The perceptions of good and evil can be reversed if we can rationalize a cause as moral and righteous. We’ve had it pretty good in this country. We’ve never had a military coup or any usurping of executive functions by the legislature or the military. There was that unfortunate storming of the capitol in a misguided attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election, but we can write that off a lesson learned. It’s just that we all [...] READ MORE
Digging up the past helps us understand who we are as a nation. I fear patriotism is presented as a false choice. It seems that for many, to be patriotic is to remember and celebrate only our nation’s triumphs. To choose otherwise, to choose to remember our failings, is thus somehow anti-American. — Ken Burns Ken Burns, in the introductory quote, was referring to the only National Historic Site in the United States with the word “massacre” [...] READ MORE
Hatred of free blacks has kept white supremacy alive for 155 Years. There is no question that the history most of us were taught in school, including the generations that have followed mine, offered a rosier narrative of slavery than it deserved. Centuries of enslavement, mostly imposed on Africans abducted from their villages and families, converted an estimated 3.6 million men, women and children into property— more than half of them propping up a fairy tale plantation [...] READ MORE
History teaches us that racial harmony extends beyond racial tolerance. It’s not that I’m a big fan of “Gone with the Wind,” which was, in my opinion, a chick flick before that expression became part of the national vocabulary. The movie came out in 1939, many years before some started inappropriately referring to women as chicks and movies as flicks. A quick Googling revealed the term “chick flick” first appeared in print in 1988. It didn’t take [...] READ MORE
I’ve always been fascinated by how good people— people like you and me— can allow horrible things to happen or be so easily indoctrinated into believing that evil practices are somehow okay. For example, how did the German people in the 1930’s not only come to believe that the Jews were responsible for all their problems but, a decade later, sit idly as millions of Jews were slaughtered in extermination camps? Of course, many didn’t realize how far they [...] READ MORE
