How I wish years ago I could have had a teacher like Dr. Street in high school or universities! Instead, in my high school there was a new class instituted in the 60's called "Americanism vs. Communism" that I did not take seriously even then at the age of 17, nor did many other students. But this was the anthem that rang in our lives day after day in school, on television and radio, in newspapers, everywhere. Nonetheless, without a passing grade in this one-semester course, even if one had all A's in all other courses in three years of high school, there would be no graduation and no going on to college. The Founding Fathers were wealthy white slaveholders that sought out wars and the annihilation of indigenous people pretty much from the beginning.
Delinquency in high school landed me at a third or fourth tier university. Little did I know that little old Northern Illinois University was home to the most Marxist history department in the US.
I ended up at SIU for much the same reasons The 60s protests there were legendary and that spirit to some extent carried on through the 80s. The people that were around for that still exercised influence in the community in Carbondale. Independent, antiestablishment, questioning of authority. Now all these schools are tamed by high cost and 30 years of relative conformity. By the time I got to grad school in the late 90s after a long break from campus life, I found a deadened environment, job training only.
It was. Actually like being in the south. The town was segregated, there were clear racist underpinnings. But, the truth is Chicago was also one of the most segregated cities - north side largely white, south and west black. Still is. Old man Daley made sure the projects were cut off by the Dan Ryan - blacks on one side, whites on the other.
The most consistently (Census to Census) integrated neighborhoods in Chicago have long been Hyde Park, Uptown, and Rogers Park, but when you go down to the census tract and block levels you find significant segregation within each community area. So for example, in Hyde Park, it's mostly/damn near all white and Asian-American down by the university and Blacker up by 53rd and in the western blocks.
Prime time for a seance with TJ and other key revolutionaries to get to the heart of the revolutionary racist matter. Make sure Frederick Douglass is there too.
The hypocrisy of Jefferson et al regarding slavery is clear. However, the hypocrisy is found in its contradiction of the principle of equality as a self evident organizing principle for demographic. Criticizing it as a truth not proved empirically opens the door for all sorts of proofs that all are not politically equal. Empirically some people are taller, skinnier, shorter, heavier, polish, german, white, black, but not one of them justifies the second organizing principle of equality before the law, equal protection. If this equality is self evident, then organizing based an empirically measured height or skin color or religio fails as an organizing principle. What makes Jefferson et all hypocritical is denying equal protection to blacks because they are the children of the wrong biblical character or because pseudo science proves them less equal. But makes them fail is they fail the equality principle, and that failure makes blacks to the back of the bus ok. Is equality itself a borgouisse organizing principle? Im no Hegalian, but recognizing that contradiction as still (today) working itself out in history is logically committed to a premise of equality. The premise can be rejected because historically it fails when conjoined with an incompatible or comparable political economy.
How I wish years ago I could have had a teacher like Dr. Street in high school or universities! Instead, in my high school there was a new class instituted in the 60's called "Americanism vs. Communism" that I did not take seriously even then at the age of 17, nor did many other students. But this was the anthem that rang in our lives day after day in school, on television and radio, in newspapers, everywhere. Nonetheless, without a passing grade in this one-semester course, even if one had all A's in all other courses in three years of high school, there would be no graduation and no going on to college. The Founding Fathers were wealthy white slaveholders that sought out wars and the annihilation of indigenous people pretty much from the beginning.
Delinquency in high school landed me at a third or fourth tier university. Little did I know that little old Northern Illinois University was home to the most Marxist history department in the US.
I ended up at SIU for much the same reasons The 60s protests there were legendary and that spirit to some extent carried on through the 80s. The people that were around for that still exercised influence in the community in Carbondale. Independent, antiestablishment, questioning of authority. Now all these schools are tamed by high cost and 30 years of relative conformity. By the time I got to grad school in the late 90s after a long break from campus life, I found a deadened environment, job training only.
That place was damn year like the Jim Crow South in the 60s, no? Even Urbana-Champaign back then.
It was. Actually like being in the south. The town was segregated, there were clear racist underpinnings. But, the truth is Chicago was also one of the most segregated cities - north side largely white, south and west black. Still is. Old man Daley made sure the projects were cut off by the Dan Ryan - blacks on one side, whites on the other.
Interestingly, Rogers Park is actually one of the most integrated neighborhoods in the country though.
The most consistently (Census to Census) integrated neighborhoods in Chicago have long been Hyde Park, Uptown, and Rogers Park, but when you go down to the census tract and block levels you find significant segregation within each community area. So for example, in Hyde Park, it's mostly/damn near all white and Asian-American down by the university and Blacker up by 53rd and in the western blocks.
Mighty fine critique of our founding document and of those who drafted it.
I love this - you covered all the bases!
I’m surprised enjoying a substack writing this much remains legal.
Prime time for a seance with TJ and other key revolutionaries to get to the heart of the revolutionary racist matter. Make sure Frederick Douglass is there too.
This is really good.
Bravo. Thank you for this fine bit of articulating.
, but it's still there, and it's still an unavoidable logical principle
The hypocrisy of Jefferson et al regarding slavery is clear. However, the hypocrisy is found in its contradiction of the principle of equality as a self evident organizing principle for demographic. Criticizing it as a truth not proved empirically opens the door for all sorts of proofs that all are not politically equal. Empirically some people are taller, skinnier, shorter, heavier, polish, german, white, black, but not one of them justifies the second organizing principle of equality before the law, equal protection. If this equality is self evident, then organizing based an empirically measured height or skin color or religio fails as an organizing principle. What makes Jefferson et all hypocritical is denying equal protection to blacks because they are the children of the wrong biblical character or because pseudo science proves them less equal. But makes them fail is they fail the equality principle, and that failure makes blacks to the back of the bus ok. Is equality itself a borgouisse organizing principle? Im no Hegalian, but recognizing that contradiction as still (today) working itself out in history is logically committed to a premise of equality. The premise can be rejected because historically it fails when conjoined with an incompatible or comparable political economy.