I watched Lincoln again tonight, in no small part because I think Daniel Day Lewis is the greatest living actor. I was worried when I first watched it that all the high profile actors would dilute the film, and it would turn into some overproduced Hollywood bullshit, but Holbrook, Fields, Jones, Spader and the rest did a fine job with their roles and not turning it into a bunch of disparate stars each trying to take control of the film. If that makes sense.
As I was watching it tonight, particularly the scene during the vote for the 13th amendment, I remembered again what white privilege was like. I sat there, and as the votes were cast for something that I know the result and have for 150 years, feeling all good about myself because the union had outlawed slavery, I wondered what it must be like to be black watching this movie. That’s the legacy of racism. That’s the legacy of our original sin. While I’m sitting here feeling good about my pasty white self because the vote came out in the movie the way we wanted it to, think about what the AA community must think about while watching this movie. If I were black, I’d be pissed- “Yeah, white people. Thanks for all that. You want a fucking cookie for treating people like people?”
That, again, is the legacy of racism and our sin against human decency. I get to feel good while watching a movie about shit that happened 150 years ago because, well, none of it was really personally relevant to me or my life the past 40 years. Meanwhile, while things have improved, African Americans in our country, almost two centuries later, are still fighting for the right to vote and their franchise is under attack from the same type of people in stovepipe hats and shitty beards that voted in the 1860’s for them to remain slaves.
The parallel to the gay rights issues this week in the Supreme Court could not be more clear. Just like in the vote for the 13th amendment, we have a boatload of privileged white people deciding whether or not African Americans are really people under the law. Now, though, we have a bunch of straight people deciding the fate of people that none of them can identify with. Even if SCOTUS rules the “right way” (the way I want them to), we will be living with the after effects for years. Well, not we. Just as blacks have dealt with individual and institutional racism for centuries even after that momentous 13th amendment vote, gays and lesbians (and the forgotten voices of the movement, the transgendered) will be subject to discrimination and hatred and bile for years to come. And that’s if things go the right way in SCOTUS.
That’s what white (and heterosexual) privilege feel like. It’s that fucking good. You get to feel good about yourself when you have a couple drinks and watch a movie about your country making baby steps towards treating everyone like human beings.
The Republic of Stupidity
Actually that does make sense and you can probably thank Spielberg for that…
Like him or hate him, the man is in complete charge of his set…
aimai
I want to recommend two interesting books to you, John. One was written by my uncle and its called Black patriots and Black Loyalists (I think). Here’s the link http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo12986170.html It is the story of the thousands of African American Slaves who fought on both sides of the revoutionary war. And the other, which is also new on the scene, is Black Count, the story of Alexandre Dumas–who wrote The Count of Monte Cristo–and his father who was half French Marsquis and half Hatian slave. The father rose from illegitimate black child of this Marquis to be a General in the French Revolutionary Army and a rival to Napoleon, was imprisoned by the Italians for two years and died forgotten by the revolution but not by his son. Parts of his life were the model for the Count of Monte Cristo and another novel by Dumas.
YoohooCthulhu
The point’s well taken, but I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong with lauding *progress*. I’m sure I sound like a Republican here but–there are still SO many places in the world that haven’t gotten as far as that wimpy 13th amendment assertion that people are people.
Villago Delenda Est
Let’s be honest about this. It’s about bringing the lowly up to the level of “human being” which has been the province of white straight Christian males. It used to be white straight Protestant males, but we’ve been making progress!
sb
I’m rewatching it for the second time later this evening. The first time I saw it in the theater, I had the same thoughts you had.
SiubhanDuinne
That was yet another keeper in the John G. Cole Awesome Rants file. If I were male I would gay marry you for this post, if I were gay.
You look young for your age.
MattR
Wait. You aren’t watching the Clue style 100th episode of Psych where the viewers get to choose the ending?
gbear
Did you see TBogg’s latest?
rikyrah
the arguments against gay marriage have sounded quite flimsy, and ridiculous.
BGinCHI
So people on the right want government to leave people alone to be free from interference. But they want to go out of their way — far out of their way — to force the government to scrutinize all marriages so that some people are not afforded that freedom.
It’s as stupid as it is disgusting.
The simple solution: NO document involved in certifying a marriage can ask about gender, race, or anything except who the person is in order to identify them.
Phoenix_rising
Thanks for the shout-out. And amen.
What enrages me is not the tail end of the shitstorm that I have lived in for 27 years of my 41 on earth, though. We’ve come through the worst of it and now we’re in mop-up. It was worse 20 years ago. Go ahead, have a cookie, this one’s on me!
What just made me want to smash stuff was Tony Kennedy, America’s Weathervane as Pierce calls him, glancingly referring to the 40,000 kids being raised in CA alone by same-sex couples. This was the only reference to the biggest losers in this fight. When we’re batting around the tactics and the strategy, our kids have to stand in the right wing noise machine’s stream of abuse.
Speaking for myself, had I known 15 years ago just how badly the One True Church and the Mormons were going to mistreat our families, I might have postponed asking for my own human rights to avoid my child having to see grown ass adults abuse perfect strangers over…nothing. They’ve now had their day in court, and what they’re bringing is nothing. No ideals, no principles, no clue and no love for others.
BGinCHI
@aimai: Just how many smart relatives do you have?
It doesn’t seem fair.
beergoggles
@gbear: Whatever TBoggs pictures of Roberts with his ambiguously gay friends might look like, Roberts is a Republican. And like the rest of the Republicans he’ll have a token gay friend, but until his son comes out as gay there’ll be no way for him to identify with a gay person.
Scott S.
That was really, really well-written. Thank you.
Trentrunner
And before we let the Right escape all consequences for their decades of anti-gay bigotry, let’s remember that very real lives are damaged, derailed, and denied if ANY of these laws stay on the books.
Equality delayed is equality denied.
gbear
@beergoggles: Agreed. I didn’t come to praise Roberts.
Some Guy
Here, here,
donnah
Thank you, John Cole. I don’t care what your hair looks like.
Gex
@Trentrunner: I will have a nice, long, bitter as hell laugh if DOMA section 3 is overturned and Minnesota passes marriage.
The secret to comedy is timing. Not just for “funny ha ha” comedy, but also for “funny fuck you” comedy.
You know what’s different about gays between now and when all these people who now support it were against it? Not a goddamn thing.
Oh yeah. Except my girlfriend is dead now. So, no marrying her even if straight society will be so gracious to bestow me with the privilege.
sparky
Cole, it’s posts like this that make me like you. I saw Lincoln in the theater a few weeks back and was overcome with sadness that the audience (mostly white) felt pride in the “accomplishment” of the 13th Amendment. Holy fucking christ on a pogo-stick, how is it that white people ever feel pride in their ancestors having “freed” the slaves? That’s an accomplishment of some kind? How ’bout not enslaving people to begin with?
I’ve been a teacher for many years, and I’ve always been troubled by black kids embarrassment in their ancestors situation; the kids hate to talk about any of the shit their forebears went through as if it were their forebears’ fault.
And just as ironically, white students don’t get that the shame lies with their ancestors who tolerated slavery and not the Africans who were captured in their homeland and brought to this hemisphere.
Sail Away . . . .
metalgirl
Very well written, Mr. Cole. Thank you for your thoughtful words that speak for many of us white folks here :)
Chris
@sparky:
The ridiculous thing is the way we fully expect credit for the fact that our ancestors “freed the slaves,” but shreik like harpies at the thought of being blamed (by the same logic) for the fact that our ancestors enslaved them in the first place.
All of American history is like that, really. We demand collective credit (ask any European who’s ever been served the “you owe us for WW2!” line), but not blame. Funny that…
Gwangung
@Gex: ah, Gex, I can only guess at your well founded bitterness. And all I have to give is a far from satisfactory sympathetic hug.
And maybe a violent “fuck you” to
alito, Thomas and whoever votes stupidly.
hitchhiker
I felt shame at the end of that movie. Srsly, sitting in the theater as the lights came up, I would have expected any black people who happened to be there to be filled with contempt. Who the living eff do we think we are, that other peoples’ dignity is something that’s ours to bestow?
You’re right, JC. This whole maybe-we-can-recognize-your-relationships thing is just another example. So head-bangingly sad.
Also, gex, I’m so sorry.
danielx
Yup. Slavery is America’s Original Sin, and much evil came from it.
sparky
@Chris: Exactly; not to mention those pesky redskins who were occupying our land, eh? Hell, did we not, as Maximus Reagen told the USSR, set aside reservations for them when they proved reluctant to “assimilate” to our lifestyle?
Also, too as concerns the same sex marriage debate: couldn’t we solve this problem by having gay couples and lesbian couples hook up and inter-marry and then just let them attend key parties?
Spaghetti Lee
@Chris:
I think the logic of either collective credit or collective blame breaks down pretty quickly. My ancestors didn’t own slaves, but my bring descended from them doesn’t give me any superiority over people descended from Southern slaveholders. And I certainly don’t have any reason to demand extra respect from contemporary black people because my ancestors didn’t own slaves. People should get respect based on how they live their lives, not who they’re descended from.
On the other hand, the way ‘privilege’ is thrown around so much these days does leave me cold sometimes. If being grateful that slavery was ended is itself a sign of privilege, then what isn’t?
ruemara
I’m sorry, Gex. You and far too many other lgbt people have been harmed by a cultural bigotry that’s taken far too long to be changed.
And thanks, JC. thank you for recognizing that.
Keith G
Same as it ever was. Or, at least that is my view from down in the trenches. It still amazes me that humans haven’t totally wiped our own dumb-assed self out yet. Tho’ not for lack of trying. We truly are an obnoxious group of sordid beasties. Yet we do continue to crawl forth through the actual and metaphoric sludge, on a path that is less straight then some might wish, and occasionally stumble upon progress.
I have yet to see a dominant group not be despicable toward minorities in it midst. It seems the humans of the modern world still have a lot of growth to achieve, if time permits.
hilzoy
“the forgotten voices of the movement, the transgendered”
Amen.
AxelFoley
Sometimes, Cole, you disappoint me, as I wonder, “How can’t he see it this way, etc., etc., etc…” But, like the rest of us, you’re only human.
However, when you knock it outta the park, you really knock it the fuck outta the park, like you did here.
Punchy
How does Roberts say the dumb shit he does, then look his lesbian cousin in the eye at the next 4th of July party? Textbook dumbfuckery.
Rev. Rick
John: Ouch…and thank you!
SatanicPanic
You’re a good man Cole
patroclus
The movie is okay, but the enactment of the 13th Amendment, as significant as it seems in retrospect, wasn’t really all that great of an accomplishment in that the slaves had already been freed (mostly) by the two Emancipation Proclamations (and, of course, the progress of the Union armies) and the amendment was only needed because of Lincoln’s fear that his authority to issue the proclamations would not exist when the war ended. In my view, of far greater import were the 14th Amendment (equal protection and due process as applied to states and not just the federal government) and the 15th Amendment (right to vote) because they actually changed the then-current situation. I think Spielberg should have done a movie about those because both have had much greater legacies than the 13th.
But as John says, the 13th makes white people feel better about themselves because, in retrospect, very few realize what I just summarized above and actually believe that the 13th changed things; when it really didn’t. Also, a far better movie could have been done about the Emancipation Proclamations; because Lincoln took a great deal more risk in issuing them (and the drama was that he was quite wishy washy about them before he issued them).
In fact, to entitle a movie “Lincoln” and just portray the 13th pretty much misses his whole greatness – which was his journey on the whole issue and his war-time leadership, especially in the face of uncertain victory. Moreover, the movie was actually somewhat ham-handed; manufacturing drama where there really wasn’t a whole lot of it, portraying Connecticut members as being anti-passage (when they weren’t), misportraying the then-relationship between Stephens and Lincoln, short-changing Schuyler Colfax, eliminating the whole Union Democrat thang (Hannibal Hamlin and Andrew Johnson don’t even show up) and a whole bunch more.
As a movie, it’s pretty good; as history, not so much. It could have both better and more accurate. There really should be a whole mini-series on Lincoln that gets away from just the feel good element.
Redshirt
Great stuff Cole. I’d expand your argument to animals, but I know many meat eaters would disagree. But I think they’ll come along eventually.
David Koch
This is all Black Jimmy Carter’s fault
Kyle
Thank you for the post, John. It is extremely well done. On a similar note re white privilege: If I have a casual encounter with a rude person (e.g., a waiter), my white self gets to call them a bitch/bastard and ponder what’s bugging that person. I imagine that if I were black that my response, like each and every time in my life, would initially be whether the rudeness is because I’m black. Of course, it’s not always a racist encounter, but imagine having to process that each and every time. I would be filled with fury.
AxelFoley
@gbear:
Did you come to bury him?
I had to ask. ;)
joel hanes
@danielx:
Slavery is America’s Original Sin
No. It was the second, and lesser sin.
You could ask the Taino about the original sin, if there were any Taino left to ask.
Have you spent any time on an “Indian” reservation?
If I were God-Emperor of the Universe, every American high-schooler would have to pass a test on the contents of Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee
AxelFoley
@danielx:
And don’t forget the genocide of the First Nations people.
patroclus
But I certainly appreciate the sentiment which John’s post expresses. I’m hopeful that it will be warranted when the USSC issues their opinions on Perry and Windsor, but given what went on in the oral arguments, I’m still only cautiously optimistic that we’re gonna get a Loving-style landmark watershed result. It seems more likely that we’re going to get narrower rulings than the 14th amendment should require and that the USSC is going to avoid the fundamental equal protection issues. Even if they do that, even narrow opinions are likely to be favorable, so it’ll probably be good news (and Illinois is expected to enact full-blown equal marital rights this Spring), so overall, the direction is certainly good, but we’re not to the end of the rainbow yet.
Frankly, like geg, my emotional reaction is somewhat angry – I’m pissed that my civil rights are constantly debated and never enforced; I’m furious that DOMA even existed for 17 years; I’m flabbergasted that bigoted majorities have been allowed to ride roughshod over my civil rights for virtually all my life. I suspect that the African Americans feel/felt somewhat like this; if not even more so. It’s not a pleasant feeling; despite this overall good week.
Genine
This is why you rock, Cole.
fuckwit
@joel hanes: word
danielx
@joel hanes:
@AxelFoley:
You both got me, and you’re right. Okay, Second Sin…my, that American Exceptionalism business does become difficult to maintain after a while.
BethanyAnne
Well, the 13th Amendment banned *most* slavery. Slavery after trial is explicitly permitted.
dance around in your bones
Anybody seen The Importance of Being Earnest (2002) with Rupert Everett, Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon PLUS Judi Dench?
Sorry to go all OT. Anyway, that’s what I am watching. Haven’t seen Lincoln yet due to lack of funds, haha!
Doug Woodard
Check out this excellent Ken Burns doc for the state of white treatment of AA 50 years after passage of the 13th Amendment: “Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson.” You can stream it on Netflix
Redshirt
Anyone else read “Inherent Vice” by Thomas Pynchon?
I loved it, especially in conjunction with “Nixonland”.
Mnemosyne
@patroclus:
Except that, in the opinion of most historians, the passage of the 13th Amendment was a necessary prelude to getting the 14th and 15th passed. Without the 13th, we probably wouldn’t have either of those. That’s why they’re usually grouped together when people talk about them.
Plus there’s the fact that you wouldn’t be able to have a movie called Lincoln that was about the 14th Amendment since he had been dead for 3 years before it passed.
MattR
@Mnemosyne:
Like that would stop Hollywood from trying.
Mnemosyne
@joel hanes:
Hard to call, actually, when you’re talking about the specific case of the United States and not the overall conquest of the Americas. The first African arrived on American shores in 1623, long before the active slaughter and penning of Native Americans began in the United States. There were always fights between settlers and Native Americans, but it wasn’t until the American Revolution that the systematic theft really began. In fact, the reason why many tribes sided with the British was that they felt they would get a fairer deal with them than they would from the colonists, and they were almost certainly right.
So I do have to give the slight edge to slavery as the original sin — theft of people closely followed by theft of property.
TG Chicago
While I’m not a big fan of speculating on the sexuality of public figures, I wouldn’t assume that all nine SC justices are straight.
Redshirt
@Mnemosyne: Americans are the best genociders, with marketing to ease the historical transition.
Villago Delenda Est
@Redshirt:
The Nazis, after all, just took concepts already pioneered in the United States and applied them in new, innovative ways. In a very real sense, taking them to their logical conclusions.
patroclus
@Mnemosyne: Indeed, and I’ve seen the movie (1940’s era) about Andrew Johnson and it was, other than Gymkata, perhaps the worst movie I’ve ever seen. Perhaps there should be a movie about Stephens or Frederick Douglas, which could focus on, in my view, the much more important 14th and 15th Amendments. I guess I don’t really fault Spielberg for doing the 13th (and Amistad, which I actually liked better than Lincoln); it’s just that if he really wanted to do what I regard as much more relevant history, then there’s the Wilmot Proviso, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the LeCompton Constitution, the 1860 election, the formation of the Republican party, the (real) battles between the Radical Republicans and the Johnson Union Dems and, of course, the whole Lincoln story (including the Emancipation Proclamations and the events around Gettysburg). For what it’s worth, the best Civil War era movie I’ve seen in recent years was Ang Lee’s Ride with the Devil (about Quantrill and the Missouri bushwackers).
Like I said, it’s an okay movie, but it’s like that Wilburforce movie of a few years ago (w/ Ioan Gruffudd) – it could have been SO much better.
Mnemosyne
@patroclus:
Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m pretty sure why it is you don’t work in entertainment. ;-)
rda909
John Cole, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and honesty as you learn and grow through life. I wish more people had your humility, and if they did, the world would be a much better place.
I’ll save any thoughts on the movie and some of its faults (it’s truly a tour-de-force in acting though), and why this almost insatiable need to compare the struggles of slaves and their ancestors, to civil rights battles of today, is wrong (hint: there’s no comparison and is illustrative of the same privilege of which you speak). Again, thanks for sharing and I look forward to reading more of your thoughts in the future, and growing along with you.
patroclus
@Mnemosyne: I’m not planning on quitting my day job. :-) (My recommendations for 20th century blockbusters include the battles over the Public Utility Holding Company Act, the Transportation Act of 1920 and the Motor Carrier Act of 1935.)
Viva BrisVegas
@Mnemosyne: I had always understood that the freedom to steal Indian land was amongst the chief freedoms demanded by the American rebels.
FlipYrWhig
@Viva BrisVegas: pretty much. One of the complaints in the Declaration of Independence, of course, is that King George has stirred up the Indians and used them to work against the colonists.
Omnes Omnibus
The horrible thing is that treating black people like people was something new and different. It was progress. John, if you remember your move to the left, you will know that there are things you started to acknowledge that were obvious to other people before. OTOH I know that I cannot possibly conceive of what it is like to be a minority today. Given that, there is no way I could put myself in the place of a black person in the Civil War era. I can have some empathy, but I can never have a real understanding.
Mnemosyne
@Viva BrisVegas:
Yep … but they had been holding Africans in slavery for over 100 years before they made that demand. So I’m still leaning towards slavery being the original sin specifically of the United States.
Viva BrisVegas
@Mnemosyne: But the land had to be stolen before the cotton could be picked.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: I don’t know about that. My dad has been deeply involved for the past 20 years in genealogical research. The first war my family was involved with in the New World was the Pequot War. Basically my ancestors and their associates burned down a fortified town and killed pretty much every who ran out. This was around 1637. It started early.
Mnemosyne
@patroclus:
FWIW, I do agree with you that Amistad is probably a better film that Lincoln, partly because its story is so much less familiar and has fewer audience obstacles to overcome. I suspect it did less well at the box office than Lincoln in part because its scenes of the Middle Passage were so vivid and horrifying. I think Spielberg learned from that experience that it’s easier to get Americans to pat themselves on the back than it is to present them with the horrifying facts.
A lot of the the reviews and comments I saw about Lincoln complained that they showed him as a genial, wisecracking guy who would roughhouse in the White House with his sons, but I distinctly remember from the various Lincoln biographies that I read that that’s what he was actually like. The melancholy figure we’ve seen in other biopics is not an accurate image, and yet it’s so prevalent that it makes people think that Spielberg must be the one who was wrong about Lincoln’s personality.
burnspbesq
Cole:
As the parent of a gay kid, I find that statement astoundingly stupid and profoundly offensive. You presume to tell me that I have no dog in this fight? FUCK YOU.
John Cole
@burnspbesq: I’m talking about the court, moran.
Mnemosyne
@Viva BrisVegas:
Yes and no. It was early enough that there were still efforts to buy land rather than outright steal it. Not to mention the various diseases that had swept up through the two continents when the Spanish and other Europeans first arrived in the late 1400s. In many cases, the colonists found deserted lands that had already been conveniently cleared because the Native Americans had died in an epidemic before the colonists arrived.
And, to be clear again, I’m saying that the original sin of the United States is slavery. If we’re going to claim that it’s the conquest of the native peoples, then that’s the original sin of not only the United States, but of every country in North, South and Central America, plus the Caribbean.
@Omnes Omnibus:
And then the Native Americans probably turned right around and killed a bunch of colonists because at that point it was still a war between two relatively equal parties, not a genocide.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne:
No, it was never even. Euro types had such a technological advantage that it was simply a matter of time, and population, before what happened was basically a genocide. The Pequot War was simply an early experiment. Slavery was an original sin; it wasn’t the original sin.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Not really — people vastly underestimate how much of our successful conquest of the native population was due to blind, stupid luck. It’s estimated that 96 percent of the native population was wiped out by disease before the Pilgrims even landed at Plymouth Rock.
And, sorry, but there’s a big difference between the Pequot War and the Trail of Tears. War between equals =/= forced relocation by law.
Violet
Great post. Thanks, John.
Origuy
Slavery is America’s Original Sin because it came so close to tearing the nation apart before it was even born. Far more Africans were shipped to Brazil and the Caribbean than ever set foot on North America.
Xenos
@Omnes Omnibus: I know some Narragansett who think the Pequot had it coming to them. There are others who think the genocide it was all the fault of the English. I strongly suspect nobody comes out of that war covered in glory.
Like most wars.
Leo Specimen
Never understood the Daniel Day Lewis angle on everything. Obviously he is very good, but the best? Idk, that seems a stretch against what I’ve (in my admittedly limited experience) have seen.
Debbie(aussie)
Great post, John.
Europeans idea that ‘white man’ was superior has a lot to answer for, still. Most Aussies have little or no idea , and probably don’t want to know, how much horror and devastation was visited on the indiginous population.
chopper
mah nishtanah?
Xenos
If conquest is the standard for original sin, then that covers pretty much the entire human race, except for the Sami and the Inuit. And I am not so sure about the Inuit.
I was watching one of those documentaries on Neanderthals, and it was quite telling to see the scientists lamenting the extinction of that population of people. The poor bastards, had they survived, would still be enslaved today, and I doubt the Supreme Court would be very interested in extending any sort of rights to Neanderthal-Americans.
Lavocat
Well, John, I agree. Whole-heartedly. And while these piddling little steps are only baby steps, they are nonetheless steps in the right direction.
And the great thing about progress is that it is wholly dependent upon the consciences of the people of the time. It comes in fits and starts. And sometimes there is a giant to lead us (MLK) and sometimes there are only martyrs.
Do not despair. The only way for evil to prevail is for good people to remain silent.
So. Get the fuck out in the streets and make your voices heard. And slap down fat old bigots who sit on the USSC every goddamned chance you get. No one in this world is too proud NOT to be shamed.
I fucking guarantee you that it hurts Nino like hell to be held in such low esteem by the general populace. It would hurt ANY bloated ego.
Journalmalist
The argument over which was the ORIGINAL sin, slavery or conquest seems to hinge on which came first or which was worse, but that obscures the fact that the sins actually apiece: expressions of a rapacious people that thought (and to this day thinks) it can do no wrong. Both “sins” were of course justified by variations of Manifest Destiny, which is itself another way of claiming oneself as a Chosen People, the fatuous claims of exceptionalism we hear today — bolstered by religious faith, natch — that follow Americans all over the world as the rapacious ones conquer and consume everything in its sights.
Randy P
I highly recommend the special Civil War issue of The Atlantic that came out a year ago (can’t link from the phone but google “atlantic civil war issue”). Full of contemporary and near-contemporary articles including contributions from Frederick Douglass, Booker Washington and W. E. B. Dubois. Also a commentary from Ta-Nehisi Coates, “Why Do So Few Blacks Study the Civil War?” that I think readers of this thread would find interesting.
liberal
@Xenos:
Yes, I tried to explain that to eemom, who lurves it when the Israelis ethnically cleanse the Palestinians, and who then claims that none of us Americans have moral standing to criticize Israel because we all benefited from our own ethnic cleansing.
By her idiotic standard, Jews like me don’t have the right to complain about the Holocaust, because we’ve certainly benefited from it—as you point out, the chance that any particular living ethnic group didn’t do something very, very ugly in the past is negligible.
MomSense
@hitchhiker:
“Who the living eff do we think we are, that other peoples’ dignity is something that’s ours to bestow?”
This. As happy as I am that we voted for marriage equality in my state–I simultaneously feel the same anger that human dignity is even subjected to a vote. It’s not right.
And now we have to wait for a handful of people to decide.
scott
I haven’t said this here, but I’ve always liked John Cole for exactly the reason revealed by this post, which is his ability to take some experience or assumption that he’s taken for granted and give it another look. That gets him in trouble with his former conservative friends and also quite often with his new friends on this site, but I’ve always valued him for it. He thinks for himself without having to be spoon-fed the “right” thoughts or feelings, and people like that are rare. Thanks!
cmorenc
GEEZ LOUISE this thread is oozing white liberal guilt all over itself. About blacks. About gays. About movie audiences.
And perhaps you are reading quite a bit of projection into what you assume other audience members at Lincoln showings were thinking? Most people I know who’ve seen Lincoln didn’t see that scene as the political version of some feel-good sports story movie where the initially scorend scrawny hero scores the winning touchdown on the last play of the game of the year. Most people I’ve talked to about the movie who hadn’t read “Team of Rivals” cover to cover reacted to the 13th Amendment Congressional vote scene with astonishment over how damn close a fundamental event, one we take for granted in American history as a “natural” development of the fact that the Union was unquestionably going to win the war at that moment, came to not happening and forcing history down a very different path.
Omnes Omnibus
@cmorenc:
You forgot Native Americans.
liberal
I think a much more instructive question is the reaction to John Brown.
hartly
I’m echoing a few earlier posts here, but… I think it’s great to empathize with the victims of slavery and discrimination, but can we get over the white guilt thing? I agree that if you’re going to pat yourself on the back just for watching Lincoln you probably need to examine your attitude, but it doesn’t seem fair to project it onto other people. Nobody’s ancestry is free of cruelty, but it’s as silly to blame yourself for your ancestors’ sins as it is to take pride in their triumphs: you had nothing to do with either.
Incidentally, I suspect the white guilt thing has something to do with the fact that so many white Southerners still love and honor the Confederacy. If we want them to embrace modernity, we need to make it clear we don’t blame them for what their ancestors did.
hartly
I’m echoing a few earlier posts here, but… I think it’s great to empathize with the victims of slavery and discrimination, but can we get over the white guilt thing? I agree that if you’re going to pat yourself on the back just for watching Lincoln you probably need to examine your attitude, but it doesn’t seem fair to project it onto other people. Nobody’s ancestry is free of cruelty, but it’s as silly to blame yourself for your ancestors’ sins as it is to take pride in their triumphs: you had nothing to do with either.
Incidentally, I suspect the white guilt thing has something to do with the fact that so many white Southerners still love and honor the Confederacy. If we want them to embrace modernity, we need to make it clear we don’t blame them for what their ancestors did.
cmorenc
@liberal:
John Brown was a freaking psycho homicidal nutcase whose stupidly infeasible scheme to raid a federal arsenal to arm enough slaves with weapons to mount an insurrection has been equally stupidly romanticized by abolitionists of his day and some later historians because his purported goal was to dramatically force an end to slavery, and he makes a convenient martyr. The insurrection he actually helped provoke was to heighten and accelerate the secession of southern states from the Union, the result of which was for nearly two and a half years after the Civil War started, that that the Confederates came periolously near succeeding at several points, despite the disadvantages in population and industrial resources. Had the south won, the abolitionist movement would have been effectively defeated for many decades.
For but one example, had the southern armies not been nearly as disorganized in the immediate aftermath of victory at First Bull Run in 1861, Washington was virtually theirs for the taking against the even more disorganized, scattered retreat of the Union army. As poor as the Union army leadership was over the first couple of years of the war, they can be grateful the south made enough egregious blunders to offset their own and avoid defeat until they gradually wore down the continued viability of southern armed resistance enough to decisively defeat them.
Back to John Brown: A purportedly good objective does not justify romanticizing a fanatical homicidal lunatic as a martyr.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
I thought James Spader was absolutely fantastic in Lincoln – aside from Day Lewis I thought his performance was head and shoulders above everyone else’s (well, Sally Fields was pretty close). I really thought there might be a best supporting actor nomination for him – IMO he was better than Jones.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Also – Slavery by Another Name is a fantastic PBS film about the post-reconstruction penal system during Jim Crow, and there’s no feel good moment there for us whites.
Pococurante
Which actually we didn’t really start doing as a culture and a country until the 1970s. And even now there are folks (some found on the US Supreme Court) who think treating people as people is wrong…
celticdragonchick
Thank you.
celticdragonchick
@Gex:
I am so sorry, Gex. All my best wishes for you.
hartly
If I were black I’d also be pissed, but that wouldn’t make my reaction rational. If you’re black and most of your experiences with white people are bad, then you’re going to hate white people. And if you’re Irish Catholic in Northern Ireland and most of your experiences with Ulster Protestants are bad, then you’re going to hate Protestants. And if you’re an Indian Muslim and all your experiences with Hindus are bad, then you’re going to hate Hindus. Etc. Does this mean there are no good whites, Protestants, Hindus etc? Does this mean that all whites, Protestants, Hindus etc should hate themselves? Enough of the hand-wringing. I’m all for understanding other peoples’ pain, and I understand it’s human nature to hate anyone who reminds you of people who inflicted that pain – hell, I’m sure I have plenty of irrational hatreds of my own – but I refuse to feel guilty for any other person’s sins, even if I have a genetic relationship to them, and even though I don’t blame the people who were hurt by them for their irrational (but human) hatred of me.
Onihanzo
It is odd to me though that Frederick Douglas and William Lloyd Garrison are nowhere to be found in that film. Were they not a factor in Goodwin’s Team of Rivals?
liberal
@cmorenc:
But he did dramatically force an end to slavery.