Blame the former English major in me. History was my second love in school, when taught right. When taught right I greedily gobbled up history almost as much as I did English. Unfortunately there was a lot of “not taught right.” Which is what I have been hearing from lately documentaries and lectures. People really need to organize their lectures better. Right now C-Span has some great history lectures on weekends, but then there have been a few; like one about a blind slave, that reminded me how poorly history was in school sometimes. The lecturer was jumping all over the place timeline-wise. She pretty much started with the blind slave being freed and working together with other abolitionists. It’s like revealing who the murderer was in a murder mystery in the first paragraph when that should be the apex of that story. Every lecture should be arranged like a story: don’t reveal what should be the conclusion. Follow a bloody timeline when needed, PLEASE! Don’t jump around. I admit one could write one going backwards to do a reveal. Hey, maybe I’ll try that! But just jumping around futzes the whole thing up. A waste of time for the writer, for the audience, and for the lecturer, for a writer, for a performer.
However, as I stated, I love learning about hidden history, like black history we were never taught. That part of “woke” is something we should have been teaching long ago because it IS part of our history. But considered politically incorrect by some.
Talk about “cancel culture.”
I hate it when I find out I wasn’t taught about it. And every time I hear people complain about “woke,” you know what I hear? SORRY, but to explain I have to be crude, rude and blunt…
”I don’t want to hear no nigger history!”
Those who use “woke” negatively in this case are using it as euphemism for words like that. Almost no one wants to be called a racist. I’m not going to claim they are racist because I don’t live in their heads. In fact I’m guessing they’re repeating talking points like “all lives matter,” when “all lives” can’t matter if black lives don’t matter.
Overall, simply put, the attempt to politically correct “woke-ism” out of existence is racial purity politics at its worst. If some of them were being honest their actual cries would be…
“Don’t tell us about whole towns full of blacks exterminated!”
“Don’t teach our kids about how the White House was built by slaves!”
“Don’t stain George Washington’s reputation because he tried to have Martha’s escaped slave hunted down and brought back!”
“How DARE you mention many black families have been here longer than us superior white people!”
And some people wonder why they get called racists?
Take those White Nationalist superior talking points somewhere else. Smart fish ain’t biting on your pre-poisoned talking points.
-30-
Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for almost 50 years, first published in fall of 1972. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks, and into the unseen cracks and crevasses, that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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