I finally saw Django Unchained, which I think is probably one of Tarantino’s weaker efforts — down there with the Kill Bill films. It’s certainly well made, and there are lots of interesting moments and ideas, but its handling of the Western genre strikes me as much less knowing, and much less thematized, than the handling of Holocaust films/war films in Inglourious Basterds. As Alyssa says, the handling of gender is pretty rote (certainly less intelligent than in Jackie Brown). And as I think I’ve seen a bunch of people say, the portrayal of Django as exceptional is really problematic, insofar as it flirts with endorsing the phrenological racist narrative that Calvin Candie (DiCaprio) propounds, in which most of the slaves are slaves because they’re not sufficiently bad ass to overthrow their masters. As subdee has mentioned in comments, the film does very much show the constant, horrific violence that propped up the slave system, so it’s possible to critique the idea of black submissiveness from within the film…but still. A little more focus on the pervasiveness of black resistance could have gone at least a little way to balance the Uncle Tom caricature of Stephen, no matter how ably played by Samuel Jackson. As it is, the film’s focus on hyperbolic violence makes it seem like only one man in ten thousand could fight back effectively — when the truth is, I think, that slavery was kept in place by violence of all levels, and so there was resistance at all levels. The film can’t really imagine, for instance, Frederick Douglass physical struggle with his overseer, in which no one died and no one was freed, but white people weren’t quite able to work their will either.
Still, despite its failings, as I said, there were definitely things about the film I liked. One was the shift in the relationship between the German Dr. Schulz (Christoph Waltz) and Django over the course of the film. In the first part of the movie, where Schulz frees Django from slavery and then trains him as a bounty hunter, Shculz is clearly the senior partner — the one who knows the ropes, and the one who better understands, and is more comfortable with, the violence of bounty hunting. Towards the end of the film, though, when the scene shifts to the Southern plantation where Django’s wife is held, it’s Django who leads the way — and Django who understands the reality of life. When Candie has a slave torn apart by dogs, for example, Schulz is horrified and almost blows their cover — but Dango has seen it before, and keeps his cool. As he tells Candie, Schulz “isn’t used to Americans.” Schulz may be white, but he doesn’t understand white violence the way Django does.
The sequence made me remember James Baldwin’s discussion of Lady Sings The blues in his great essay, The Devil Finds Work. The film is loosely based on Billie Holiday’s autobiography. In one scene, supposedly the inspiration for the song Strange Fruit, Holiday (as Baldwin describes it) is on tour in the south when she sees black mourners and a black body hanging from a tree. The Ku Klux Klan appears, and Holiday starts to shriek at them, endangering herself as her white band members attempt to hide her. The band and Billie then escape, but the trauma caused Holiday to take her first shot of heroin.
Baldwin then comments:
The incident is not in the book: for the very good reason, certainly that black people in this country are schooled in adversity long before white people are. Blacks perceive danger far more swiftly, and however odd this may sound, then attempt to protect their white comrade from his white brothes: they know their white comrade’s brothers far better than the comrade does. One fo the necessities of being black, and knowing it, is to accept the hard discipline of learning to avoid useless anger, and needless loss of life: every mother and his mother’s mother’s brother is needed.
Again, where Lady Sings the Blues fails, Django Unchained succeeds. Django’s experiences as a black man mean that he understands white violence in a way that even the bounty hunter does not.
I especially like the almost certainly intentional irony that it is the German who is horrified by Southern racism and Southern atrocities. (Waltz, of course, played a ruthless Nazi in Tarantino’s last film.) It would be possible, I suppose to see this as hypocritical…but Schulz is a sufficiently sympathetic character that I don’t think it quite reads that way. Or if it does, it points, perhaps, to the way that it’s always easier to see the mote in someone else’s eye — always easier to be shocked by someone else’s atrocities than by your own. And, though I doubt this is intentional, it can perhaps also be seen as suggesting a link between America’s treatment of its minorities and Germany’s treatment of its Jews. Hitler’s concentration camps and extermination policies were inspired in part by America’s treatment of the Indians — giving historical weight to Tarantino’s vision of decadent Americans teaching atrocity to innocent Europeans, like some sort of inverse, bloody Henry James novel.
That’s why, for all its flaws, I still like Django Unchained. America just doesn’t make that many films in which America is defined by slavery, and in which being American is defined by slavery. What Django knows about the US isn’t the only thing that is, or can be known about this country — but still, it’s worth keeping it in mind.
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Our entire Django Unchained roundtable is here.
Yup! As written elsewhere:
The film also shows how liberals as well as conservatives favor depicting battles for freedom as situations where one heroic, superhumanly tough and noble individual — why, Django is literally “a man on horseback” — as the one who must free or fight for the passively subservient, cowardly masses.
Another example: “High Noon,” produced by the liberal Carl Foreman and Stanley Kramer, with an entire Old West town cringing before an advancing batch of outlaws, with only the Marshal standing up to them. (In reality, the entire town would have been blazing away, as historic examples showed.) More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Noon .
I can see creators’ technical motivations for focusing on a single heroic figure, but it sure has unfortunate political/ideological ramifications; teaches the masses to passively await a Liberator…
Lee was right, of course. This is just a spaghetti western. It’s the American monomyth applied to slavery.
Except for the fact that America is identified as corrupt and evil. Which seems like a fairly important caveat.
There are some things in the film which push back against the idea of slaves as entirely passive. First is the fact that the film is quite explicit about the constant violence needed to sustain slavery. And there are other blacks who attack whites (notably the slaves freed with django shoot the slaver who captured them.)
The film is definitely flawed. It falls into some of the stereotypes surrounding slavery. As I say in the post, though, it misses some others. I’m not willing to go to the mat for it or anything, but there are some things of worth there.
The reason there aren’t that many films where America was defined by slavery is because, historically, America was never defined by slavery. The South obviouly was, but never the country as a whole. The colonies, and later, the country as a whole was arguing about slavery ever since it reared its ugly head in North America.
Sorry; I don’t agree with that. As James Baldwin said, “the spirit of the South is the spirit of America.’ Northern whites were very much part of the economy and prosperity that slavery enabled. They were part of a nation which elected slaveholders to the presidency.
Certainly there were northern whites, and northern blacks, and for that matter southern whites and southern blacks, who objected to slavery. But it was around for a long time, it was enshrined in the constitution. If it’s not the spirit of America, it’s certainly one spirit of America.
But, is all of America so indicted, or just the South?
The historic record is a rather complex:
As far as “Northern whites were very much part of the economy and prosperity that slavery enabled,” there was much resentment in the North that the South’s use of cheaper slave labor gave that region an unfair economic advantage; that its usage of slaves worked against whites getting paid jobs.
Regarding the entire country being “defined by slavery,” it’s an inaccurate oversimplification. While the North had slavery, it was not such a massively-important factor in its economy and way of life.
I just finished reading another antique-shop find, the excellent “Lee Considered,” by Alan Nolan, which tactfully and thoroughly demolishes the nigh-universal, hagiographic view of Robert E. Lee as opposed to slavery; only reluctantly driven to join the secession from the Union; with no malice towards the North or blacks; wholeheartedly moving toward reconciliation between the two sides after the war. Concerning this massively widespread pattern, Nolan explains how the North, overall eager to welcome the South back into the Union, and far from free of racism, accepted and propagated the South’s face-saving, self-serving myths (i.e., “the war was not really fought to keep slavery, but for freedom”), how the image of the happy, carefree “darky” was propagated, and so forth.
In summation, Nolan writes,
More about that book: http://tipstorian.blogspot.com/2008/09/book-review-lee-considered-plus.html
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1991/nov/07/how-noble-was-robert-e-lee/?pagination=false
Back to Baldwin’s charge that “the spirit of the South is the spirit of America.” “Lee Considered” quotes from Confederate Vice President’s Alexander H. Stephens’ “widely noted Savannah speech, delivered prior to the firing on Fort Sumter and Virginia’s secession.” From the full online version of the speech:
I think it’s all of America. django says the European doesn’t understand Americans, not that he doesn’t understand Southerners.
I always thought that the Spaghetti Western was interesting/important because it’s a decidedly off-kilter look at the grand narrative of westward expansion… Not that it’s politically reflexive or anything, just that it jarred the manichean perspective audiences had come to associate with traditional oaters because it came from the outside in. That said, I’m not a film historian so I might very well be misremembering and/or making stuff up.
The Spaghetti Western isn’t different in any significant way from American B series Westerns (maybe the budget was bigger). Once Upon a Time in the West, for instance, is just a revenge tale. Sergio Leone is praised for the mannerist, stylized, highly artificial approach to editing. The Spaghetti Western is also a horse opera, as it were (meaning that the mode is epic). If we consider that the main characters are American epitome of masculinity (Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson), at least in the best examples of the genre, I see nothing fundamentally different in European and American Westerns.
“And, though I doubt this is intentional, it can perhaps also be seen as suggesting a link between America’s treatment of its minorities and Germany’s treatment of its Jews. ”
Haven’t seen the film, but given the subject of his previous film, it’s hard to imagine that he didn’t intend it to be that way.
“historically, America was never defined by slavery.”
Depends on how one defines the word “America.” And it probably also depends on your skin color.
One problem with this focus on southern slavery is that it causes people to overlook the violence that was happening in other parts of the country. The South hardly had a monopoly on horrific violence. Most people think that the terrorism was magically limited to South of the Maxon-Dixon line. We seem to be a long way from the point were people realize that this was definetly not the case.
“The reason there aren’t that many films where America was defined by slavery is because, historically, America was never defined by slavery. ”
No. The reason more films haven’t been made about it is because the subject has been sanitized and buried. It’s been forgotten about by design and neglect. Besides that, films cost money to make. An impoverished minority hardly has the wherewithal to explore its own history the way the majority does. Granted, things are possibly better in some ways in recent decades; but the subject of slavery still has not been thoroughly explored the way the Vietnam War, the Holocaust and the Civil War has been.
Noah, the link near the end about American treatment of Indians isn’t working for me.
“though I doubt this is intentional, it can perhaps also be seen as suggesting a link between America’s treatment of its minorities and Germany’s treatment of its Jews.”
I’m betting it was intentional: Waltz plays pretty much the same character in both films. Then there’s the scene where he uses a foreign language to hide his conversation, but now it’s to protect someone. I figure it’s a way of showing the arbitrary nature of hatred.
Domingos-
Again, maybe I’m just reading this into those Leone films, but it seems like the artificiality of the form undercuts the content. And “The Man With No Name” strikes me as morally ambiguous at best, and amoral at worst (I’m thinking “Good/Bad/Ugly” (note the third term).
As for the idea that America wasn’t defined by slavery, I goes you could say it was defined by mercantilism first, and then capitalism, which begat transnational capitalism, but I’d like to see you wipe the stink of slavery off any of that.
Really, I can’t figure out a corner of American life that isn’t rooted in slavery, and a quick look at the constitution and its amendments suggests that slavery is stamped on nation in a decidedly peculiar way.
Oops…
I meant “As for the idea that America wasn’t defined by slavery, I guess,” not “I goes.”
Crap. Matthew, I think that link should be fixed now.
Noah, you’re kidding yourself. There never would have been a Civil War had slavery been as “popular” as your revisionism is attempting to make it. More than 350,000 Northern soldiers died, and most were white. That’s more human capital than was dispensed of in any other war this nation has been involved in.
The facts just don’t jive with your assertions.
Well, quite a bit of opposition to slavery wasn’t based on a belief in the inherent equality of blacks, but on free labor being unfair to paid labor. That was, for example, the argument that won out in the formative years of California.
Yeah…and after the civil war, the north basically capitulated to another 100 years of jim crow.
Nate: “(I’m thinking “Good/Bad/Ugly” (note the third term).”
Wasn’t the ugly a Mexican? But you may be right, I definitely need to watch those Clint Eastwood films again to have an opinion. Anyway, in the American monomyth the hero is alone against the villains *and* against the status quo.
Yes, the “Bad” was Lee Van Cleef, the “Ugly” a Mexican played by Eli Wallach…
Like Domingos I saw the film a long time ago. I recalled the title being somewhat ambiguous w/r/t reference, but I’ll defer to anyone who has seen it more recently.
Charles and Noah — Again, you are rationalizing here. The Civil War split families apart because of the morality of slavery issue — not because of some cheap labor considerations. These moral considerations were at the core of abolitionists argument from Day 1. If there were any abolitionists who argued “let’s free the slaves so they’ll come up north and work for a pittance,” they were absolutely in the minority. Lincoln’s arguments always leaned heavily on the morality of the issue. And while I’ll readily concede true equality, as we envision it today,” may have been beyond the ken of the average person then, regardless of their race, does not diminish one iota the efforts of those who spent their lives, or gave their lives, to eliminate slavery in this country.
Who’s rationalizing?
The abolitionist movement (which included blacks as well as whites) was absolutely something that this nation can be very proud of. The opposition to abolitionism, in the south and very much in the north, is less honorable. The abandonment of abolitionist ideals after the civil war, and the willingness to allow a century of Jim Crow — not to mention to tolerate ongoing inequities — is, likewise, not something to be proud of.
And FWIW, from what I’ve read Charles has a much better grasp on the mix of anti-slavery ideologies than you do. As for Lincoln, his rhetoric around these issues varied considerably. He said some really racist things in his time. He gave his life to end slavery, of course, which matters a lot…but it doesn’t mean that his less enlightening statements should be completely forgotten.
Noah — Letme repeat: based on your description of the time period, there could have been no Civil War. Your “most of the North” statement is simply bullshit. Ditto for citing some of Lincoln’s rhetoric as racist. The fact is, virtually everyone back then was racist by today’s standards — regardless of their color, culture or country of origin. Yet somehow, hundreds of thousands of these racists fought and died to abolish slavery. And these same troops were underwritten by millions of racists, and lead by a president who you say was a racist.
I’ve been a Civil War buff for about 50 years now and your 1860s paradigm and mine varies considerably.
One more thing — If you want to pick on a racist president, try Woodrow Wilson. He set race relations back generations.
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Noah Berlatsky says:
…As for Lincoln, his rhetoric around these issues varied considerably. He said some really racist things in his time. He gave his life to end slavery, of course, which matters a lot…but it doesn’t mean that his less enlightening statements should be completely forgotten.
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Well, as reality shows — and a certain “Lincoln” movie depicted — he was a politician and former lawyer as well, who at times would have had to say (as Tommy Lee Jones’ character had to) that he didn’t believe blacks were equal to whites, because to argue their complete equality would’ve torpedoed the cause of Abolition.
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im·pol·i·tic
adj.
Not wise or expedient; not politic: an impolitic approach to a sensitive issue.
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http://www.thefreedictionary.com/impolitic
An “impolitic” approach may be more morally correct in the rarefied realm of ideas. It sure enables many extremists to feel self-righteous, even if they never move their cause along by an iota. But it’s “not wise or expedient” as far as actually getting things done.
As the saying goes, “the perfect is the enemy of the good”; all-or-nothing ideologues routinely ruin the cause they support, as shown by the case of those who voted for Ralph Nader in Florida because Al Gore wasn’t liberal enough, and helped put George W. in the White House.
From someone who actually knew Lincoln, for what it’s worth:
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Black abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass was an early critic of President Lincoln. Douglass became an admirer of President Lincoln after the Emancipation Proclamation…
In his autobiography…the abolitionist author wrote:
“The increasing opposition to the war, in the North, and the mad cry against it, because it was being made an abolition war, alarmed Mr. Lincoln, and made him apprehensive that a peace might be forced upon him which would leave still in slavery all who had not come within our lines…”
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Emphasis added; from http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/inside.asp?ID=38&subjectID=2
Indeed, the goal of the war was first to keep the Union together. Douglass continues:
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“…[Lincoln] saw the danger of premature peace [as far as preventing the abolition of slavery]…I was the more impressed by his benevolent consideration because he before said, in answer to the peace clamor, that his object was to save the Union, and to do so with or without slavery. What he said on this day showed a deeper moral conviction against slavery than I had even seen before in anything spoken or written by him.”
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As Douglass noted, “in anything spoken or written by him,” for public consumption, Lincoln had not “come out” as a wholehearted abolitionist. In this private meeting with him, he was able to express the full extent of his devotion to the cause. Without fear that those against abolition would stoke the racism within many opposed to slavery by saying, “Lincoln says blacks are totally equal to whites!” or accurately charging that “Lincoln is prolonging the bloodshed and destruction of the war, just to abolish slavery!”
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R. Maheras says:
One more thing — If you want to pick on a racist president, try Woodrow Wilson. He set race relations back generations.
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Yes, he’s the guy who famously praised “The Birth of a Nation” — based on a novel titled “The Clansman, An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan”…
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After seeing the film, an enthusiastic Wilson reportedly remarked: “It is like writing history with lightning, and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.” African-American audiences openly wept at the film’s malicious portrayal of blacks, while Northern white audiences cheered…
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http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_birth.html
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The film was a commercial success, but was highly controversial owing to its portrayal of African American men (played by white actors in blackface) as unintelligent and sexually aggressive towards white women, and the portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan (whose original founding is dramatized) as a heroic force…
The movie is also credited as one of the events that inspired the formation of the “second era” Ku Klux Klan at Stone Mountain, Georgia in the same year. The Birth of a Nation was used as a recruiting tool for the KKK. It was the first motion picture to be shown at the White House…
[In the movie]…Lynch [a mulatto protege of a radical anti-South congressman] orders a crackdown on the Klan. Dr. Cameron, Ben’s father, is arrested for having Ben’s Klan costume, a crime punishable by death. Ben and their faithful servants rescue him, and the Camerons flee. When their wagon breaks down, they make their way to a small hut, home to two former Union soldiers, who agree to hide them. As an intertitle states, “The former enemies of North and South are united again in defense of their Aryan birthright.”…
The next election day, blacks find a line of mounted and armed Klansmen just outside their homes, and are intimidated into not voting. [Which, as the film portrays it, is a good thing!!]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_a_Nation
See, also: http://chnm.gmu.edu/episodes/the-birth-of-a-nation-and-black-protest/ . Where it’s “the poet Vachel Lindsay…who described The Birth of a Nation as ‘art by lightning flash.’ ” But mentions how Wilson’s own “scholarly” writings on American history “figured so centrally in the film’s historical interpretation”; indeed, were quoted in titles in the film itself.
Russ, it doesn’t mean anything of the kind.
Woodrow Wilson was horrible. On this we agree.
Russ: “Letme repeat: based on your description of the time period, there could have been no Civil War.”
That doesn’t seem to add up, consider Eric Foner’s take on Lincoln himself during the first half of the war:
It’s important to not fall into the revisionist perspective on the Civil War and say slavery wasn’t the main cause, but that doesn’t mean that the main reason the Union fought was because of a widespread belief in racial equality.
sorry, quote is from here
Charles — Think about your example from the perspective of not just the US in the 1860s, but the entire world. The idea of bi-racial societies as we have today was foreign to just about every single culture on the planet. For example, Native Americans routinely took slaves from other tribes they conquered, and those slaves were treated as inferiors. In Asia, every culture felt they were superior to those around them — and this legacy, though now tempered somewhat, is still prevalent even today.
Lincoln’s suggestion of African colonies may have been a conciliatory offer because there were a significant number of slaves who did, in fact, wish to return to their homeland.
But, Russ, your underlying point has been that the opposition to slavery was based on an opposition to racism. Yet, as Lincoln himself demonstrates, one could still harbor racist views and still be willing to go to war with the South over Slave Power. Racism and anti-slavery aren’t mutually exclusive categories.
No no no. It was opposition to slavery, not racism (as we envision it in the present day), that was a major factor leading up to the Civil War. I’ve already pointed out that virtually everyone back then was a racist — regardless of their skin color or country/tribe or origin.
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Charles Reece says:
…consider Eric Foner’s take on Lincoln himself during the first half of the war:
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Lincoln was hardly unique (or “racist”) in that attitude:
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Prior to the twentieth century, [black civil-rights] leaders such as Prince Hall, Martin Delany, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Henry Highland Garnet advocated the involvement of the African diaspora in African affairs. [Marcus] Garvey was unique in advancing a Pan-African philosophy to inspire a global mass movement and economic empowerment focusing on Africa known as Garveyism..Garveyism would eventually inspire others, ranging from the Nation of Islam to the Rastafari movement (which proclaims Garvey as a prophet).
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Garvey
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Charles Reece says:
…It’s important to not fall into the revisionist perspective on the Civil War and say slavery wasn’t the main cause, but that doesn’t mean that the main reason the Union fought was because of a widespread belief in racial equality.
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Indeed so!
And yet, as Russ noted, one could be violently opposed to slavery or the abuse of a particular group (women, even animals) and yet not consider them fully the equal of one’s own group.
But pragmatically, as far as that enslaved/abused group is concerned, who is of greatest help in their plight?
Those whose attitudes were not as [SARCASM ALERT] utterly pure and enlightened as those of us moderns, but who were willing to fight, even die, to stop the injustice and cruelty?
Or “enlightened” folks who would only, at most, send off a “letter to the editor” in protest?
Mike, nobody’s saying that Lincoln was not incredibly admirable. But it’s worth thinking about the fact that incredibly admirable people can be racist, and about the fact that even the best of people can have major flaws, and that those flaws matter.
Lincoln overcame his own racism in a lot of ways– though not in all. That’s both a challenge and a warning to all of us, I think.
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Noah Berlatsky says:
… it’s worth thinking about the fact that incredibly admirable people can be racist, and about the fact that even the best of people can have major flaws, and that those flaws matter.
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Why…[SARCASM ALERT]…that idea would never have occurred to me!
“Even the best of people can have major flaws””?? Consider my mind blown… My simplistic worldview is shattered!
(Uh, is there anyone here who has argued against the possibility that “that even the best of people can have major flaws, and that those flaws matter”?
Might as well announce, “… it’s worth thinking about the fact that incredibly healthy people can still die…!”)
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Lincoln overcame his own racism in a lot of ways– though not in all. That’s both a challenge and a warning to all of us, I think.
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Yeah, as if anyone alive on Earth today could ever remotely accomplish as much good as Lincoln did, for all his flaws.
I guess the “challenge” is, if one of us is crucial in freeing millions of people from enslavement, finally destroys in this country a vile institution that persisted for centuries, then has his life taken after attaining that great victory, you’d better have the properly “enlightened” attitude, too.
Next, let’s look down upon Martin Luther King for his cheatin’ and womanizing…
Noah wrote: “Lincoln overcame his own racism in a lot of ways– though not in all. That’s both a challenge and a warning to all of us, I think.”
Oh, brother! In his era, he was viewed as an fervent abolitionist, yet you still attempt to judge him by today’s standards.
I just don’t get such reasoning. It certainly isn’t enlightening from a historical standpoint.
If you refuse to think about what he says to us today, then he can’t speak to us today.
Mmm, that’s a puzzler of a sentence. If, as you say, a particular person “refuse[s] to think” about some historic figure’s pronouncements, then that makes that particular figure’s statements blocked from being heard by ANY moderns?
I’d disagree about the “in his era, [Lincoln] was viewed as an fervent abolitionist” statement; if anything — whatever his private feelings — he made sure to publicly distance himself from the outspoken and fiery variety of abolitionists; present himself as a moderate who’d first let the South keep slavery if it would hold the Union together, and only incrementally moved toward ending slavery.
One article analyzed Lincoln’s speeches, noting how in some he’d make a not-particularly-radical assertion, which actually — recall he was a skilled lawyer — was laying the groundwork for more forceful anti-slavery statements later on. Which again makes one think that — even if his attitudes may not have been as “enlightened” as us holier-than-thou moderns — that he had a covert anti-slavery agenda, which only gradually became more evident.
Though certainly the old South saw him as a raging, “fervent abolitionist,” in the same manner that its ideological descendants today see Obama as a wildly radical far-leftist.
I’d think Russ’ arguments are more with “presentism”:
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Presentism is a mode of historical analysis in which present-day ideas and perspectives are anachronistically introduced into depictions or interpretations of the past. Some modern historians seek to avoid presentism in their work because they believe it creates a distorted understanding of their subject matter.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_%28literary_and_historical_analysis%29
If one fails to consider the statements and attitudes of historic figures in the context of their times and the thinking prevailing then, one is foredoomed to view them in an ahistoric, distorted fashion (“It was racist to nuke Nagasaki!”); fail to give them their proper due.
…Which leads to attitudes like this guy’s, here: http://i1123.photobucket.com/albums/l542/Mike_59_Hunter/LincolnMonumentAndVisitor_zps02847055.jpg .
From the great Tim Kreider: http://www.thepaincomics.com/weekly010905a.htm
Hagiography isn’t a way to appreciate past figures; it’s a way to make them irrelevant.
Lincoln was criticized by many abolitionists for his racism in his day. He also said a lot of racist things. I don’t see why we’re not allowed to talk about that. It doesn’t diminish him to point out that he was flawed. As James Loewen says, (to paraphrase), if Lincoln could be racist, then we all can be racist. And if Lincoln was able at times to overcome his racism, then so can we.
Noah — Speak for yourself.
I didn’t need to analyze Lincoln or anyone — besides me — to grapple with, and come to what I believe are fair and equitable terms regarding racial views and relations. I don’t find it at all useful or enlightening to apologize for the actions of people I never met, or to view historical periods through a modern-day lens.
To be totally frank, what Lincoln “really meant” back then is irrelevant. His actions were undeniable, and who knows how long slavery may have lingered had he not forced this country to address it, once and for all?
Russ, you seem to be saying that you’re not interested in what anyone else has to say on this topic, which means there’s not much point in talking to you about it. So I’ll stop.
One of the reasons I read nonfiction about a given topic – including commentaries – is because I am constantly reassessing my views and values to see if my reasoning was based on sound logic and the best available facts.
The key word here is “my.”
We all have to sort our own way through life, and just because I don’t agree with you about Lincoln does not mean I won’t agree with you about the next topic.
I guess the thing that torques my jaw about the word “racism” is that Democrats have not only hijacked and abused it, but they’ve started to regularly use it as a weapon of mass destruction.
These days, Democrats routinely say things like “Republicans are racists.”
And the reason this bugs me so much is because Democrats were traditionally the racist party – not just back in Lincoln’s day, but at least through the latter part of the 20th Century. And while they are much better at hiding their racism today, many Democrats are still guilty of it.
I spent about two thirds of my life living and/or working in Chicago – a city with one of the highest number of Democrats, per capita, than probably any other major city in the United States. There are exactly zero Republicans on the city council – something even New York or Los Angeles can’t claim.
Yet, every racist I ever knew as a kid and young adult – white, black, Hispanic or Asian; Protestant, Catholic, atheist or Jew – was a Democrat. I suppose that’s why Chicago – a Democratic bastion for more than 75 years – was (and still is) one of the most segregated major cities in America. In fact, it was not until I joined the US Air Force in 1978 where I finally was in a social structure where the preached values of racial equality and tolerance mirrored my own. The irony for me, of course, was when I realized that the majority of military people vote Republican.
The fact that Lincoln, a Republican, was the driving force behind the end of slavery in America has been problematic for contemporary Democrats. This is why a narrative has started to creep into discussions about Lincoln that argue, “Lincoln wasn’t a true Republican,” or “Lincoln was actually a racist,” or “The Republican Party in Lincoln’s day was like the Democratic Party is now.” All of this is rationalized revisionism that doesn’t coincide with history.
And if you look at key racial milestones throughout history, Republicans, at worst, are ambivalent about racial equality. However, at best, they were a driving force behind real change. For example, if you look at which party had a higher percentage of congressional members supporting the Civil Right Act of 1964, it was the Republicans who had a significantly higher percentage of support for that landmark legislation than did the Democrats. Mind you, this was 100 years AFTER the Civil War.
And when Democrats argue, “Well, look, all of our former racist states in the South now lean Republican,” what does it really mean? After all, the Democratic Party had no problem keeping those states in the fold for more than a century, and it’s not like those states were expelled. They simply jumped ship on their own volition in the late 1960s and early 1970s – AFTER the civil rights movement got its teeth. In a nutshell, the southern states today are nothing like they were back in the Jim Crow days, so it’s like comparing apples to oranges.
The way I see it, neither party today has the moral high ground when it comes to racial issues – regardless of the Democratic nattering. Each individual candidate should be judged on their own track record and merits.
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Noah Berlatsky says:
Hagiography isn’t a way to appreciate past figures; it’s a way to make them irrelevant.
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Ah, the classic “accuse somebody of making some outrageous/absurd statement which they in fact did not make, then attack them for making an outrageous/absurd statement” tactic!
Who here has described Lincoln as utterly perfect, wholly without flaws?
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Lincoln was criticized by many abolitionists for his racism in his day. He also said a lot of racist things.
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Yes, I’d mentioned how “Black abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass was an early critic of President Lincoln,” who became an admirer of Lincoln.
I also noted how the “racist things” that Lincoln is so righteously condemned for by us cushy moderns, were public statements, and the many reasons why — while wishing to advance the cause of Abolition — he would have felt it politically necessary to say he didn’t believe blacks were fully the equal of whites, etc.
As to his inner, personal beliefs; well, actions would be more telling than words, no?
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I don’t see why we’re not allowed to talk about that.
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Ah, the classic “accuse somebody of making some outrageous/absurd statement which they in fact did not make, then attack them for making an outrageous/absurd statement” tactic!
Who has said people here are not allowed to talk about that? To disagree with a statement is not to say it should be banned, its speakers forced into silence.
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It doesn’t diminish him to point out that he was flawed.
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Indeed not; as I’d pointed out on another thread, the “Lincoln” movie shows him willing to employ all manner of chicanery, even bribery, to get votes for the amendment banning slavery. Which I see as bringing him down to earth; however, at least one critic has taken umbrage, seeing the film as glamorizing political corruption. As if there was no difference between the end results: hireling politicos siphoning public wealth into some fatcat’s pockets, or freeing the slaves.
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As James Loewen says, (to paraphrase), if Lincoln could be racist, then we all can be racist.
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Consider the possibility of nuance. But then, that would cut down on the amount of self-righteous condemnation; prevent the necessary constant, massive outrage certain groups deem necessary. Such as we get from “…this is a rape culture!!!” feminists. (I guess “this is a culture where women routinely do not get equal pay for equal work” doesn’t have the desired tooth-gnashing intensity.)
To call someone a “racist” is a sweeping condemnation, implies that person’s worldview is shaped thus: http://kukluxklan.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/KKK-8-8-08.jpg , http://www.atlantatimemachine.com/images/pickrick%20lot%20lg.jpg , http://www.luzphoto.com/foto/storie/whitepower_disilvestro/big/white%20power0001.jpg .
To say that someone “has some racist attitudes,” or “is capable at times of being racist” is nuanced, not a simplistic condemnation. Indicates awareness that one can admire Martin Luther King and still feel nervous seeing a group of young black males heading your way in an otherwise-deserted street.
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And if Lincoln was able at times to overcome his racism, then so can we.
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“…if Lincoln was able at times to overcome his racism…”
…Has anyone who has accomplished such massive good in the face of powerful, entrenched, murderous opposition, and finally had his life taken for it, ever been so grudgingly, condescendingly praised?
Hey, boys and girls, you too can “overcome your racism,” and do stuff like this:
http://dilemmaxdotnet.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/the-emancipation-proclamation1.jpg
http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/gastudiesimages/13th%20Amendment.jpg
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R. Maheras says:
Noah — Speak for yourself.
I didn’t need to analyze Lincoln or anyone — besides me — to grapple with, and come to what I believe are fair and equitable terms regarding racial views and relations. I don’t find it at all useful or enlightening to apologize for the actions of people I never met, or to view historical periods through a modern-day lens.
To be totally frank, what Lincoln “really meant” back then is irrelevant. His actions were undeniable, and who knows how long slavery may have lingered had he not forced this country to address it, once and for all?
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Noah Berlatsky says:
Russ, you seem to be saying that you’re not interested in what anyone else has to say on this topic, which means there’s not much point in talking to you about it. So I’ll stop.
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I’ve read and reread Russ’ statement, and damned if I can get that he’s “not interested in what anyone else has to say on this topic” out of those words.
Certainly he expresses his own firmly-held beliefs and attitudes. But one can do all that and still be “interested in what anyone else has to say on this topic,” even if it’s just to disagree with it…
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R. Maheras says:
Each [party’s] individual candidate should be judged on their own track record and merits.
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Which is the party that tolerates the greatest range of ideological diversity, and for which therefore the “individual candidate should be judged on their own track record and merits” dictum would hold true?
And, which is the party that rigidly enforces a narrow set of beliefs, forcing out even long-standing elected officeholders who don’t sufficiently toe the line, forcing its nominees for President to recant and condemn causes they once had championed like campaign finance reform, the reality of global warming, publicly-paid health care, abortion rights? Whose candidates, therefore, deserve sweeping rejection by those opposing its “party line”?
Mike wrote: “And, which is the party that rigidly enforces a narrow set of beliefs, forcing out even long-standing elected officeholders who don’t sufficiently toe the line, forcing its nominees for President to recant and condemn causes they once had championed like campaign finance reform, the reality of global warming, publicly-paid health care, abortion rights? Whose candidates, therefore, deserve sweeping rejection by those opposing its “party line”?”
That the Republicans have, for several presidential elections, displayed bad organization, no unity of message, and have offered a poor slate of non-populist candidates, can’t be denied.
But that does not mean the Democrats, as an alternative, are looking out for what I consider are my best interests either.
Democrats are sneaky, sneaky folks when it comes to politics.
One of the things Chicago Democratic politicians are good at is telling people exactly what they want to hear. Yet, when it comes to execution and day-to-day business, actions (or inactions) are often very different.
But, since there is never any real political opposition from outside the party, when election time rolls around and the “bullshit” cycle starts again, people cling to the rhetoric, hoping that in the new election, the results will actually be different. Einstein referred to this political phenomenon as “perennially rejuvenated illusions.”
If this “wait until next time after failure” mindset seems familiar, it’s exactly why the Chicago Cubs have so many fans in that city despite the fact they have disappointed their fans for more than 100 years. Chicagoans have been conditioned by their politicians to accept failure — as long as they are still getting their basic services.
Sound familiar? Democrats at the national level do the same thing. Pander, promise your constituents basic services, but don’t take care of the big, difficult problems.
In the case of Republicans, their biggest failure is they have forgotten how to pander in unity, and don’t censure their crackpots.
I know threads sometimes drift off topic…but once we’ve moved into debating whose worse the democrats or republicans, we have really embarked on diminishing returns. I’m closing this thread; thanks for commenting all.