[Peace-discuss] July 4th float -- okay, seriously...

[LAURIE SOLOMON]

Hmmm!  It appears that Wikipedia has now assumed the status of being the encyclopedia of record, replacing the Encyclopedia Britannica. Next, I assume it will become the reference of record replacing the New York Times as the newspaper of record and all those many history books and academic journals and treatises which academics write to justify their existence and libraries keep on their reference shelves for the same reason.

 

Maybe we should Google Wikipedia and ask it what the theme of our float should be; surely it will have some advice as to what anti-war and anti-racism groups should do in terms of a float for a 4th of July parade with the designated theme we have been given that will win the day and converts without putting off the very people we seek to recruit to our position and cause. J  Of course, we could always raise the following question as a question : if Lincoln did not exist, what white guy would Obama model himself after and would that guy be a member of the contemporary  Republican Party?

 

From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Jenifer Cartwright
Sent: Sunday, May 24, 2009 12:55 AM
To: E. Wayne Johnson; Ron Szoke
Cc: Peace-discuss
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] July 4th float -- okay, seriously...

 


Lincoln on Race and Slavery puts things into perspective -- and gives Lincoln points for misinterpreting Jefferson's words (all men created equal, etc) in the Declaration of Independence. Thanks for sending the review, Ron.

 

Here's Wikipedia on Lincoln. Indisputable that Lincoln -- tho' far from perfect -- was nevertheless a remarkable man who successfully dealt with unimaginable challenges during his life -- surely the worst of any president in our nation’s history -- and acquited himself well. Born into poverty and self-educated -- only 18 months of formal schooling. Personal losses and tragedy thruout his life didn't defeat him... Surely there's lots of positive stuff here even for AWARE to choose from???

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln

 --Jenifer

--- On Sat, 5/23/09, Ron Szoke <r-szoke at illinois.edu> wrote:


From: Ron Szoke <r-szoke at illinois.edu>
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] July 4th float -- okay, seriously...
To: "E. Wayne Johnson" <ewj at pigs.ag>
Cc: "Peace-discuss" <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Date: Saturday, May 23, 2009, 10:01 PM

Excerpt from review of recent Lincoln/racism book:

NY Review of Books
Volume 56, Number 10 · June 11, 2009
Lincoln's Black History

By Garry Wills

Lincoln on Race and Slavery
edited and with an introduction by Henry Louis Gates Jr., and coedited by 
Donald Yacovone
Princeton University Press, 343 pp., $24.95

Abraham Lincoln was born into a racist family, in a racist region of our country, 
during a racist era of our history. It would have been amazing if he had not 
begun his life as a racist. Piety toward his memory suppressed that fact for 
generations. Most of us wanted Lincoln to be free of racism, and we read the 
evidence to arrive at that conclusion. No one wanted that more than blacks. 
Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard professor, notes that blacks—from Booker T. 
Washington to Ralph Ellison—did even more than whites to enshrine Lincoln as 
"the American philosopher-king and patron saint of race relations." Gates 
writes of himself (born 1950), "Like most African Americans of my generation, I 
was raised to believe that Lincoln hated slavery because he loved the slaves.." 
Black freedmen raised $17,000 for the 1876 statue of Lincoln freeing the slaves 
that stands in Lincoln Park, Washington.
.   .   .

See:  http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22750 

Something honoring Frederick Douglas would seem another possibility in 
harmony with the "legacy of Lincoln" theme.  

-- Ron





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