1. I feel like I owe @MaxBoot an explanation and a bit of an apology for this response that I dashed off this morning when I read his tweet that inaccurately claimed that sectarian bloodshed and political terrorism doesn't happen here in America. 
2. A generous interpretation was that Max meant that statement as an aspirational one, as a statement that these are not the ideals that America should stand for. That I agree with 100%
3. But here's the problem. When one implies that "this is not us, this is not who we are," one implicitly obscures the historical experiences of virtually all non-white people who have ever lived in America.
4. If national healing is one's goal, then we need to be mindful of the different historical experiences that Americans of different backgrounds have had. I mean, what was the violent, murderous process of westward expansion other than sectarian bloodshed?
5. What was slavery, the KKK, Jim Crow, lynching, and decades of systemic, racialized police brutality other than political terrorism?
6. Max responded to me by saying that he has a chapter in his book about those topics so he's got it covered. He knows about these things.
7. Perhaps, but the mission of American historians since the 1980s (when more women & people of color started getting PHD's in History) has been to think harder about how the experiences of non-dominant groups forces us to rethink such iconic meta-narratives in American history.
8. "America is a democracy!" Hmmm, well let's dig deeply into the history of voting rights in America, and into the role that wealth has played in shaping the sorts of legislation that gets passed.
9. "America is a beacon of hope to the world!" Hmmm, well let's look more closely at the various ways American foreign policy has historically affected places like Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Panama, Cuba, the Philippines, Iran, Iraq, etc.
10. "America's economy has grown because of the free market!" Hmmm, let's explore the history of tariffs in the 19th century, and the role enslaved labor played in producing the nation's most valuable export, cotton.
11. "Other countries have been exploitative empires, but America is a land of freedom!" Hmm, why did 5/6 of the nation's federal expenditures between 1790 and 1796 go toward fighting Indians? Why were so many Presidents in the 19th century famous for killing Indians?
12. I think I can predict what the conservatives out there are thinking. "Here's another leftist historian who hates America, who does not appreciate how great America has been and can be." I'm here to tell you, that is not at all what I or most other American historians think.
13. I suspect that most currently working US historians approach the nation's history from a perspective we might call "progressive patriotism." I've outlined what I mean by that in this thread. It is quite distinct from an "I hate America" perspective.
14. This perspective draws heavily on the work of African-American intellectuals and scholars like Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Anna Julia Cooper, WEB DuBois, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, etc. It frames America as an unfinished project, a bundle of as-yet unrealized ideals.
15. But here's the key thing. If we want to make those ideals operative in the world, we must look unflinchingly at our past...we must look into what pioneering African-American historian Nathan Huggins called "The Deforming Mirror of Truth." socialstudies.org/sites/default/…
16. When Americans tell themselves things that have only ever been true for white ppl (like, America has no history of political terrorism or sectarian violence) this implies that the experiences & histories of non-white Americans are irrelevant sidelights to the "real story."
17. If we think of a nation the way we think of a family, it's easy to see why the only meaningful way to work through trauma and violence is to address it head on, to honestly reckon with it so as to resolve it. Denial and repression are not healthy in families or nations.
18. To a great extent, the American conservative tradition into which Boot was socialized and in which he lived much of his life is premised upon NOT addressing these histories head on, on reveling in patriotic self-congratulation and lashing out at those who would question it.
19. Like many Never Trumpers, the rise of Trump made Boot rethink his understanding of American politics and history. I have nothing but respect for the honesty with which he has done that work, carried out in the public eye with tremendous blowback from his former colleagues.
20. But what I did not appreciate about his snarky response to me was the suggestion that he's got the history of race in America all figured out, thank you very much, because he wrote a chapter about it. If that was the case, he would have NEVER written the tweet that he did.
21. That tweet read to me as a leftover of the race-blindness that is so endemic to white American conservatives...a defensive race-blindness that lashes out with a "why do you hate America?" or "but that was so long ago!" if someone brings up that history.
22. It often seems as if contemporary American conservatives are basically still in the same place in regards to their thinking on race as William F. Buckley was in 1965 when he got schooled by James Baldwin in this debate.
23. In sum, I should have urged Boot to read *MORE* books on slavery, Jim Crow, and the KKK. We all need to be learning more about that history, not just Boot. And at this point I'll shut up, and just invite other #twitterstorians to weigh in with suggested readings for us all.
