Juneteenth 2023

From the papers of Harlem poet Langston Hughes (1902-1967), Beinecke Library:

The night is beautiful,
So the faces of my people.

The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people.

Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.

Now that Juneteenth is a Federal holiday, let's all of us just celebrate it and forget about the political calculations behind it.

Not Completely Woke

Calhoun College was renamed
after Grace Hopper, computer
scientist and USN rear admiral

In 2017 Yale renamed Calhoun College [one of its 14 residential colleges] because of "John C. Calhoun’s legacy as a white supremacist and a national leader who passionately promoted slavery."

In 2018 numerous Yale students and alumni "expressed outrage" against the nomination of alumnus Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court--not to mention tried to get Law Professor Amy Chua fired for her support of Justice Kavanaugh.

For the record your humble blogger agreed with the Calhoun change but was appalled at the way leftists went after Brett Kavanaugh on the uncorroborated recollections of a questionable witness.

The fact that the woke press, so diligent with digging into the past of non-Progressives, dropped the subject as soon as Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in, is a strong indicator that they knew the whole thing was a sham. Frankly, I'm still interested in finding out if there was something to the story, and, if there is not, who instigated and promulgated the fake narrative.

There's a distinct difference between marshalling facts to prevail in an argument--as in the case of Calhoun/Hopper--versus making up stuff in order to win the day. There's enough of the latter going on everywhere, and Yale students, especially the elite at Yale Law, ought to know better.

It was refreshing to discover, however, that Yale has remained true to liberal principles by honoring a distinguished alumnus even though his family is the epitome of the New England blue bloods that were instrumental in founding the country.

1948: Babe Ruth meets the future president

Headline: Yale Baseball Field Named in Honor of George Bush ’48

...historic Yale Field, which has hosted the likes of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Ted Williams, will be named George H.W. Bush '48 Field in honor of one its most accomplished alumni, George Herbert Walker Bush, who captained the Yale baseball team in his senior season...

Bush started his Eli career as a first baseman in 1945, after serving his country as a naval aviator during World War II — the youngest in the U.S. at that time. After remarkable service to his country, he returned to the baseball diamond and the classrooms of Yale.

He went on to earn a degree in economics in less than three years, and was elected captain of the baseball team in his senior season. Bush helped his teams to two College World Series, in 1947 and 1948.

After graduation, Bush began working in the Texas oil business, and, in 1966, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, launching his career in public service. He served as ambassador to the United Nations and to China, and then as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Under President Ronald Reagan, he served two terms as vice president. In 1988, Bush was elected the 41st President of the United States.

It's good to know that George H.W. Bush's character and record of accomplishment triumphed over the disadvantage of his heritage.

President's Day, 2020

Former G.W. Bush speechwriter Jonathan Horn has filled a gap in popular history by writing about George Washington's post-Presidency (March 1797 - December 1799): [bold added]

Washington retired at a time when heads of state usually only relinquished power upon their deaths. His successor, John Adams, recalled looking around the room during his inauguration and seeing people in tears.

He knew those tears weren’t for him, but that everyone was so moved by Washington surrendering power. They knew they were witnessing history.

Jonathan Horn on Washington's ownership of slaves:

It was a disappointment to Washington, I think, that he could not find a way to provide eventual freedom for all of the men, women, and children held in slavery at Mount Vernon. The will he left when he died in 1799 provided eventual emancipation for all the slaves he owned but could not do the same for the so-called dower slaves, who had come to Mount Vernon only as a result of his marriage to the widow Martha Custis. As a result, Washington died knowing that Mount Vernon had a destiny similar to that of the country he had created. Both, in a sense, would be half-slave and half-free.

(Photo from ncpa.org)

George Washington is on Mount Rushmore because he defeated the vastly superior British Army and set numerous precedents as the first Executive, including relinquishing power when Americans would have acclaimed him king.

By our standards he did not do enough personally or politically to eliminate slavery, but it's easy enough to criticize him now since there would have been no Constitution and no United States without the toleration of that peculiar institution.

I hope that those who look back on us 230 years from now will do so in context, with sympathy, and not judge some of our choices as irredeemably evil.

Holy Alliance

(Photo from tom-holland.org)

Two political opponents--radical feminism and evangelical Christianity--came together in the 1980's to outlaw pornography (they failed). Since then this unexpected alliance has reconstituted itself whenever their interests align--for example, in questioning whether transgender women are truly women.

Historian Tom Holland sees another cross-over point--The Christian Roots of #MeToo: [bold added]

“#MeToo would not have any impact—would have no resonance,” Mr. Holland says, “if it were not culturally taken for granted that men do not have the right to force themselves on their inferiors. This is a cultural given in the United States, that men do not have this right.”

It is, however, “a very, very culturally distinctive assumption.” In ancient Rome, for instance, “the essence of being a male citizen was that you had the right to penetrate pretty much anyone who was not a citizen, or the wife of a citizen, or the chattel of a citizen.” In that world, the “sexual binary” was not between men and women but between those who had power and those who lacked it.

The Christian roots of #MeToo are another example of inconvenient historical truths, like how slavery eventually became unconscionable due to the Christian belief that every human being is a child of God, or how the Republican Party was a far less racist party than the Democrats (Lincoln was a Republican, KKK leaders were Democrats, Republicans helped Lyndon Johnson pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964).

If we know where we're from it helps us get where we're going.

Repudiating History's Teaching

Peggy Noonan: [bold added]

(Babylon Bee satire)

In the past, whether you were racist could be judged by your actions. You held ugly biases, you said or did things that were definitionally discriminatory. The bad news is that you were this way, but the good news is that you could change. You could widen your lens, let some love in, say, think or do better things. You could improve....

Now the idea has taken hold that the charge of racism doesn’t derive from thoughts and actions, from what people say and do, but from who they are. If you are white that accident of birth left you racist, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You’ve got white privilege. You are unconsciously favored, and unconsciously assign disfavor. Either way you’re guilty. No action or word can turn this around.

As American society retreats from Judeo-Christianity due to its failings and supposed irrelevance, religion's precepts are disowned as well, precepts such as:

1) Sons should not be punished for the sins of their fathers; under the new rules the great-great-great grandchildren should be excoriated for the sins of their slaveowner ancestors;

2) Everyone is a sinner, and may God who sits in Judgment have mercy on us all; under the new rules whites are the only ones guilty of America's Original Sin, and good luck trying to obtain mercy from the latter-day Puritans who sit in judgment.

Unlike their science and technology counterparts, the culture vanguards don't seem to be intent on building upon history's teaching but repudiating it.

The New Rules Are All So Confusing

Piss Christ (Time photo)

It was 30 years ago, but as the cliché goes, it seems like yesterday that artist Andres Serrano displayed a photograph of Piss Christ, a crucifix submerged in the artist's urine.

The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art granted Piss Christ an award which included a $15,000 grant from the National Endowment of the Arts.

The controversy was predictable, with religious conservatives decrying the work and the cognoscenti lauding its artistic expression.

Great works of art provoke, we were told, and if you are offended it says something about you, not the work itself.

Statue of Robert E. Lee, Charlottesville (CNN photo)

There is now a burgeoning movement to take down statues honoring soldiers, the flag, and other symbols of the Confederacy. Speaking as one whose ancestors were neither slave nor slaveowner, I don't have a dog in this hunt.

I will only observe that in 2017 taking offense is justification for censorship and removal or destruction of works of art. This time it's not the viewer but the work itself that is the problem.

The new rules are all so confusing.

How Quickly We Condemn

(Image from MountVernon.org)

Many of the Founding Fathers were slaveowners, among them Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison. (Those who didn't own slaves include John Adams, Samuel Adams, and Alexander Hamilton.)

The biggest Founding Father, George Washington himself, was also a slaveowner and at least for part of his life threw himself into the activity: [bold added]

When Washington was 11, he inherited 10 slaves from his father; when he died five decades later, he owned 123 of the 317 slaves who lived and worked at Mount Vernon. In that time the estate grew from a fairly modest farmhouse with 2,000 acres to a 21-room mansion and nearly 8,000 acres. It was in this way that the first president became rich: by buying, owning and sometimes selling people and by forcing them to work for him, under pain of flogging, beating or being sold away from their relatives and friends.

What George Washington did over 200 years ago is morally reprehensible now, but I wonder how many of the things we do today will be found to be beyond the pale in 200 years? There's a good chance that some of the following will be viewed as barbaric by distant descendants:

Eating meat from slaughtered animals.

Related: treating animals, including pets, as property.

Treating A.I. machines, such as robots, as property.

Burning fossil fuels, especially for flying to climate-change conferences.

Having an abortion.

Letting people die because it's illegal to purchase a kidney or liver.

Not letting people choose the manner and timing of their own death.

Imprisoning criminals instead of changing their behavior.

Behaving hypocritically (easy to check on the permanent record).

Letting people die instead of prolonging their life indefinitely.

Obviously, some of the above cannot co-exist.

Judge not, that ye be not judged. - Matthew 7:1