and the government and with each other. One path is already leading to aggressive state surveillance, extreme human deprivation, and unspeakable brutality against whole populations on the basis of race.
“By obscuring this coercive control over poor communities of color, the new racial biopolitics permits the growth of a state authoritarianism and a corporatized definition of citizenship that endangers the democratic freedoms of all Americans. We must choose the other path of common humanity and social change if we are to have any hope for a more free and just nation.”
So why is it that so much of the David Ewarts’ way of thinking remains with us today such that our nation would take the first path Roberts mentions rather than the second path she mentions?
A fascinating post, Mr. Johnson, and much wisdom here. Yes, “race” has no defensible biological meaning. It’s a cultural phenomenon. However, as a cultural phenomenon, it is meaningful.
When I started reading this, I was afraid you were going to launch into one of those silly “evolutionary psychology” just-so stories of the kind that generated a rubbish heap of books in the 1980s and ’90s, , and I was pleased, very pleased, that you didn’t. Thanks for the book suggestion. I will give it a read.
Parting (with) Reality
The thing that Moses parted
Was stark reality
The tablets that he carted
Were anti gravity
Or maybe Moses was just a mega stud
Hulk Moses
Moses was a Hulk
Who lifted heavy stuff
Like Ahhhnold, with his bulk,
The man was really tough
I was there
I was there
When Moses walked
I was there
When Moses talked
I was there
When Moses parted
I was there
When Moses farted
I was there
When Moses wandered
I was there
When Moses pondered
I was there
In days gone by
And God was there
Cuz He am I
Alien Relationships
Science is dating
The Alien folk
And science is mating
It isn’t a joke!
Science is beaming
The Aliens down
Their atoms are streaming
All over the town
ET, phone Science!
Amen to that, SomeDAM!
Bob, I’m pleased you will get a copy of Dorothy Roberts’ Fatal Invention and give it a read. I hope others here will, too. She goes to great lengths to help the reader know the truth of what “race” is and what it is not.
Until such time you get a copy, you might be interested to google and read the paper “The Persistence of Racial Thinking and the Myth of Racial Divergence,” by S. Keita and R. Kittles, in American Anthropologist; Sep., 1997; pp. 534-544. Roberts references it, among a rich collection of others.
It is well-established science that race as a meaningful biological category doesn’t exist. It’s a phantasm. Belief in it is superstition. However, as a cultural phenomenon, it does exist, and also as an object of belief on the part of white supremacists. Satan doesn’t exist, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t people who act on the belief that he does, often in extremely harmful ways.
So, for example, as an answer to the question, what do you mean when you say you are black, one might say, “Well, my ancestors came to the Americas as enslaved persons from West Africa. I am a perceived member of a group of Americans subject to real, continual systemic micro- and macro-aggressions because of my perceived membership in this group. And the group with which I am perceived to belong includes folks like W.E.B. DuBois and Katherine Dunham and Aaron Douglas and John Coltrane who were likewise so identified. All really important.
So, for example, as an answer to the question, what do you mean when you say you are black, one might say, “Well, my father is black, from Kenya, and my mother is white, from Kansas.”
And, as an answer to the question, what do you mean when you say you are white, one might say, “Well, my mother is white, from Kansas, and my father is black, from Kenya.”
To the extent our cultural worldviews embrace the former but reject the latter, we necessarily perpetuate race as being the producer of racism structured to function in accordance with what is presumed to be Nature’s natural biological hierarchy that relates superior humans and inferior humans. But then any “truths” about racism based on race that come from such cultural worldviews can only be non-threatening “faux truths,” and even expressions of just plain racial folly. Given the prevalence of such cultural worldviews, it will remain exceedingly difficult for many of us to see and deal with “true truth” about racism apart from race—that racism produces race. And so the ironic consequence will continue to be ever more entrenched and virulent racism made ever more acceptable, culturally.
For example, “Close achievement gaps!” and never mind standardized achievement tests may have been designed to distribute test takers over a bell curve by race, so as to produce achievement gaps in the first place.
I hope I didn’t break anything on this post.
So enjoy your insights and your carefully crafted, artful writing, leftcoast! Thanks. Don’t worry, Mr. Dougass can hold his own!!!
The Bible is a good book, the good book, but another good book is the Bhagavad Gita. Here’s a sample, outcome-based education NOT aligned: “Work done with anxiety about results is far inferior to work done without such anxiety, in the calm of self-surrender. Seek refuge in the knowledge of Brahma. They who work selfishly for results are miserable.”
I am continually amazed, when I look at work like the Gita or the Chandogya Upanishad, that these were written so long ago. So profound–so chock full of what seem like very modern psychological insights, so applicable to our time! Thanks for sharing this great wisdom!