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"Our past is one of slavery, racism, and injustice. Our systems were built to oppress people of color."
The history of humankind is a dense catalog of inhumanity, subjugation. The American project isn't the apogee of that awfulness; it's part of a sharp deviation from the mean. https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/1311432334743273472
The history of humankind is a dense catalog of inhumanity, subjugation. The American project isn't the apogee of that awfulness; it's part of a sharp deviation from the mean. https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/1311432334743273472
Only a deep, lamentable ignorance explains @GavinNewsom's myopia.
America had a host of imperfections at her founding. Vestiges of what preceded it, not cruel innovations of the framers. In fact, it's the American vantage point that helps bring those defects into focus at all.
America had a host of imperfections at her founding. Vestiges of what preceded it, not cruel innovations of the framers. In fact, it's the American vantage point that helps bring those defects into focus at all.
America's founding helped provide for the innovation + steady improvement of human liberty everywhere. A constitution that: limits govt, imperfectly balanced power among its parts, established a baseline for safeguarding minority rights, allows for its own 'perfecting' over time.
Were American 'systems built to oppress people of color?' Not so much.
Enlightenment ideals embodied in the American constitution, commingled w/ explicit protection of free speech, and gave rise to an abolitionist movement that undid slavery worldwide. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-truth-about-abolition/471483/
Enlightenment ideals embodied in the American constitution, commingled w/ explicit protection of free speech, and gave rise to an abolitionist movement that undid slavery worldwide. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-truth-about-abolition/471483/
The same document inspired folks like Douglas + MLK, eventually becoming the framework + principal instrument of a Civil Rights revolution. That's our heritage.
Underscoring + exaggerating a nation's defects, absent acknowledgment of its unique + distinct virtues... is perverse.
Underscoring + exaggerating a nation's defects, absent acknowledgment of its unique + distinct virtues... is perverse.
America has been home to slavery + discrimination, but those aren't unique or distinguishing qualities.
On the other hand, America has proven to be uniquely fertile soil for human thriving. And history suggests it's a more than suitable venue for the pursuit of justice.
On the other hand, America has proven to be uniquely fertile soil for human thriving. And history suggests it's a more than suitable venue for the pursuit of justice.
Easy to acknowledge history has some bearing on the present. Also happy to debate the wisdom of ascribing injuries (+ culpability) to persons centuries or decades removed from proximate causes. But I'd only do that from a well-informed position, not some ahistorical dark fantasy.
