You lost me from the first, when you said:

“First and foremost, I am not so sure that the history I briefly covered was revisionist history, but even if it is, revisionist history is a respectable form, particularly considering that most history (especially mainstream history taught in schools) was (and largely still is) written by white men. In turn, if revisionist history gives a voice to the vast majority of those who have had no voice in the writing of much of history, then I suppose I would be proud to be called a student of revisionist history.”

Which, boiled down to the shortest possible sentence would be

-History is whatever I chose it to be, regardless of anything that may, or may not have occurred in real life.-

Sorry, but the “White” history may be the predominate history primarily due to the fact that the white races were better educated.
Which doesn’t necessarily translate to “accurate”.

However other versions of the same period in time generally do not differ enough to claim that “white” history is false.

You completely discount the fact that it was primarily the White races that ended slavery in this nation.

Them wuz Christian white folks what done that.

This nation has done more for the non-white races than any other country on Earth, but you feel that somehow the white folks still owe something to whoever wants to hold their hand out and cry “discrimination”.

So, we’ve all heard all about a mind being a terrible thing to waste, and to give money to the United Negro College Fund.

But you never hear about sending money to the United White People College Fund.

Were such a fund to exist it would be labeled racist.

Why is that?

Who would be victimized in the second instance?

Who is victimized in the first instance?

Who is being discriminated against, solely based on skin color?

How come there are so many successful Black People in this country that made a success of themselves by working, educating themselves, and earning what they have?

Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, etc, are upstanding, well educated Black People that did not sit around whining “discrimination”.

And look at what they have achieved. Not because some government agency gave them anything, but because they earned it.

Throughout the real history of this country there has been a great many non-white people who succeeded very nicely by their own efforts.

How many can you point to and say “that person is a success because of this government program”?

There may be pockets of racism from white people but there are more pockets of racism against white people from those peoples of color because they have been taught that “whitey” owes them something.

The opportunities for people of all races exist in this country, but only for those willing to work and earn success.

I don’t see anybody flocking to get out of The United States to find opportunity.

As far as what is taught in the public school system, THAT is revisionist history.

Second, I would argue that the statement “Goddamn America” was a statement made out of a place of anger that frankly is justified when looking at the ways that the many marginalized identities in this country were and still are treated. The “United States of KKK America” is one of pointed anger toward the white supremacist legacy that has plagued this nation since its inception.

Next, I would agree that many of the programs geared toward helping those who have been wronged by our economic and socio-political system have done little more than further harm those that the legislation (at least one the surface) intended to help. I would not argue, though, that this is a democratic problem or a republican problem. This is a problem of the largely white, upper-class, male ruling class who has pushed through and watered down many of the reforms, regardless of their party affiliation. However, to humor you, I will point you to two important pieces of legislation pushed through by a democratic majority despite the resistance of the Southern democrats, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

As for your question about what are we supposed to do to right these wrongs, to move forward. Well, what you are asking for is a doctoral thesis, and frankly, and I don’t have the time nor desire to pen one here for you, but I think many of the answers lie in an accountability to our past and a recognition of the ways that past actually directly affect our present situation. I think the answers lie in a concerted effort on all sides (though I think it is particularly important that those that cause(d) harm and damage own up to and take accountability for their part in history) to work for justice. This means economic justice rather than the ever increasing gap between rich and poor that we see in the United States. That means racial justice rather than the ever increasing chasm between those of color and those who identify as white (interestingly a chasm that is tied directly into the economic justice). This includes a concerted effort on the part of the U.S. government to work for justice internationally rather than establishing itself as an aggressive power willing to use its military might to preserve our economic and political interests throughout the world. The list goes on and on, and the actual practices that stem from this accountability go on even longer.

Jami, I think that it is important, though, to not distance ourselves from the past. Do you own slaves? No. Did you kill any Lakota? No. Do you benefit, at least in some forms, from the economic and ethnic gains that directly stem from those actions? Though I do not know you, I would hazard to say that the answer is yes. If you don’t think you do, I would encourage you to read Tim Wise’s book “White Like Me.”

Lastly, come now, Willis. You are going to accuse me in a mocking tone of revisionist history and then present a painfully “short history of slavery as it pertains to the American Colonies” and leave out all mention of the European role in the slave trade? True, the Ottoman empire did have a direct role in the slave trade, and the Arabic and Muslim empires by no means have clean hands in the slave trade. True, many tribal leaders did sell other blacks into slavery. However, you ignore the fact that the VAST majority of the slave trade was conducted on the Western coast of Africa where the Ottoman and other Arabic and Muslim traders had little to no influence. You leave out the understanding of many of those who sold their brethren into slavery that they were essentially signing contracts much more similar to that of indentured servitude (these two statements are not to dismiss the roles of complicit forces in the slave trade but are merely to make clear that European forces had a much larger role in slavery than you would be willing to claim in your “short history”).

The fact is that European slave systems invented in the Americas are by many measures the most deadly, complete, and virulent of all slave systems in the history of the world. Conservative estimates put the number of slaves that died in the slave trade (middle passage and brutal treatment in the colonies, whether Spanish, Portugese, French, or English colonies) at 10 million. Liberal estimates put the number at 35 million. Take your pick, but neither is anything to write off in our history of slavery as it pertains to the American colonies. It was boats with British, French, Portugese, and Spanish sails that by in large hit the shores of west Africa to collect its human capital to be expended for a capitalist enterprise referred to as the “New World.”

Those blacks who do desire reparations (which are a controversial topic even in the black communities in the U.S.), then, are looking to the right place . . . the government that held blacks in bondage for hundreds of years to lay a foundation to become the wealthiest nation in the history of the world.

Lastly, I cannot speak for blacks who decide to join Islam, but I find the last statement of your response problematic on many levels. First, I would argue that it was not Islam, a religion as diverse if not more so than the Christian religion with all of its various denominations, that approved of slavery but rather those wealthy leaders of the Ottoman empire who exploited those beneath them to advance their wealth in much the same way as the wealthy (Christian) leaders of the United States and Great Britain. Perhaps you ought black Americans who do decide to convert to Islam, though, what about the religion has attracted them.

I find it important to note, though, that the question you ask is much the same as asking, “Why do so many American Blacks identify with Christianity, the very religion that was actively and passively used to keep blacks enslaved?” “Why would any black person ever read from a King James version of the bible when King James actively changed versus like Luke 4:18-19 to state that Jesus came to free the ‘captives’ from ’slaves’ so as not to implant in slaves of the British Empire the idea that the religion that they have adopted could be one of liberation?”

Powerful black tribes in Africa raided neighboring villages and took prisoners.

They then SOLD those prisoners to moslem Arab slave traders.

The moslem Arab slave traders in turn sold the slaves to the highest bidder.

So, if the Blcks in America truly desire “reparations”, why are they not looking to the “home country”?

Or, gasp, the oil rich Arab nations that dealt in slavery and made money from selling the ancestors of those who would blame America.

And why do so many American Blacks feel the need to join the religion that actually approved of slavery, and the profits generated?

When something isn’t healing, its festering and becomming infectious. Seems to me, sounds alot like muslims hating infidels. Same hate, different name.

Your comments, “Frankly, Reverend Wright was speaking from a place of truth. He was speaking from the truth of the Native Americans who have experienced genocide of epic proportions at the hands of an almost entirely white U.S. government. He was speaking from the place of truth of the African and African American who has experienced slavery, Black Codes, Jim Crowe, Redlining, overwhelming exclusion from social policies like the New Deal and the GI Bill that mostly benefited whites, the economic “restructuring” of the 1980s which disproportionately affected black communities, and so forth. He is speaking from the perspective of the Palestinian who lives every day under violent apartheid that is propped up by U.S. tax dollars and private investment. He dared to assume that after 9/11 we could have paused to ask why this attack might have occurred rather than looking up with hate-filled eyes to enact revenge. He dared to speak courageously.”

Would have caused a restless night if I had not slept through all the turmoil it caused.

But my first thought on awakening was to find a way to help.

So, what do we, as a nation, need to do to right all these wrongs?

What can we do to make it all right?

I have my ideas, but perhaps your ideas would be more appropos?

All that revisionist history all wrapped up in one post.

Obviously not a history buff that actually studies the subject, but relies totally on the words of his betters…

“Frankly, Reverend Wright was speaking from a place of truth. ”

One of his statements that you speak so proudly of is “GODDAMN the USA”.

And what “truth” is that?

Or perhaps the “United States of KKK America”, more “truth?

Every program pushed into existence to “hep the minorities” by the democrats has pushed them further into poverty, while, at the same time, enriched the good ol’ boys club back in Washington DC.

Find me ONE program that actually “helped” a minority, and feel free to present it here.

Willis, I would love to know how exactly you see the democratic party as holding some kind of monopoly on racism in this country.

Additionally, what makes you think you can know, in your paternalistic wisdom, what would be “a whole lot better” for the so-called “minorities” of this country?

Lastly, why is there an assumption that the democrats are some exterior force helping the “minorities” to which you refer rather than a force driven, at least in part, by those “minorities” themselves?

Frankly, Reverend Wright was speaking from a place of truth. He was speaking from the truth of the Native Americans who have experienced genocide of epic proportions at the hands of an almost entirely white U.S. government. He was speaking from the place of truth of the African and African American who has experienced slavery, Black Codes, Jim Crowe, Redlining, overwhelming exclusion from social policies like the New Deal and the GI Bill that mostly benefited whites, the economic “restructuring” of the 1980s which disproportionately affected black communities, and so forth. He is speaking from the perspective of the Palestinian who lives every day under violent apartheid that is propped up by U.S. tax dollars and private investment. He dared to assume that after 9/11 we could have paused to ask why this attack might have occurred rather than looking up with hate-filled eyes to enact revenge. He dared to speak courageously.

“For those who claim that Obama should have shunned his pastor and dropped membership in his church when Rev. Wright expressed disturbing attitudes I would ask, “Why has the Republican Party, and all the individuals in it, not either dropped their affiliation with the party when, instead, they continued to embrace the Fallwells and Robertsons and others or publicly requested that the offenders disassociate themselves from the party?””

Well John, mostly because the people you listed as bad on the conservative side of the issue do not denounce the United States in the same manner as obamas “preacher”.

None has proclaimed this to be the United States of KKK America.

None has spewed forth the HATE AMERICA garbage that obamas “reverend” has done.

My question to you, John, is;

Do you personally agree with the ‘preacher’ under discussion?

If so, why?

Nearly all the racism I get to see comes from the democrat party, why is that John?

I believe that minorities can do a whole lot better without the democrats “helping” them the way they have for the last 40 years.