Thread by @timjacobwise

A not-too-long (but important) thread on the right's war on history & memory and what it's really about

When you ask a conservative why they think we should leave confederate statues & monuments up they usually won’t say it’s because they agree with the confederate cause. (1)...

Indeed that’s the point where they remind you the confederates were Democrats. Then they say something like: we shouldn’t erase history, we should learn from it. They never explain what you can learn from a statue, but OK, what's the implied lesson they're speaking of here? (2)..

Presumably, it’s that yes, there have been people who supported awful causes in our history, like enslavement—which was indeed the chief reason the South broke away—and we should remember that so as to a) not repeat past mistakes, and b) recognize our progress (3)...

But in order to really appreciate that progress, we have to teach clearly about how deeply flawed the nation was at its inception—such that the Civil War ended up being necessary to end enslavement. And yet, the same conservatives don’t want us to teach that (4)...

They insist we weren’t deeply flawed, that racism wasn’t embedded in the founding, and that to suggest otherwise is un-American and anti-white. So really they just want the statues up, not as teaching tools, but as worship altars for a cause they support, deep down (5)...

Either they support that cause or, at the very least, they are saying that the pain of our history to Black people is irrelevant to them — less important for students to learn about than the supposed “military genius” of Robert E Lee (6)...

They’re saying it is more important to honor the “bravery” of soldiers who fought for a government whose main purpose was to maintain (and expand) human bondage, than to honor the memory of those held in bondage and who led the struggle for justice (7)...

They are saying it is more important to protect the feelings of white children who might be made uncomfortable by a discussion of this nation’s historically embedded white supremacy, than to tell the truth (8)...

In so doing they disrespect Black people AND those whites who stood against white supremacy, enslavement, indigenous genocide, etc. No, there weren’t enough of them, but they were there, and they don’t have statues, and often aren’t even mentioned in the history text (9)...

So...Why not ADD those antiracist allies if your concern is not making white kids feel guilty? I mean, if they knew there were whites who resisted they could have different role models, they would see they had choices to make, and perhaps they would make them, and then...(10)...

Oh, wait...that’s the problem isn’t it? If we teach about white antiracist allies we give whites different role models. We remind them they have choices…and they might decide to join with Black and brown folks to fight for justice even now (11)...

So we can’t add them to the curriculum, even if doing so would address the shame and guilt some say they’re worried about. Because teaching about them would create white allies NOW in a cause opposed by the right—the cause of racial justice (12)...

They want kids to worship the founders and the nation’s past because frankly, they prefer it to the present. That’s what MAGA means. It’s what it has always meant. They prefer the America of the founders’ generation. They prefer the past. We believe in the future (13)...

They hate America as it actually exists now. And they have always hated the idea of it. What they have preferred is what decent people have always lamented: the failure to live up to the ideal (14)...

To us, that's the struggle of a lifetime, to make the actions jibe with the words. To them, the inconsistency is a trifle. They never believed the words. They never accepted that “All Men are created equal” meant all, any more than Jefferson did when he wrote it (15)...

They mean it the way he did: white men, preferably of propertied means—perhaps some women too, but not really Black and brown peoples. They only love America the way it was. We love the America that could be (16)...

It is time to put the older version of this country out of its misery forever. This is the battle before us: the past or the future. Choose wisely. (END)