SKJ Today

Dealing Honestly With Slavery

April 29, 2010 // No Comments »

Henry Louis Gates set off what is sure to be a heated discussion about slavery and reparations with his Op-Ed piece entitled “Ending The Slavery Blame Game”, which appeared last Friday in the NY Times. In addition to dealing with heinous acts committed in the past by the United States and European colonial powers, Gates insists we must grapple with the role that Africans played in the slave trade:

…that role, it turns out, was a considerable one, especially for the slave-trading kingdoms of western and central Africa. These included the Akan of the kingdom of Asante in what is now Ghana, the Fon of Dahomey (now Benin), the Mbundu of Ndongo in modern Angola and the Kongo of today’s Congo, among several others…The historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University estimate that 90 percent of those shipped to the New World were enslaved by Africans and then sold to European traders. The sad truth is that without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents, the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred. Advocates of reparations for the descendants of those slaves generally ignore this untidy problem of the significant role that Africans played in the trade, choosing to believe the romanticized version that our ancestors were all kidnapped unawares by evil white men, like Kunta Kinte was in “Roots.â€� The truth, however, is much more complex: slavery was a business, highly organized and lucrative for European buyers and African sellers alike.

In a recent open response to Gates, University of Illinois Professor Barbara Ransby openly challenges Gates, pointing out what she sees as his use of revisionist history:

Professor Gates’ selective storytelling and slanted use of history paints a very different picture than does the collective scholarship of hundreds of historians over the last fifty years or so.  A learned man who commands enormous resources and unparalleled media attention, why would Gates put this argument forward so vehemently now?  It is untimely at best.  At a time when ill-informed and self-congratulatory commentaries about how far America has come on the race question, abound, Gates weighs in to say, we can also stop “blamingâ€� ourselves (‘ourselves’ meaning white Americas or their surrogates) for slavery.  The burden of race is made a little bit lighter by Gates’ revisionist history. It is curious that the essay appears at the same time that we not only see efforts to minimize the importance of race or racism, but at a moment when there is a rather sinister attempt to rewrite the antebellum era as the good old days of southern history.  Virginia Governor Bob McConnell went so far as to designate a month in honor of the pro-slavery Confederacy….  As we know, ideas have consequences. And misleading narratives that fuel and validate new forms of denial and given cover to resurgent forms of racism should not be taken lightly.

Both pieces are sure to be the source of controversy and spirited debate. However one weighs the arguments of these two prominent American intellectuals, we ought to be thankful for their mutual willingness to engage in frank, honest and thoughtful open reflection on race. It’s something we need much more of in American public life.

Click here for a copy of Professor Ransby’s essay.

Posted in Culture, History, Politics, Race

Who Wants to Beat a Millionaire?!?

April 28, 2010 // No Comments »

Posted in Politics, Video

Would Glenn Beck Call Alexander Hamilton A Progressive?

April 23, 2010 // No Comments »

I just came across a review of Ron Chernow’s Hamilton by David Brooks. Brooks notes that Hamilton’s greatest success came as Treasury Secretary where he…

…was confronted by an economically weak and fractious nation. He nationalized the debt, binding the states together and creating the fluid capital markets that are today the engine of world capitalism. He was working at a time when many around him had an entirely static view of economics. They scorned credit, banks and stock markets, and considered manufacturing the least productive form of economic activity…Hamilton dreamed of a vibrant economy that would allow aspiring meritocrats like himself to rise and realize their full capacities. He sought to smash the aristocratic fiefs enjoyed by Southern landowners like Jefferson and to replace them with a diversified marketplace that would be open to immigrants and the lowborn. Their vigor, he felt, would drive the nation to greatness. ”Every new scene, which is opened to the busy nature of man to rouse and exert itself, is the addition of a new energy to the general stock of effort,” he wrote.

Brooks doesn’t see many contemporary heirs to the political tradition Hamilton birthed:

He started a political tradition, dormant in our own day, in which energetic government doesn’t oppose market dynamism but is organized to enhance it. Today our liberal/conservative debates tend to pit the advocates of government against the advocates of the market. Today our politics is dominated by rival strands of populism: the anticorporate populism of the Democrats and the anti-Washington populism of the Republicans. But Hamilton thought in entirely different categories. He argued that ”liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as by the abuses of power.” He wanted a limited but energetic government that would open fields of enterprise and give new directions to popular passions.

Posted in History, Politics

The Legacy of George W. Bush, The Next Truman?

April 22, 2010 // No Comments »

Mark McKinnon & Myra Adams wrote a really interesting piece on the potential legacy of George W. Bush last week over at The Daily Beast. This is a must read for any progressive with a tendency to engage in Bush bashing. It’s a really thoughtful comparison between George W. Bush and Harry Truman. It’s provocative, and only time will tell if McKinnon & Adams are onto something, but it’s well worth the read.

Posted in Politics

Thinking Sensibly About Net Neutrality

April 21, 2010 // No Comments »

John C. Dvorak wrote a really nice piece on Net Neutrality the other day, and another informative one was published in yesterday’s Op-Ed section of the NY Times. On one side of this debate there are those that advocate trust in the market, on the other are those that want to trust the government to protect us from exploitative practices of telecommunication giants. I don’t think we should trust the market or the government here. We certainly need some safeguards to stop exploitative practices that actually work against market competition rather than promoting it (for instance Verizon banning Skype on their broadband so you have to use their client for a similar service). But the F.C.C. as the internet police may be a medicine that does more harm than the disease. When I think of all the ridiculous censorship cases in radio and T.V. that occurred over the past decades, I shutter to think what will happen when these regulators get their hands on the internet. Yikes!

Posted in Culture, Politics, Technology

David Frum Speaks From The Elephant Graveyard

April 3, 2010 // No Comments »

Posted in Politics, Video

Victoria Jackson Tea Partier Extraordinaire

April 1, 2010 // No Comments »

This is absolutely priceless…

Posted in Politics, Video

A Really Thoughtful Reflection On The Long Term Implications Of Health Care Reform

March 24, 2010 // No Comments »

David Brooks wrote a great reflection on the current Health Care legislation, the history of the animating spirit behind it, and some of the long term considerations it raises about America’s future.

In Brooks eyes, the “Republican Party has, at its best, come to embody the cause of personal freedom and economic dynamism…For a similar period, the Democratic Party has, at its best, come to embody the cause of fairness and family security.” Brooks is a conservative who used to write for the Weekly Standard, not an Obama devotee. What I consistently admire about his writing is his ability to see things from a number of different perspectives. Such intellectual empathy is what engenders healthy and fruitful political discourse. Without it politics becomes an all or nothing game, strike that, war, waged by the forces of light against the legions of doom and darkness.

In a column written last week before the passage of the historic health care bill Brooks had this to say about the importance of understanding the other:

Human beings, the philosophers tell us, are social animals. We emerge into the world ready to connect with mom and dad. We go through life jibbering and jabbering with each other, grouping and regrouping. When you get a crowd of people in a room, the problem is not getting them to talk to each other; the problem is getting them to shut up…To help us in this social world, God, nature and culture have equipped us with a spirit of sympathy. We instinctively feel a tinge of pain when we observe another in pain (at least most of us do). We instinctively mimic, even to a small extent, the mood, manners, yawns and actions of the people around us…To help us bond and commit, we have been equipped with a suite of moral sentiments. We have an innate sense of fairness. Children from an early age have a sense that everybody should be treated fairly. We have an innate sense of duty…As a result of this sympathy and these sentiments, people are usually pretty decent to one another when they relate person to person. The odd thing is that when people relate group to group, none of this applies. When a group or a nation thinks about another group or nation, there doesn’t seem to be much natural sympathy, natural mimicry or a natural desire for attachment… Group-to-group relations are more often marked by calculation, rivalry and coldness. Members of one group sometimes see members of another group as less than human: Nazi and Jew, Hutu and Tutsi, Sunni and Shiite.

As I pay attention to my own tweets, Facebook comments and antagonistic exchanges with those whose political sympathies differ from my own (and the sidebars I have with politically kindred spirits about “those people”), the words of Brooks cut deeply.

Brooks concluded his critical column on heath care reform with the following estimation of the challenges ahead for us as a nation:

The task ahead is to save this country from stagnation and fiscal ruin. We know what it will take. We will have to raise a consumption tax. We will have to preserve benefits for the poor and cut them for the middle and upper classes. We will have to invest more in innovation and human capital.

To rise to the occasion such realities present we’ll all have to do a little more listening.

Posted in Culture, Politics

Are You A Progressive…?

// No Comments »

Find out now. That’s right, if you subscribe to an idea, you must subscribe to any ideology that has ever subscribed to it as well, and to every possible negative consequence remotely implied by said ideologies when you carried to absurd extremes.

Posted in Culture, Politics, Religion, Television, Video

Why Ronald Reagan would be run out of a Tea Party and other conservative quips…

March 3, 2010 // No Comments »

Last night television provided some interviews of interest for political junkies. Jay Leno marked his return to The Tonight Show by having Sarah Palin as his first guest. Meanwhile Stephen Colbert welcomed back NY Times columnist David Brooks. Palin was typical Palin and Brooks was typical Brooks. Both were entertaining and one was substantive. All in all, great entertainment. 

Posted in Culture, Politics, Television, Video