“That Conversation about Race” category archive
Cancel Culture, Republican Style 0
The Des Moines Register’s Rekha Basu comments on Iowa legistors’ attempts to keep information from the New York Times’ 1619 Project out of public schools. She finds that effort particularly disheartening because the project was led by a black woman from Iowa.
A snippet:
One more time, heaven forbid that American students learn what life was really like in ye olde South.
Parler Talk 0
A New Jersey school board member didn’t know that insults could be, well, insulting.
Underpinnings 0
American history and race (and racism) are intimately intertwined.
In a fascinating article at The American Scholar, Nancy Isenberg explores what she calls the “problem of whiteness” in American history and culture. She traces the historical roots and variations and permutations of the meaning of “white” and “whiteness” from the Colonial era forward. In doing so, she helps illuminate events and attitudes that shape American society today.
Her piece is beyond summary, but here’s an excerpt which will give you a hint of some of the contradictions and hypocrisies that she tracks; follow the link for the rest.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Heaven forbid that students should ever be taught the truth about ye olde south.
Fly the Fiendly Skies 0
Aside:
I flew into Charlotte once many years ago (it was so long ago that you could check one bag at no charge). The wait to get my checked luggage was longer than the flight from Philadelphia.
The Great Expulsion 0
The Roanoke Times editorial board remembers.
Twits on Twitter 0
One more time, why does anyone pay attention to David Brooks?
Myth, Busted 0
At the Des Moines Register, Walter Suza explains that the Old West was nothing like what we were taught from movies and television shows and Zane Grey novels. Here’s a bit:
(snip)
The conflict between white and Native Americans was about land. Native Americans’ land.
White settlers wanted the land and would kill to obtain it, and the Native Americans were willing to die to protect their land.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
One of Donald Trump’s most poisonous legacies was to give, by his example, racists permission to be racist in public in a manner not seen since the days of George Wallace and of Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy.” Thom and Joe Madison discuss how to deal with this.
If One Standard Is Good, Two Must Be Better 0
At NJ.com, Albert Kelly compares and contrasts.