Normally I would be tempted to tweet some annoying pig-related pun, but this story is too important, and the processes of modern industrial hog farming are too horrifying, to joke about. nyti.ms/3xrOAMl "In the early 1970s, North Carolina had about 18,000 hog farms, with an average herd of about 75 hogs. Today, it has only 2,000 hog operations, with herds as large as 60,000 hogs."

The article shows that support peaked in early June 2020 and has declined since, primarily among Republicans. Of course Republican politicians have demonized #BLM, but there is a deep problem with the concept of "racial justice" itself. A short thread: nyti.ms/34afsBf My thinking is influenced by Racecraft by Barbara and Karen Fields. In an essay on Woodward's Origins of the New South, Barbara Fields writes, "'equality' and 'justice', once modified by 'racial', become euphemisms for their opposites." (Racecraft, 159) versobooks.com/books/1645-rac…

James K. Polk

https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1333466378100224002

This is historical malpractice.

Thank you to Thaddeus Russell for having me and Barbara Fields on #Unregistered. Please watch. We discuss the Hannah Fizer case, racecraft, and history.

https://twitter.com/ThaddeusRussell/status/1308509144962363395

Here's the episode. If you've never heard Barbara Fields speak about racecraft before, you are in for a treat and an education. @ThaddeusRussell #Unregistered

Teaching a grad class for @GUHistory on the US to 1900 this semester. Just had an invigorating first class, despite being on Zoom. Always fun to get to know a new group of students. Let's go! Kicked off the semester with *Our Declaration* by @dsallentess. All historians should reflect seriously on this line from the book: "While history can serve to help us understand many things much better, it can also function as a barrier to entry."

I was struck by this passage about historians' love of contingency in this essay by @jbf1755 in @TheAtlantic. I have something to say about this idea of contingency... theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/… Historians often invoke contingency to imply that nothing is inevitable. Things could have gone one way or another. The concept goes hand-in-hand with agency, that all things are possible. Except that all things are not possible...

RIP Bernard Bailyn, quite a historian. I would like to add one point about his contribution to the historiography of slavery...

https://twitter.com/jennyschuessler/status/1291929219715469313

In his landmark book, Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, published in 1967, Bailyn recognized the centrality of the idea of slavery in Anglo-American political thought...

Nobody can seriously believe that the U.S. system of policing and punishment provides either the due process or the equal protection promised by the 14th Amendment. We are in serious perpetual violation of our own Constitution. npr.org/2020/07/23/894…

I would follow a New York Times Corrections twitter bot. For example, today

A fairy tale from the @nytimes. nyti.ms/2z1UpEv In contrast to the above, here's a sharp, deeply researched critique of the Morrill Act, which shows that the land grant schools benefitted from indigenous dispossession. hcn.org/issues/52.4/in…

It is tragic that the only language our society seems to have for the collective effort to survive is "war." What a failure of political imagination.

A short thread about one of Nat Turner's comrades, "Will, the executioner"...

https://twitter.com/arothmanhistory/status/1240396359364198404

Will first appears in the Confessions at a secret meeting of the small band of rebels. Nat asks him why he is there and receives a satisyfing answer...

One fascinating thing about the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 is the audience reaction - laughter, cheers, applause. It is a window into the demotic politics of the era. This line from Lincoln, for example, elicited "roars of laughter" from the crowd. nps.gov/liho/learn/his… Lincoln might not beat Douglas in the election, but he's got potential. Would make a great postmaster general for Fremont.

In 1850, a proposal to identify slaves by name in the census was rejected by the Senate. One southern senator objected that the names of slaves was "no useful information." Another contended that owners of large numbers of slaves did not know the children's names... In that same debate, a proposal to record slaves' place of birth was also rejected. One senator said that "owing to the natural course of things" (i.e. the domestic slave trade), most owners could not tell the census-takers where their slaves had been born...

#GUhist286 9. Day 1. What is slavery? Here is sociologist Orlando Patterson's definition: "Slavery is the permanent, violent domination of natally alienated and generally dishonored persons.” (Slavery and Social Death, p. 13. #GUhist286 10. Day 1. Another definition of slavery: In January 1865, Rev. Garrison Frazier, a freedman, told U.S. leaders Stanton and Sherman that "Slavery is, receiving by irresistible power the work of another man, and not by his consent.” freedmen.umd.edu/savmtg.htm

I'm teaching the history of slavery in North America this semester. Anybody want to follow along here on Twitter if I post sources, readings, etc? Well, you've convinced me. Thanks for the enthusiastic response, folks. I'm amazed. Here goes #GUhist286. This course is designed for my @Georgetown undergrads. I'll post relevant materials on this thread over the next few months and try to keep up as best I can.

Let's get back to history, shall we? I just read a debate in Congress from 1864 that started out on the question of whether black people should be permitted to carry the mail, which quickly descended into lunatic anxieties about interracial sex. Here is one volley from the debate. This was Sen. Willard Saulsbury of Delaware, a Democrat. Read to the end. (Cong. Globe, Senate, 38th Cong, 1st Sess., p. 840)