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>> Thankful I have a history degree so I can stop stressing about the news and put the broader strokes in context. I'd love to know your take on current events

>> Thankful I have a history degree so I can stop stressing about the news and put the broader strokes in context. I'd love to know your take on current events in the US.

softwaredoug 7y ago
I suppose it just gives me perspective that “this too shall pass”. And that these conflicts take longer than one lifetime to win... More specifically, the years since the civil war up until the last few decades have had this post civil-war reconciliation that was rooted in trying to let bygones be bygones amongst whites. But it also setup an environment where post civil war problems of blacks (ie lynching, suppression of civil rights) were ignored to forward reconciliation. Republicans switched from a party focused on civil rights to one focused on business. In the post ww2 period - in the past few decades, since the civil rights movement has partisanship gradually grown to its current conflict. There’s a lot clearly rooted in white identity/status in GOP needs for power (a definition of “whiteness”, btw, that would be alien to Americans 100 years ago) There’s a constant connection through US history between coded ethnic discrimination and partisanship. But that the country goes through cycles: between of ethnic division to conflict to integration into more unified identity So I have a skepticism that “partisanship is bad”. Rather I’m wondering how the cycle continues. This point of conflict, is a chance for building a new/different society with expanded human rights. Fighting for human rights is a fight beyond any one election, generation, or lifetime and it has to be fought with that attitude. I would recommend the new Frederick Douglass biography as well as learning about the abolitionist movements in general. Talk about a seeming hopeless struggle against entrenched interests...

>> Thankful I have a history degree so I can stop stressing about the news and put the broader strokes in context. I'd love to know your take on current events in the US.

softwaredoug 7y ago

I suppose it just gives me perspective that “this too shall pass”. And that these conflicts take longer than one lifetime to win... More specifically, the years since the civil war up until the last few decades have had this post civil-war reconciliation that was rooted in trying to let bygones be bygones amongst whites. But it also setup an environment where post civil war problems of blacks (ie lynching, suppression of civil rights) were ignored to forward reconciliation. Republicans switched from a party focused on civil rights to one focused on business. In the post ww2 period - in the past few decades, since the civil rights movement has partisanship gradually grown to its current conflict. There’s a lot clearly rooted in white identity/status in GOP needs for power (a definition of “whiteness”, btw, that would be alien to Americans 100 years ago) There’s a constant connection through US history between coded ethnic discrimination and partisanship. But that the country goes through cycles: between of ethnic division to conflict to integration into more unified identity So I have a skepticism that “partisanship is bad”. Rather I’m wondering how the cycle continues. This point of conflict, is a chance for building a new/different society with expanded human rights. Fighting for human rights is a fight beyond any one election, generation, or lifetime and it has to be fought with that attitude. I would recommend the new Frederick Douglass biography as well as learning about the abolitionist movements in general. Talk about a seeming hopeless struggle against entrenched interests...