Quote of the day
Struggling with complicated truths about what has made our ease possible is not a Trumpist thing. To some degree, it has often not been an American thing. As Kevin Levin, who writes the newsletter Civil War Memory, put it this week,
“For generations, the history of slavery and emancipation has been minimized, distorted, or simply written out of the national narrative by white Americans. The story of Juneteenth survived because Black families carried it forward, year after year, while the broader culture looked away or invented comforting fictions in its place.”
Trump and Vance are not interested in challenging any of those comforting fictions. They spend a good deal of time and effort weaponizing those fictions and turning them into grievances for their own political advantage.
But the rest of us can do what the Trump administration won’t do. We can engage in a struggle with complicated truths that makes possible a truer and deeper celebration of our history.
~William Kristol
Okay, but I don’t sense a lot of grievances out there about slavery or emancipation.
But there sure are a lot of (white) grievances out there …
@Eric,
A lot of African Americans deplore the history of slavery and the delays in emancipation. Where that fits on your personal scale of “grievances,” I cannot say.
The Trump administration is assiduously erasing references to slavery/emancipation, aggrieved that the acknowledgments of slavery and emancipation shows that America was never all that great.
“Efforts toward reparations have continued into the 21st century. In 2021, Evanston, Illinois, became the first U.S. city to create a reparations plan for its Black residents. And in 2022, Harvard University created a $100 million fund for Black students who are descendants of enslaved people.”
The United States is still attempting to catch up with its allowance of slavery and the harm it has done while the white population advances.
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