Tea at Trianon: What White Americans Owe Black Americans

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, June 26, 2020

What White Americans Owe Black Americans

From The Resurgent:

Actual racism is provably smaller than it’s ever been in the U.S. It is magnified by those who generally have one of two motives: 1) personal ego or desire for political power or money; or 2) a sincere personal or institutional desire to totally eliminate racism, and therefore treat any outbreak like an epidemic.

A third motive is more cynical and pernicious: a desire to damage the United States through racial strife. The old Soviet Union long engaged in a program to incite racism in the U.S. Even now, Russia is believed to be “stoking racial tension” in this election cycle. It’s a big problem, actually. But I’m not going to delve into that, because it has little to do with the actual debt white Americans owe to black Americans, which is my subject here.

The current state of race relations in America is, on a microcosm level, very good–we get along with our neighbors, white or black; our kids play together at school and on sports teams; we live, work, and even worship together more and more. Much of this has to do with socio-economic status, in that people don’t usually mix with those who live in different neighborhoods, go to different schools, and work at different jobs. (Read more.)