All aglow and excited after reading the link, I'll respond with three comments and then go back and read all the comments.
1) If you've never read Lies My Teacher Told Me, do so now! American history books train us to be good citizens and that has little to do with the history of this country.
2) In the fall of 1969 I was one of four white teachers to join the staff at Alabama A&M, a historically black college. A vice-president at the college, a Henry Ponder, talked to us on the second day of faculty meetings. He told us that there were still small southern towns that had yearly parades where one event could be a black man made-up to represent a lynching. He would be forced to be part of the "festivities." He warned us that the children of that man would not like us. Henry Ponder was a master of understatement.
3) Shortly after 9-11 I read something that quoted a terrorist as saying that after Hiroshima America had lost the right to condemn terrorism. That hit a chord with me and I repeated it twice. The most liberal of my friends shrugged it off, saying it just sounded like rationalizing. My far right acquaintance screamed,"But we were attached!"--a cry that I took to mean that 9-11 justified any and everything we might do in response. I stopped passing on what I had read. Until now. The link brought it to mind again.
Now for what you guys have said.
PS I have nothing else to add.
Last edited by humphreysmar; 03/30/08 08:04 PM. Reason: having read the others
