Farah Peterson on the History of the Black Experience in America and Its Legacy Today
In The Revolution, Most Black Soldiers Fought For The British
The enduring myth that enslaved people were loyal and happy to serve their masters is not only harmful to historical accuracy, it’s just plain wrong. Farah Peterson, law professor and legal historian at the University of Chicago Law School, joins guest host John McCaa to set the record straight on the Black experience dating back to the time of the nation’s founding. Her article “The Patriot Slave” appears in The American Scholar.
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It is through America’s treatment of African Americans and other minorities that we can measure the strength of the values that this country claims to hold dear, including things like equal rights under law. And the measure we can take of America’s values by looking at its treatment of its most vulnerable members is critical information, even for white Americans. After all, our character is our destiny. After witnessing babies torn out of the arms of mothers and fathers at the southern border, can anyone be surprised to see the moms of Portland tear gassed and struck with rubber bullets? After the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, the closing of polling places, the gerrymandering—all stratagems designed to reduce the power of the black vote, can we be shocked that the President is trying to gut the postal service to make it difficult and dangerous for all Americans, white and black, to freely choose their government during a crisis? If you nurse totalitarianism at your breast, when it gets older it will bite. The cruelty that Americans have tolerated toward black people and other minorities will not fail to hurt all of us in the end.
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