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I know there are related current events that might make this a touchy subject, but I’m pretty disappointed that HNers would flag a speech by Frederick Douglass.

I know there are related current events that might make this a touchy subject, but I’m pretty disappointed that HNers would flag a speech by Frederick Douglass. This adds context that 99% of the reactionary CRT debates lack, and I would hope we have the self control to approach this respectfully.

kop316 5y ago
I would offer, it would be nice if the title was something more closer to: “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” Frederick Douglass (1852) When I saw the domain: "teachingamericanhistory.org", I have no context who or what organization it is, so I had no idea what to expect when I clicked on the link (I am glad I did).
bookofsand 5y ago
For context, the speech was delivered on July 5, 1852. 169 years ago. Assuming the average age of the mother at birth of 25, this was 6-7 generations and a civil war ago. I hope that we have enough maturity to not behave as if the respective appalling conditions happened yesterday and as if there is a significant part of the contemporary USA population that is openly supporting slavery. With that being said, it is an excellent necessary speech in its historical context.
- em-bee 5y ago
  try replacing the word slave with person or people of color, and the word slavery with racism, and you get something much more contemporary.
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  There's a quote from the speech that I think is particularly apropos: > Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. Seventy-six years ago, it was 1945. Black soldiers were coming back from winning WWII in a segregated US military, only to be excluded from the GI Bill that helped build the suburbs and establish generational wealth for white veterans. Seventy-six years before that the nation was in the midst of Reconstruction, enacting literacy tests and other measures to exclude Black people from public life. My parents were born in the twilight years of Jim Crow. They were alive to see MLK assassinated — now universally admired for a white-washed, toothless version of his legacy, he died opposed by a full 75% of Americans. The oldest people on HN probably have early memories of this themselves. We are living in the shadow of the past. We didn't flip a switch that erased racism after slavery. We didn't do it after Jim Crow either. This is a necessary speech in its historical context, yes — but it's also a necessary speech in today's context. Because unless we understand how the US's deep legacy of racism still perpetuates now, we won't be able to do the hard, uncomfortable, crucial work of undoing it.
  - bookofsand 5y ago
    Once upon a time there was a small country tucked in the southeast corner of Europe, harboring a colorful mix of ethnicities, yearning for peace and prosperity. There were horrible demons in its closet, and they were unleashed upon its present. The rest is history. 1940-1945. Ustaše regime massacres in atrocious conditions ~300k of Serbian civilians from a population of less than 10M. “Even (Nazi) German officers and SS men lost their cool when they saw (Ustaše) ways and methods.” 1987-1991. Slobodan Milošević and his Croat counterpart, Franjo Tudjman, use relentless propaganda to bring atrocities of the past to bear on the present. > Long before the conflict in Croatia broke out, both Serbian and Croatian media primed their audiences for violence and armed conflict by airing stories of World War II atrocities perpetrated by the other side. Thus, in the Croatian media, Serbs represented Chetniks (or occasionally Partisans) while in the Serbian media, Croats were portrayed as Ustaše.[3] Once the fighting began, these were the labels routinely used in media war reports from both sides, instilling hatred and fear among the populace.[3] The Serbian and Croatian propaganda campaigns also reinforced one another. [...] 1991-2001. Yugoslav wars. 130k killed, 4M displaced. Infrastructure destroyed, economy in tatters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_Serbs_in_the_Independent_State_of_Croatia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_Serbs_in_the_Indep... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_during_the_Yugoslav_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_during_the_Yugoslav... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars Love thy Enemy
    - slowmovintarget 5y ago
      Teaching in schools that "the system is rigged," drumming home the constant message in media that oppression is rampant, is a recipe for violence... as intended. How else does one get a Marxist revolution? That so many fall for it and fail to learn from past atrocities like the holodomor, or the purges of the Cultural Revolution is the real tragedy.
      - jakelazaroff 5y ago
        Man, my hope that we could avoid a reactionary flame war was really misplaced :(
dentemple 5y ago
You think too well of the Hacker News crowd. On the whole, HN readers ARE reactionary. Whether it's about technology or politics, submissions like these, which ask the user to examine their own views, always end up inviting controversy. But it's always with politics--specifically, with regards race and gender--where it becomes most obvious.

kop316 5y ago

I would offer, it would be nice if the title was something more closer to: “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” Frederick Douglass (1852) When I saw the domain: "teachingamericanhistory.org", I have no context who or what organization it is, so I had no idea what to expect when I clicked on the link (I am glad I did).

bookofsand 5y ago

For context, the speech was delivered on July 5, 1852. 169 years ago. Assuming the average age of the mother at birth of 25, this was 6-7 generations and a civil war ago. I hope that we have enough maturity to not behave as if the respective appalling conditions happened yesterday and as if there is a significant part of the contemporary USA population that is openly supporting slavery. With that being said, it is an excellent necessary speech in its historical context.

em-bee 5y ago
try replacing the word slave with person or people of color, and the word slavery with racism, and you get something much more contemporary.
jakelazaroff 5y ago
There's a quote from the speech that I think is particularly apropos: > Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. Seventy-six years ago, it was 1945. Black soldiers were coming back from winning WWII in a segregated US military, only to be excluded from the GI Bill that helped build the suburbs and establish generational wealth for white veterans. Seventy-six years before that the nation was in the midst of Reconstruction, enacting literacy tests and other measures to exclude Black people from public life. My parents were born in the twilight years of Jim Crow. They were alive to see MLK assassinated — now universally admired for a white-washed, toothless version of his legacy, he died opposed by a full 75% of Americans. The oldest people on HN probably have early memories of this themselves. We are living in the shadow of the past. We didn't flip a switch that erased racism after slavery. We didn't do it after Jim Crow either. This is a necessary speech in its historical context, yes — but it's also a necessary speech in today's context. Because unless we understand how the US's deep legacy of racism still perpetuates now, we won't be able to do the hard, uncomfortable, crucial work of undoing it.
- bookofsand 5y ago
  Once upon a time there was a small country tucked in the southeast corner of Europe, harboring a colorful mix of ethnicities, yearning for peace and prosperity. There were horrible demons in its closet, and they were unleashed upon its present. The rest is history. 1940-1945. Ustaše regime massacres in atrocious conditions ~300k of Serbian civilians from a population of less than 10M. “Even (Nazi) German officers and SS men lost their cool when they saw (Ustaše) ways and methods.” 1987-1991. Slobodan Milošević and his Croat counterpart, Franjo Tudjman, use relentless propaganda to bring atrocities of the past to bear on the present. > Long before the conflict in Croatia broke out, both Serbian and Croatian media primed their audiences for violence and armed conflict by airing stories of World War II atrocities perpetrated by the other side. Thus, in the Croatian media, Serbs represented Chetniks (or occasionally Partisans) while in the Serbian media, Croats were portrayed as Ustaše.[3] Once the fighting began, these were the labels routinely used in media war reports from both sides, instilling hatred and fear among the populace.[3] The Serbian and Croatian propaganda campaigns also reinforced one another. [...] 1991-2001. Yugoslav wars. 130k killed, 4M displaced. Infrastructure destroyed, economy in tatters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_Serbs_in_the_Independent_State_of_Croatia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_Serbs_in_the_Indep... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_during_the_Yugoslav_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_during_the_Yugoslav... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars Love thy Enemy
  - slowmovintarget 5y ago
    Teaching in schools that "the system is rigged," drumming home the constant message in media that oppression is rampant, is a recipe for violence... as intended. How else does one get a Marxist revolution? That so many fall for it and fail to learn from past atrocities like the holodomor, or the purges of the Cultural Revolution is the real tragedy.
    - jakelazaroff 5y ago
      Man, my hope that we could avoid a reactionary flame war was really misplaced :(

dentemple 5y ago

You think too well of the Hacker News crowd. On the whole, HN readers ARE reactionary. Whether it's about technology or politics, submissions like these, which ask the user to examine their own views, always end up inviting controversy. But it's always with politics--specifically, with regards race and gender--where it becomes most obvious.