Comments on: Pat Buchanan’s Historical Amnesia: Collective Forgetting Essential to Racism?

By: Tay

Tay — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 23:48:27 +0000

He’s a failed politician – what do you expect? I think you can measure his worth to the human race as no more than the value of the water and minerals in his body. I don’t think he has any other worth.

Like or Dislike: 0 0

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 23:20:57 +0000

Thanks, Victor. Now, with Gates and many others, we have the crime of YWB, yelling white black in your own house, and on your porch. The police report at that link is revealing on this too. Apparently a white women saw a black man on the porch of Gates house, Gates, and call it in to the police on her cell phone.

Like or Dislike: 0 0

By: Victor Ray

Victor Ray — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:34:38 +0000

Hey all,

Sorry if you al have seen this already. I don’t believe it requires any comment:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/07/harvard.html

Like or Dislike: 0 0

By: Kristen

Kristen — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:07:17 +0000

Great post, Joe. It is important to point out the facts that contradict common notions such as that expressed by Buchanan (and it is truly sad that so many people have been led to believe these things). And I think an even deeper consideration is reflected in your title for this piece. The collective memory scholarship asserts that national memory is the foundation of national identity. So that memories (and amnesias) that fail to give credit to people of color or to critique whites provide fuel to continue racist thinking and practice. And, on the other hand, the collective memory literature also argues that contemporary identity shapes how we remember. As long as our society feels the need to justify contemporary racial inequalities, we will maintain memories that support white supremacy.

Like or Dislike: 0 0

By: Dave Paul

Dave Paul — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:13:13 +0000

Bravo!

Like or Dislike: 0 0

By: No1KState

No1KState — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 05:30:00 +0000

This is fantastic, Joe, Ttujoe, and Nquest! I mean absolutely fabulous. I’d learned about the Iroquois federation, but always seem to forget sometimes. Nevertheless, I think this may be the first, or second, time I’ve heard the Framers used the Iroquios, just only the Greeks, as an example. It’s wonderful and fabulous, and why I desist from engaging with people like DJ.
~
It’s no big secret that the soft subjects are Eurocentric, deceiving, and racist. Texas is trying to make things worse by removing Cesar Chaves and Thurgood Marshall from their history curriculum. Information like this is great, and if we really want to encourage young black students, and all students of color, to put forth real effort, we’re going to have to make it worth their effort.
~
Forgive me guys, but I’m just real proud of black students right now. When you consider all that we know about their intelligence and racism in education, you just gotta give them their propers for acheiving as much as they have. It’s not easy learning that your people were slaves who didn’t free themselves and MLK came along and that’s it. Quite frankly, considering what they have to go through, it’s amazing black acheivement is what it is! I don’t want to put our students on the level of Soweto or even those black children in colonized Africa who had to answer essay questions like, “What good things have Germans brought us”; but African American students are quite as far off that mark as I had thought.
~
Oh and you got to give it up to Amerindians kids! Wow!

Like or Dislike: 0 0

By: Nquest

Nquest — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 01:54:56 +0000

Buchanan (and poster Darin Johnson) failed to acknowledge the influence Native American democracy, the Iroquois Constitution, had on the Constitution of the USA:

Washington — Benjamin Franklin, one of the original architects of the United States government, introduced as a model for the country’s framework document the constitution of the Iroquois Nation, according to a Smithsonian Institution specialist of American Indian history.
~
The Iroquois, a North American Indian confederacy of several tribes, allied with some of the first European settlers of what later became the United States.
~
The Iroquois’ detailed constitution — called the Great Law of Peace — guaranteed freedom of religion and expression and other rights later embraced in the U.S. Constitution . . .
~
the Iroquois document also presented to framers of the U.S. Constitution the concept of a two-house legislature and a combined government structure of state jurisdictions and a national government . . .
~
The Iroquois’ also said that when a legislator was presenting an issue to the governing chamber, others should be quiet, a practice adopted by Congress that contrasts with protocol in the British parliament, Hill said.
~
Franklin, then Pennsylvania’s official printer, became familiar with the Iroquois political system by printing minutes of their meetings . . .
~
~
http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2004/September/20040924120101AKllennoCcM9.930056e-02.html

Like or Dislike: 0 0