Why I Cry For America
This is a history post.
If you enjoy learning about history, please scroll down.
This is one of the most powerful videos I have ever watched.
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Cannot view the video, not available to view in my country.
Sorry, Leigh.
Can you go to YouTube and paste this into Search: U.S. History: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Thanks Ross! I was just about to comment the same thing!
Thank you, Ross. Which show was it please, 02 August 2020?
By the way, donated to your gofundme to use as you see fit
Hi, Leigh!
Again, go to YouTube and paste this into Search: U.S. History: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
It should be the first video to show up in results.
And thank you!!!!!!!!
You are welcome, thank you too, Ross.
The country where I grew up was colonized for almost 5 decades after WWII. USA took over the education system (which I and my compatriots benefitted from). The US educators also wrote the colonized country’s history. Very vital aspects were eliminated (what was taught kept US in good standing). A movie (Quezon’s Game) showed us that our homeland was humanitarian during a time when being compassionate to a certain race was very unpopular. It was a big surprise for those born after 1945 and before 2018 because nothing was mentioned in school. 81 years of secrecy.
He is amazing at pointing out the truth that people just don’t want to see. Thank you for sharing
I watched this yesterday and it made me cry. I have a degree in history and even so there’s a lot of American history that I don’t know – and didn’t know I didn’t know until a few years ago.
I’ve set myself on a mission to educate myself on some of the things that were hidden from us when I was in school 30 years ago.
Thank you, Kara.
In my thirties, I learned a lot about history, and was stunned by how different things actually were from the “history” I was taught in school. Basically, my textbooks and teachers lied to me.
Last year, while reading Ron Chernow’s fine biography of Ulysses S. Grant, I was stunned to learn how utterly horrific Reconstruction was to Blacks.
America has a profoundly ugly past, which a lot of people don’t want to see.
BIG hug!
I graduated in 1970. Never heard of Juneteenth or the Tulsa massacre when in school. I’ve learned more about our history by reading biographies and historical novels than l ever learned from textbooks. Our whole education system needs to be overhauled.
Many hurtful issues brought to light in this video. Much to ponder as to how these humans could have had a more equal start in our great country. Would a different beginning before stepping on American soil help their progress here. Who were the people that sold people from Africa? And why were they sold from Africa? For money, yes, but where did the concept find conception. Where did all this start? In ancient times. I have never felt I found the real answer where in what power it all started. Were there always slaves? Being a human is hard for all of us. Slavery is the worst hell of humanity.
Memphis, TN had a three day race riot May 1, 1866. I learned about long after I had left public school. Wikipedia tells 46 blacks dead, 2 whites dead, 75 injured, 100 blacks robbed, in mostly black communities 91 homes, 4 churches, and 8 schools burned to the ground. This past month, July 2020, Memphis had 49 murders, in ONE month, mostly black on black. Black people in Memphis are really hurting each other everyday. It is bad.
This morning on CBS news show Oprah Winfrey announced her book of the month, Caste by Isabel Wilkerson. From the conversation of Oprah, Gail King, and Isabel Wilkerson, I think I will have much to learn from this book that I am planning to read. Perhaps, some of you would also like to read this book as Isabel sees our country as a old house that will always need repairs and working on it’s parts. She says if you go down in the basement and it is wet, that part will have to be fixed or other problems will start up. The wet will not go away by it’s self. Made me think of Ross repairing the Cross House. Isabel said she went to India and Germany looking at their long history and how society is working for them in the past and today. All this went into the book. It may win Isabel another Pulitzer.
Love each other. Be safe. Stay well.
Tura – The problem here that I see is that “were there always slaves” and “africans sold africans” is that it denies the difference between chattel slavery and other kinds of slavery. America was the first country to codify and institutionalize chattel slavery – meaning that the enslaved was more animal than human and the offspring of the enslaved was also a slave.
When various African tribes enslaved people, they did so as spoils of war but those enslaved were still considered people. They could buy their way out of slavery (if they had the opportunity and means). They could be bought back by their own tribe or families. Their children were not born into slavery.
The pushback of “Africans enslaved other Africans” is simply a call to racism because it tries to mitigate the horrors of slavery by saying “they did it to themselves first”.
Kara, thank you for your educated reply. I am never saying they did it to themselves. My thinking comes from remembering chattel slavery that dates to ancient Egypt, Nile River Valley and North Africa 145 Bc – ca 430 AD. Slavery Remembrance Day memorial lecture 2007 by Dr. Molefi Kete Asante is a very interesting and educated read from which we can all learn more about slavery.
Tura, Thank you for the recommendation. I googled and found what I believe is a transcript of the speech you mentioned and I find it very well written. But it does reinforce that chattel slavery (where the enslaved have no more value than animals) didn’t exist in North Africa or Egypt. Those were different kinds of slavery – as I mentioned above, ones where the enslaved could buy themselves or earn themselves out of slavery. They also weren’t based on race – since the concept of race wasn’t created until the 1600s and further codified into the “Five Races” in the mid 1700s.
I believe this is the correct speech. Please let me know if I’m wrong.
https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ideological-origins-of-chattel-slavery-british-world
I totally agree. Just knowing that the national education department hasn’t set any guildlines or benchmarks for us to hit says a lot! Tenors ago, or more, we teachers in Ohio were told to follow the benchmarks set by the state…for now and there would be more coming from the national level so that students could move ANYWHERE and get the same education that they were getting. This never happened, sadly. There are so many things that are left out, and so many myths that have to be explained in the 4 th and 5th grades. I enlighten when I can. Always hoping an angry parent won’t call and ask whet the hell I’m teaching…😇😬 PS: I love love LOVE John Oliver! Thanks for this post Ross!
Wonderful video – thank you for posting it, Ross. While I did know about Juneteenth and the Tulsa riot, I did not learn that in school. (Over the 11 or so years I’ve been on Facebook, I’ve learned an awful lot of history from incredibly smart people who’ve posted links to articles and videos just like this.) I also did not learn about the Japanese internment camps in school – my Japanese American best friend in high school told me, as her dad had been interned as a little boy. As said in this video, Americans do not want to look at the shitty stuff done by previous generations. Too many would rather do the ‘rah rah America!’ kind of patriotism that seems to be unable to coexist with understanding realities of what our country may have done wrong.
If I had knees that could kneel, I’d be taking a knee during our national anthem nowadays. I’m unfortunately feeling far more ashamed rather than proud of being an American right now.