I appreciate and agree with your post. One thing I would note is that, at Saturday’s anniversary ceremony, Douglass’s oration was strongly redacted and almost entirely omitted his more unsparing remarks. When the statue was restored and rededicated in the mid-2010s, they held a similar reenactment ceremony, and there many of most strongly worded sections were retained. I have to believe that the so-called anti-woke forces in charge now insisted on such changes; the entire story seemed sanitized for the current powers-that-be. But it’s hard to bury it entirely, and enough was left intact for anyone who wants to know more of the story, as you detail here.
"It's trash" - the flippancy, vagueness, and total lack of eloquence shown by that student is an indictment of our culture and education system. If a student wants to denigrate a speech from one of the giants of American letters and oratory (not to mention one of our greatest freedom fighters), that's fine - no one is beyond criticism, after all. But she should at least present a half-decent argument for doing so instead of just regurgitating lazy twitter-language.
Imagine you had a job. You work hard all year, and accomplish a lot for your employer. At the end of the year, you're doing your annual review with your boss. Your boss talks for a little bit about what you accomplished. But mostly they are disparaging. They focus on a few mistakes you made. It feels like what you did for your employer didn't mean much to them, and your imperfections are the main thing your employer sees in you. How would that impact your job satisfaction? Can you imagine it might make you feel a little bit burnt out, like your effort isn't appreciated, and you might prefer a different place of employment?
Twice as many white people fought for the Union as the Confederacy. The war was long and bloody. On a percentage basis, more soldiers were lost than any other US war. Many in the Union felt that the war effort was not going anywhere and wanted to give up. And yet, in the end, the stars and stripes prevailed.
Now a new generation of activists wants to turn the stars and stripes, the same standard flown by soldiers singing the anti-slavery "Battle Hymn of the Republic", into a symbol of slavery. The mind boggles. Slavery was hardly unique to the United States. Even considering the transatlantic trade, only a small minority of Africans were sent to the United States: https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/19068.jpeg Slavery in the US was distinguished by (a) the "natural increase" of the slave population here (mortality was lower here) (b) the earliest known anti-slavery society (in Philadelphia) and (c) the fact that we fought an apocalyptic war to end slavery.
Why do we hear so much about contemptible Confederate monuments, and so little about glorious Union monuments? Why does the Sons of Confederate Veterans have 4x the membership of the Sons of Union Veterans, despite the Union army being 2x larger (and victorious to boot)?
It's because progressive activists are like that disparaging boss who can only see your flaws. Activists prefer to compare the US to a hypothetical perfect country that doesn't exist.
They will never mention that black people in the US are higher-income than than in most countries with a significant black population, and out-earn many European countries like Portugal, Hungary, Greece, etc. depending how you measure.
The distant relatives of African-Americans, who were left behind by slave ships in Africa, are now, in many cases, wishing they could come to the United States! And Liberia, a country founded by African-American emigrants, is terribly impoverished. Suggesting that subtracting white people from the equation, in the modern context, is not some sort of instant cure.
I suspect it's an aftereffect of KGB propaganda, designed to demoralize the American people during the Cold War: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr5sTGxMUdo It's very similar to the disparaging boss hypothetical from earlier, and it's become embedded in our educational and media institutions.
I appreciate and agree with your post. One thing I would note is that, at Saturday’s anniversary ceremony, Douglass’s oration was strongly redacted and almost entirely omitted his more unsparing remarks. When the statue was restored and rededicated in the mid-2010s, they held a similar reenactment ceremony, and there many of most strongly worded sections were retained. I have to believe that the so-called anti-woke forces in charge now insisted on such changes; the entire story seemed sanitized for the current powers-that-be. But it’s hard to bury it entirely, and enough was left intact for anyone who wants to know more of the story, as you detail here.
"It's trash" - the flippancy, vagueness, and total lack of eloquence shown by that student is an indictment of our culture and education system. If a student wants to denigrate a speech from one of the giants of American letters and oratory (not to mention one of our greatest freedom fighters), that's fine - no one is beyond criticism, after all. But she should at least present a half-decent argument for doing so instead of just regurgitating lazy twitter-language.
Imagine you had a job. You work hard all year, and accomplish a lot for your employer. At the end of the year, you're doing your annual review with your boss. Your boss talks for a little bit about what you accomplished. But mostly they are disparaging. They focus on a few mistakes you made. It feels like what you did for your employer didn't mean much to them, and your imperfections are the main thing your employer sees in you. How would that impact your job satisfaction? Can you imagine it might make you feel a little bit burnt out, like your effort isn't appreciated, and you might prefer a different place of employment?
Twice as many white people fought for the Union as the Confederacy. The war was long and bloody. On a percentage basis, more soldiers were lost than any other US war. Many in the Union felt that the war effort was not going anywhere and wanted to give up. And yet, in the end, the stars and stripes prevailed.
Now a new generation of activists wants to turn the stars and stripes, the same standard flown by soldiers singing the anti-slavery "Battle Hymn of the Republic", into a symbol of slavery. The mind boggles. Slavery was hardly unique to the United States. Even considering the transatlantic trade, only a small minority of Africans were sent to the United States: https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/19068.jpeg Slavery in the US was distinguished by (a) the "natural increase" of the slave population here (mortality was lower here) (b) the earliest known anti-slavery society (in Philadelphia) and (c) the fact that we fought an apocalyptic war to end slavery.
Why do we hear so much about contemptible Confederate monuments, and so little about glorious Union monuments? Why does the Sons of Confederate Veterans have 4x the membership of the Sons of Union Veterans, despite the Union army being 2x larger (and victorious to boot)?
It's because progressive activists are like that disparaging boss who can only see your flaws. Activists prefer to compare the US to a hypothetical perfect country that doesn't exist.
They will never mention that black people in the US are higher-income than than in most countries with a significant black population, and out-earn many European countries like Portugal, Hungary, Greece, etc. depending how you measure.
The distant relatives of African-Americans, who were left behind by slave ships in Africa, are now, in many cases, wishing they could come to the United States! And Liberia, a country founded by African-American emigrants, is terribly impoverished. Suggesting that subtracting white people from the equation, in the modern context, is not some sort of instant cure.
So that creates another question. Why is it that progressive activists in the US always insist on seeing the glass as half-empty, never half-full? Why don't they proudly rally around Union monuments as symbols of abolition, for example? What happened to the spirit of this recruitment poster written by Douglass? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4e/Men_of_Color_Civil_War_Recruitment_Broadside_1863.png/640px-Men_of_Color_Civil_War_Recruitment_Broadside_1863.png
I suspect it's an aftereffect of KGB propaganda, designed to demoralize the American people during the Cold War: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr5sTGxMUdo It's very similar to the disparaging boss hypothetical from earlier, and it's become embedded in our educational and media institutions.