newyorker--2020-06-18--John Bolton’s Epic Score-Settling

John Bolton’s Epic Score-Settling

John Bolton was not looking to make friends in the Trump White House when he served as the national-security adviser , nor did he do so .
Bolton ’ s disdain for his colleagues in the Administration announces itself early and often in his new memoir , “ The Room Where It Happened , ” which is due out Tuesday , pending the outcome of a legal battle with Trump ’ s Justice Department .
Bolton mocks , disparages , or clashes with Steven Mnuchin , Nikki Haley , Rex Tillerson , James Mattis , Mike Pompeo , and others @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first hundred pages .
By the end of the nearly five-hundred-page book , Bolton also criticizes Mick Mulvaney , Jared Kushner , the entire White House economic team , many of his foreign counterparts , and , although he shares their misgivings about Trump , the House Democrats who impeached the President .
This is Washington score-settling on an epic scale .
Mnuchin , the Treasury Secretary , “ had no idea what he was talking about.
” Haley , who served as the Ambassador to the United Nations , is a self-promoting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s family .
Mattis , the former Defense Secretary , is a bureaucratic obstructionist who deluded himself into thinking that an “ axis of adults ” could manage the unmanageable President .
Pompeo , the Secretary of State , who would emerge as the great internal enemy during Bolton ’ s seventeen-month tenure , is an untruthful hypocrite who flatters Trump to his face while dumping on him privately .
“ He is so full of shit , ” Pompeo writes of the President in a note to Bolton while they are in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Trump exchange frothy compliments and unrealistic denuclearization plans with the North Korean dictator , Kim Jong Un .
After that summit , Pompeo told a Principals Committee meeting in the White House that Trump ’ s nuclear diplomacy with North Korea had “ zero probability of success.
” Later , after a G-20 meeting , Pompeo told Bolton that Trump was always causing problems : “ You can ’ t leave him alone for a minute.
” One of the few other senior advisers to Trump with whom Bolton did not openly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they both shared an outsized disdain for the President .
Kelly , the retired Marine general who served as the second of Trump ’ s four-and-counting White House chiefs of staff , sat Bolton down to brief him a couple of days before Bolton ’ s first day on the job , in the spring of 2018 .
Trump swears and speaks to his staff in “ rough language , ” Kelly cautioned Bolton .
Trump routinely attacks the two previous Republican Presidents , George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Administrations , as Bolton did .
Trump changes his mind “ constantly , ” Kelly said .
Bolton was nothing if not forewarned .
Two years and two months after that conversation , Bolton has come forward to say in public what Kelly told him privately that day—and much more .
The ultimate score-settling in the book is not with Pompeo or Mnuchin .
It is with Donald Trump , a man so corrupt and profoundly unsuited for the Presidency that his own national-security adviser , a lifelong Republican with unimpeachable partisan credentials @ @ @ @ @ @ @ obstruction of justice as a way of life.
” Of course , many will—and already have—objected to the book on the grounds that Bolton is a greedy and opportunistic hypocrite , who took a reported two million dollars from Simon & Schuster for writing the memoir but did not testify before Congress about allegations contained within it during the House impeachment hearings and Senate trial of Trump .
Bolton should have been a key witness , given that the proceedings concerned Trump ’ s scheme to pressure Ukraine to launch politically motivated investigations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s staff testified that he called Trump ’ s scheme an inappropriate “ drug deal , ” and Bolton confirms in the book that he heard from the President himself about his quid-pro-quo withholding of U.S. military aid to Ukraine .
With such explosive information , Bolton ’ s failure to speak out remains largely unexplained , or at least not convincingly explained , in the memoir .
The book does , however , amply confirm Bolton ’ s reputation as a fierce infighter with an inflated view of himself and a willingness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He is clearly a flawed narrator and colleague—let ’ s stipulate that .
As for the book itself , the reviewer at the Times has already weighed in on its merits as a piece of writing .
Twitter , meanwhile , seems to be taking care of Bolton ’ s merits as a human being .
The many failings of Bolton are the one thing that Adam Schiff and Trump agree on .
Schiff , who led the impeachment inquiry that Bolton refused to help , called him an author but “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ series of post-midnight tweets early on Thursday , called him “ a disgruntled boring fool , ” a “ wacko , ” “ incompetent ” “ dope ” who “ never had a clue , was ostracized & happily dumped.
” Just as notably , the President did not offer a convincing rebuttal , or much of a denial at all , about Bolton ’ s allegations , which go well beyond what previous insider tell-alls have already put on the voluminous public record about Trump .
Bolton ’ s book , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ account of Trump ’ s “ stunning ignorance , ” incompetence , and corruption , and it should be taken seriously for what it is : the harshest on-the-record indictment yet of Trump by a former subordinate .
A copious notetaker in meetings , Bolton is known as a flamethrower , not a liar .
The Administration is taking extraordinary legal measures to suppress his account , with the Justice Department claiming in court this week that it illegally discloses classified information .
This legal argument would be impossible to make if the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ allegations are simply untrue .
There is no such thing as a classified lie .
The bottom line is that while Bolton offers a portrait of Trump that is politically and personally self-serving , it is also indispensable , jaw-dropping , and more specific about high-level wrongdoing than the many embittered memoirs and background gripes to journalists that preceded it .
There are many other former senior officials who could have written a version of this book but did not .
John Kelly appears to have loathed Trump as much as Bolton does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he knows with the public .
When Jim Mattis , Trump ’ s much admired first Defense Secretary , published his own recent memoir , he wrote of a “ duty to silence ” to the President and refused to elaborate about why he quit .
Even when he did speak out recently , it was only to criticize Trump ’ s use of violent force , earlier this month , to remove peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square for a photo op .
On the subject of what he saw inside the White @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rex Tillerson , Trump ’ s ignominiously dumped first Secretary of State , told an interviewer that Trump often asked him to do illegal things , orders which he refused , but Tillerson has never said what those were .
I ’ d love to hear from Paul Ryan , the former Republican Speaker of the House , who left a promising career in politics rather than continue in office through the Trump Presidency .
I ’ d love to hear from Reince Priebus and Kirstjen Nielsen and Jeff Sessions and all the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spoken up , at least with their names attached .
Bolton , flawed as he is , is the Trump truth-teller we are stuck with—for now .
And what a truth he offers us .
As the national-security adviser , Bolton ’ s lens for viewing Trump was the President ’ s interactions with the rest of the world .
His most startling and newsworthy allegation is that Trump not only fawned over authoritarian leaders but repeatedly sought to do inappropriate or legally dubious favors for autocrats in exchange for them boosting Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scheme that led to the President ’ s impeachment , Bolton argues , was hardly an outlier ; other possibly impeachable offenses included Trump ’ s conduct in dealings with the authoritarian leaders of China and Turkey .
Bolton says that he shared his concerns about the President ’ s actions with the Attorney General , William Barr , and that Barr was also “ very worried about the appearances Trump was creating.
” ( Barr has put out a statement that is meant to dispute this . )

John Bolton was not looking to make friends in the Trump White House when he served as the national-security adviser, nor did he do so. Bolton’s disdain for his colleagues in the Administration announces itself early and often in his new memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” which is due out Tuesday, pending the outcome of a legal battle with Trump’s Justice Department. Bolton mocks, disparages, or clashes with Steven Mnuchin, Nikki Haley, Rex Tillerson, James Mattis, Mike Pompeo, and others, all within the book’s first hundred pages. By the end of the nearly five-hundred-page book, Bolton also criticizes Mick Mulvaney, Jared Kushner, the entire White House economic team, many of his foreign counterparts, and, although he shares their misgivings about Donald Trump, the House Democrats who impeached the President.
This is Washington score-settling on an epic scale. Mnuchin, the Treasury Secretary, “had no idea what he was talking about.” Haley, who served as the Ambassador to the United Nations, is a self-promoting pol who sucked up to Trump’s family. Mattis, the former Defense Secretary, is a bureaucratic obstructionist who deluded himself into thinking that an “axis of adults” could manage the unmanageable President. Pompeo, the Secretary of State, who would emerge as the great internal enemy during Bolton’s seventeen-month tenure, is an untruthful hypocrite who flatters Trump to his face while dumping on him privately. “He is so full of shit,” Pompeo writes of the President in a note to Bolton while they are in a conference room in Singapore, listening to Trump exchange frothy compliments and unrealistic denuclearization plans with the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un. After that summit, Pompeo told a Principals Committee meeting in the White House that Trump’s nuclear diplomacy with North Korea had “zero probability of success.” Later, after a G-20 meeting, Pompeo told Bolton that Trump was always causing problems: “You can’t leave him alone for a minute.”
One of the few other senior advisers to Trump with whom Bolton did not openly clash was John Kelly, perhaps because they both shared an outsized disdain for the President. Kelly, the retired Marine general who served as the second of Trump’s four-and-counting White House chiefs of staff, sat Bolton down to brief him a couple of days before Bolton’s first day on the job, in the spring of 2018. Trump swears and speaks to his staff in “rough language,” Kelly cautioned Bolton. Trump routinely attacks the two previous Republican Presidents, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, and despises those who served in their Administrations, as Bolton did. Trump changes his mind “constantly,” Kelly said. Bolton was nothing if not forewarned. Two years and two months after that conversation, Bolton has come forward to say in public what Kelly told him privately that day—and much more. The ultimate score-settling in the book is not with Pompeo or Mnuchin. It is with Donald Trump, a man so corrupt and profoundly unsuited for the Presidency that his own national-security adviser, a lifelong Republican with unimpeachable partisan credentials, came to believe he adopted “obstruction of justice as a way of life.”
Of course, many will—and already have—objected to the book on the grounds that Bolton is a greedy and opportunistic hypocrite, who took a reported two million dollars from Simon & Schuster for writing the memoir but did not testify before Congress about allegations contained within it during the House impeachment hearings and Senate trial of Trump. Bolton should have been a key witness, given that the proceedings concerned Trump’s scheme to pressure Ukraine to launch politically motivated investigations of the Biden family. Bolton’s staff testified that he called Trump’s scheme an inappropriate “drug deal,” and Bolton confirms in the book that he heard from the President himself about his quid-pro-quo withholding of U.S. military aid to Ukraine. With such explosive information, Bolton’s failure to speak out remains largely unexplained, or at least not convincingly explained, in the memoir. The book does, however, amply confirm Bolton’s reputation as a fierce infighter with an inflated view of himself and a willingness to blame others for just about everything. He is clearly a flawed narrator and colleague—let’s stipulate that. As for the book itself, the reviewer at the Times has already weighed in on its merits as a piece of writing. Twitter, meanwhile, seems to be taking care of Bolton’s merits as a human being. The many failings of Bolton are the one thing that Adam Schiff and Trump agree on. Schiff, who led the impeachment inquiry that Bolton refused to help, called him an author but “no patriot.” Trump, in a series of post-midnight tweets early on Thursday, called him “a disgruntled boring fool,” a “wacko,” “incompetent” “dope” who “never had a clue, was ostracized & happily dumped.”
Just as notably, the President did not offer a convincing rebuttal, or much of a denial at all, about Bolton’s allegations, which go well beyond what previous insider tell-alls have already put on the voluminous public record about Trump. Bolton’s book, in fact, is a scathing and revelatory account of Trump’s “stunning ignorance,” incompetence, and corruption, and it should be taken seriously for what it is: the harshest on-the-record indictment yet of Trump by a former subordinate. A copious notetaker in meetings, Bolton is known as a flamethrower, not a liar. The Administration is taking extraordinary legal measures to suppress his account, with the Justice Department claiming in court this week that it illegally discloses classified information. This legal argument would be impossible to make if the Administration were claiming that Bolton’s allegations are simply untrue. There is no such thing as a classified lie. The bottom line is that while Bolton offers a portrait of Trump that is politically and personally self-serving, it is also indispensable, jaw-dropping, and more specific about high-level wrongdoing than the many embittered memoirs and background gripes to journalists that preceded it.
There are many other former senior officials who could have written a version of this book but did not. John Kelly appears to have loathed Trump as much as Bolton does, yet he has not shared what he knows with the public. When Jim Mattis, Trump’s much admired first Defense Secretary, published his own recent memoir, he wrote of a “duty to silence” to the President and refused to elaborate about why he quit. Even when he did speak out recently, it was only to criticize Trump’s use of violent force, earlier this month, to remove peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square for a photo op. On the subject of what he saw inside the White House, Mattis has remained silent. Rex Tillerson, Trump’s ignominiously dumped first Secretary of State, told an interviewer that Trump often asked him to do illegal things, orders which he refused, but Tillerson has never said what those were. I’d love to hear from Paul Ryan, the former Republican Speaker of the House, who left a promising career in politics rather than continue in office through the Trump Presidency. I’d love to hear from Reince Priebus and Kirstjen Nielsen and Jeff Sessions and all the other enablers, but they have not spoken up, at least with their names attached. Bolton, flawed as he is, is the Trump truth-teller we are stuck with—for now. And what a truth he offers us.
As the national-security adviser, Bolton’s lens for viewing Trump was the President’s interactions with the rest of the world. His most startling and newsworthy allegation is that Trump not only fawned over authoritarian leaders but repeatedly sought to do inappropriate or legally dubious favors for autocrats in exchange for them boosting Trump’s reëlection chances. The Ukraine scheme that led to the President’s impeachment, Bolton argues, was hardly an outlier; other possibly impeachable offenses included Trump’s conduct in dealings with the authoritarian leaders of China and Turkey. Bolton says that he shared his concerns about the President’s actions with the Attorney General, William Barr, and that Barr was also “very worried about the appearances Trump was creating.” (Barr has put out a statement that is meant to dispute this.)
Other parts of Bolton’s withering download on Trump are neither criminal nor impeachable, just profoundly depressing. Has there ever been a stupider, more ignorant President? Trump thought Finland was part of Russia. He did not know that Britain is a nuclear power. He told Kelly an invasion of Venezuela would be “cool.” Trump was obsessed with following up on the empty promises of the Singapore nuclear summit by making sure that Kim received a copy of a CD with the Elton John song “Rocket Man” on it that Trump had autographed for him. Bolton portrays Trump as a President single-mindedly consumed with himself and his prospects for reëlection, rather than any policy goals. But if there is one policy takeaway from the book, it is that NATO is in dire trouble if Trump wins a second term. The President’s hostility to the alliance would reappear over and over in private, no matter how many times his advisers thought that they had convinced him of its vital importance. Trump saw Europeans as adversaries, not America’s closest allies, and often, according to Bolton, told advisers different versions of the idea that “the EU is worse than China, only smaller.”


newyorker--2020-06-18--Seeing Police Brutality Then and Now

Seeing Police Brutality Then and Now

We can see by now that the anti-police-brutality protests of 2020 differ profoundly from those of the nineteen-sixties .
And I do mean see .
We ’ re seeing many protesters who are not black and marches in more places : large , small , urban , rural .
These are protests ignited by seeing , seeing horrific videos of criminal acts again and again and again .
The very fact of the sameness of police brutality then and police brutality now intensifies an anger that remains totally justified .
In the sixties , the Black Panther Party arose to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ created a visual archive of justified outrage .
Today ’ s protesters know that their actions and the images they create will enter the political history of confronting injustice .
This has not been the case for anti-police-brutality imagery created a half century ago .
We still haven ’ t fully seen the art made by those twentieth-century angry black artists .
Back then , in California ’ s Bay Area , where I grew up , police violence , including the killing of an unarmed black teen-ager in San Francisco , prompted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense .
The late Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale , students at Merritt College , in Oakland , bonded in reaction to an exclusionary version of California history that was being taught at the school .
Then , as now , lily-white history was a part of the ideology supporting white-supremacist police .
I belong to Newton and Seale ’ s generation , and I supported the B.P.P.
’ s denunciation of brutal police .
But I never joined up , for reasons geographical ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Oakland , next to Berkeley , where Kamala Harris grew up ) and gendered ( the B.P.P.
’ s gun-toting , masculinist self-fashioning ) .
When the Panthers moved into community service and focussed on programs such as free breakfasts for children and public health , women like Ericka Huggins came to the fore .
Today ’ s anti-racist activism , led by women , is beautifully feminist and eschews macho posturing .
The B.P.P .
announced a Ten-Point Program of goals for social and economic justice , which surely inspired Black Lives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ half a century later , and , as it matured , adopted an anti-colonial , internationalist stance .
Nonetheless , armed opposition to police brutality remained the Panthers ’ heart and soul , the mission that attracted thousands into their ranks .
Social and economic justice and the Panthers ’ ( legally carried ) guns sounded like communism to J. Edgar Hoover ’ s F.B.I.
, which soon designated the B.P.P .
a threat to national security .
F.B.I .
surveillance and infiltration , together with killings at the hands of the local @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the early nineteen-eighties .
Images were central to the Black Panther Party ’ s self-fashioning and mark its place in history .
One of the best known is a photograph of Seale and Newton in black berets and leather jackets , carrying guns , standing outside the Black Panther Party storefront headquarters in Oakland .
A group of Panthers had been photographed carrying guns into the California state capitol building , in Sacramento , to protest gun-control measures attempting to curb their then existing right to carry arms openly .
It is likely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which served as a recruiting poster , because he took many other photographs of the Black Panthers .
( In 2009 , he published a collection of these photos titled “ Howard L. Bingham ’ s Black Panthers 1968.
” Bingham died in 2016 . )
The image of black men enacting armed self-defense now resonates as a counterweight to heavily armed white nationalists around the U.S.A. demanding an end to public-health regulations meant to contain the coronavirus pandemic .
Bingham ’ s photographs capture Panther activities in a documentary spirit .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ agitprop artwork of Emory Douglas , the B.P.P .
Minister of Culture , which was published in the The Black Panther newspaper and plastered around the Bay Area as posters .
Week after week , Douglas ’ s searing wit visualized the urgency for action , such as this image of children carrying photographs , one that shows police victimizing a child : Armed women and mothers appeared frequently in Douglas ’ s work , protecting their children and wearing natural hair .
In this drawing , the police are shown as agents @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Inspired by graphic design , woodcuts in particular , Douglas used bold black lines and often just one color .
He combined patterns like Ben-Day dots and parallel lines , and added shading and layers to flattened images .
Douglas also popularized “ pigs ” as the epithet for policemen , and he would show “ pigs ” singularly or in twos or threes , to represent not only local police but also the economic and political forces of war , Nixon , capitalism , and colonialism .
The big-bellied “ pig @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up , an emblem of the abuse of power ; one image defined him as “ a low natured beast that has no regard for law , justice , or the rights of people .
.
.
a foul , depraved traducer , usually found masquerading as the victim of an unprovoked attack.
” Right now , we are angry because police brutality and racism are so old , and they keep on happening .
Art history needs to help us remember that our anger is not new , that half a century @ @ @ @ @ @ @ racial injustice resolutely .
Douglas ’ s work belongs to American political history , but it should also figure in the history of twentieth-century American art .
His body of work is one of several oeuvres needlessly missing from the art-history canon .
Among the missing , Charles White comes to mind immediately .
My own narrative history , “ Creating Black Americans : African-American History and Its Meanings , 1619 to the Present , ” is not an art history but contains a great deal of black art .
Looking there , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Catlett , Jeff Donaldson , and Pat Ward Williams .
The work of Betye Saar , Faith Ringgold , and Howardena Pindell , artists now in their deep maturity , who are also in “ Creating Black Americans , ” is only now becoming widely visible .
Here is the art history for the moment that we are in , work that addresses themes of anti-black violence and armed self-defense .
Once this moment passes , we will need an accessible art history of righteous anger , as opposed to one that exiles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aren ’ t these works part of the art-history canon ?
Some of the answer lies in the definitions of fine art that prevailed during the twentieth century , when this art was made .
A pertinent example is the cranky , conservative , influential Times art critic Hilton Kramer , who called black art merely “ social history ” lacking “ stringent esthetic criteria.
” When I was a student in art school , in the early two-thousands , I still encountered such judgments .
Art was supposed to be “ autonomous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ engaged , activist art was dismissed as mere illustration .
Right now , the art-history canon presents the nineteen-sixties as Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art , in images that depict an America without racial conflict and that celebrate consumer capitalism .
Angry art inhabits a peculiar category of the art of protest , one peripheral to the history of American art .
Let us recuperate the art that testifies to a long-standing , uncompromising opposition to police brutality .
This furious art belongs not only to anti-racist heritage but also in the center @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world , like American society at large , was so segregated that the absence of black artists in galleries and museums was business as usual .
That color bar gave rise to anti-racist art organizations like Spiral , the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition , and the Studio Museum in Harlem , in New York , and the National Center of Afro-American Artists , in Boston , all intended to lower racial barriers .
The hard work of these institutions has weakened art-world exclusion and discredited the outmoded distinction between art and social criticism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ black and engaged artists has been widely appreciated as art history .
But the twentieth-century anti-racist art by Emory Douglas and others inspired by the Black Panther Party and Black Power has hardly been rediscovered .
It has not made its way into the art-historical canon , which conveys both monetary and cultural value .
Douglas ’ s work is more easily found on tote bags being sold on behalf of Black Lives Matter than in the high-priced galleries and auctions that still decree which art matters .

We can see by now that the anti-police-brutality protests of 2020 differ profoundly from those of the nineteen-sixties. And I do mean see. We’re seeing many protesters who are not black and marches in more places: large, small, urban, rural. These are protests ignited by seeing, seeing horrific videos of criminal acts again and again and again.
The very fact of the sameness of police brutality then and police brutality now intensifies an anger that remains totally justified. In the sixties, the Black Panther Party arose to confront police brutality, and the Panthers created a visual archive of justified outrage. Today’s protesters know that their actions and the images they create will enter the political history of confronting injustice. This has not been the case for anti-police-brutality imagery created a half century ago. We still haven’t fully seen the art made by those twentieth-century angry black artists.
Back then, in California’s Bay Area, where I grew up, police violence, including the killing of an unarmed black teen-ager in San Francisco, prompted the organization, in October, 1966, of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. The late Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, students at Merritt College, in Oakland, bonded in reaction to an exclusionary version of California history that was being taught at the school. Then, as now, lily-white history was a part of the ideology supporting white-supremacist police.
I belong to Newton and Seale’s generation, and I supported the B.P.P.’s denunciation of brutal police. But I never joined up, for reasons geographical (I lived in Temescal, in North Oakland, next to Berkeley, where Kamala Harris grew up) and gendered (the B.P.P.’s gun-toting, masculinist self-fashioning). When the Panthers moved into community service and focussed on programs such as free breakfasts for children and public health, women like Ericka Huggins came to the fore. Today’s anti-racist activism, led by women, is beautifully feminist and eschews macho posturing.
The B.P.P. announced a Ten-Point Program of goals for social and economic justice, which surely inspired Black Lives Matter’s six-point platform of demands half a century later, and, as it matured, adopted an anti-colonial, internationalist stance. Nonetheless, armed opposition to police brutality remained the Panthers’ heart and soul, the mission that attracted thousands into their ranks. Social and economic justice and the Panthers’ (legally carried) guns sounded like communism to J. Edgar Hoover’s F.B.I., which soon designated the B.P.P. a threat to national security. F.B.I. surveillance and infiltration, together with killings at the hands of the local police, helped destroy the organization by the early nineteen-eighties.
Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton at the Black Panther Party headquarters, in Oakland. Photograph from Alamy
Images were central to the Black Panther Party’s self-fashioning and mark its place in history. One of the best known is a photograph of Seale and Newton in black berets and leather jackets, carrying guns, standing outside the Black Panther Party storefront headquarters in Oakland. A group of Panthers had been photographed carrying guns into the California state capitol building, in Sacramento, to protest gun-control measures attempting to curb their then existing right to carry arms openly. It is likely that Howard L. Bingham took this photo, which served as a recruiting poster, because he took many other photographs of the Black Panthers. (In 2009, he published a collection of these photos titled “Howard L. Bingham’s Black Panthers 1968.” Bingham died in 2016.) The image of black men enacting armed self-defense now resonates as a counterweight to heavily armed white nationalists around the U.S.A. demanding an end to public-health regulations meant to contain the coronavirus pandemic.
Bingham’s photographs capture Panther activities in a documentary spirit. More intriguing to me now is the agitprop artwork of Emory Douglas, the B.P.P. Minister of Culture, which was published in the The Black Panther newspaper and plastered around the Bay Area as posters. Week after week, Douglas’s searing wit visualized the urgency for action, such as this image of children carrying photographs, one that shows police victimizing a child:
A drawing by Emory Douglas, the Black Panthers’ Minister of Culture, shows children demanding an end to police brutality. Art work by Emory Douglas
Armed women and mothers appeared frequently in Douglas’s work, protecting their children and wearing natural hair. In this drawing, the police are shown as agents of an unjust system of property owning:
An Emory Douglas poster shows a mother holding her child, and a gun. Art work by Emory Douglas
Inspired by graphic design, woodcuts in particular, Douglas used bold black lines and often just one color. He combined patterns like Ben-Day dots and parallel lines, and added shading and layers to flattened images.
Douglas also popularized “pigs” as the epithet for policemen, and he would show “pigs” singularly or in twos or threes, to represent not only local police but also the economic and political forces of war, Nixon, capitalism, and colonialism. The big-bellied “pig” character was often drunken and banged up, an emblem of the abuse of power; one image defined him as “a low natured beast that has no regard for law, justice, or the rights of people . . . a foul, depraved traducer, usually found masquerading as the victim of an unprovoked attack.”
Right now, we are angry because police brutality and racism are so old, and they keep on happening. Art history needs to help us remember that our anger is not new, that half a century ago an organization and its artist confronted racial injustice resolutely.
Douglas’s work belongs to American political history, but it should also figure in the history of twentieth-century American art. His body of work is one of several oeuvres needlessly missing from the art-history canon. Among the missing, Charles White comes to mind immediately. My own narrative history, “Creating Black Americans: African-American History and Its Meanings, 1619 to the Present,” is not an art history but contains a great deal of black art. Looking there, I find other vital works by Elizabeth Catlett, Jeff Donaldson, and Pat Ward Williams. The work of Betye Saar, Faith Ringgold, and Howardena Pindell, artists now in their deep maturity, who are also in “Creating Black Americans,” is only now becoming widely visible.
Here is the art history for the moment that we are in, work that addresses themes of anti-black violence and armed self-defense. Once this moment passes, we will need an accessible art history of righteous anger, as opposed to one that exiles these images to the margins. Why aren’t these works part of the art-history canon? Some of the answer lies in the definitions of fine art that prevailed during the twentieth century, when this art was made. A pertinent example is the cranky, conservative, influential Times art critic Hilton Kramer, who called black art merely “social history” lacking “stringent esthetic criteria.” When I was a student in art school, in the early two-thousands, I still encountered such judgments. Art was supposed to be “autonomous,” speaking only to itself; engaged, activist art was dismissed as mere illustration.


newyorker--2020-06-19--Donald Trump Returns to a Changed Campaign Trail

Subscribers to The New Yorker ’ s new 2020 election newsletter , On the Trail , received this piece in their in-boxes .
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Donald Trump ’ s priority these past months , amid a pandemic , an economic collapse , and a reckoning with racial injustice , has been to get back on the campaign trail .
This is a President who filed for reëlection the day he was inaugurated , who still talks about the day he “ came down the escalator , ” in 2015 .
He tried to turn daily @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and when that failed , he stopped holding them .
He attacked the people protesting in the streets— “ when the looting starts , the shooting starts ” —the way he ’ d once attacked kneeling N.F.L .
players , but backed off when public opinion on the protests failed to split in the usual partisan way .
The interconnected crises gripping the country have had the side effect of , for the first time in his Presidency , forcing Trump off center stage .
Notwithstanding Trump ’ s minimizing of the dangers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t-believe-it-until-you-see-it promises of a return to normalcy , the permanent campaign of the permanent campaigner has been forced to pause .
Even his own campaign admits this .
Earlier this week , the Associated Press reported on the Trump campaign ’ s recent ad spending—a preposterously well-financed effort that Brad Parscale , Trump ’ s campaign manager , has compared to the Death Star from “ Star Wars ” —and its inability to prevent the recent erosion in Trump ’ s standing in the polls .
“ Trump campaign officials say it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ performance of the campaign ad buys over the last month as predictive for the future , ” the Associated Press wrote .
“ The campaign , they said , is only just starting to emerge from a coronavirus-induced freeze that dominated public attention , and they ’ ve spent only a fraction of their record-breaking war chest.
” But the campaign trail that Trump will now attempt to return to has been changed by the events of America ’ s long , difficult spring .
And the story behind his campaign comeback rally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Trump announced that he would hold his first rally in months , in Tulsa , Oklahoma , on June 19th .
According to the Times , Parscale picked Tulsa because it “ seemed easy.
” Oklahoma is an extremely Trump-friendly state , its COVID-19 outbreak had been relatively small , and it was further along the path to reopening than the rest of the country .
But things only seemed easy .
The Trump campaign managed to pick both a date—June 19th is Juneteenth , the date that commemorates the end of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white Tulsans killed hundreds of their black neighbors in one of the worst race massacres in American history—which only inflamed a public that was already protesting in the streets .
The outcry forced the campaign to move the date of the rally to June 20th .
When was the last time that Trump or his political operation have been forced to do anything they don ’ t want to do ?
( For more on the history and the context of policing and racism in Tulsa , read Victor Luckerson ’ s portrait @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . )
Meanwhile , there is still a pandemic going on .
The rally will be held in the BOK Center , an arena that seats up to nineteen thousand people .
Masks won ’ t be mandatory , and the top health official in Tulsa is pleading with the campaign not to hold the event .
But the campaign is moving ahead .
Trump wants to get back on the trail .
But not even his rallies , which have proved a political oasis for the President ’ s ego in recent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ situation in this country .
Attendees on Saturday have been asked to sign a waiver promising not to hold the Trump campaign liable if they get sick .

Subscribers to The New Yorker’s new 2020 election newsletter, On the Trail, received this piece in their in-boxes. Sign up to receive future installments.
Donald Trump’s priority these past months, amid a pandemic, an economic collapse, and a reckoning with racial injustice, has been to get back on the campaign trail. This is a President who filed for reëlection the day he was inaugurated, who still talks about the day he “came down the escalator,” in 2015. He tried to turn daily COVID-19 press briefings into campaign events, and when that failed, he stopped holding them. He attacked the people protesting in the streets—“when the looting starts, the shooting starts”—the way he’d once attacked kneeling N.F.L. players, but backed off when public opinion on the protests failed to split in the usual partisan way. The interconnected crises gripping the country have had the side effect of, for the first time in his Presidency, forcing Trump off center stage. Notwithstanding Trump’s minimizing of the dangers of the coronavirus, and his you-won’t-believe-it-until-you-see-it promises of a return to normalcy, the permanent campaign of the permanent campaigner has been forced to pause.
Even his own campaign admits this. Earlier this week, the Associated Press reported on the Trump campaign’s recent ad spending—a preposterously well-financed effort that Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager, has compared to the Death Star from “Star Wars”—and its inability to prevent the recent erosion in Trump’s standing in the polls. “Trump campaign officials say it’s a mistake to take the performance of the campaign ad buys over the last month as predictive for the future,” the Associated Press wrote. “The campaign, they said, is only just starting to emerge from a coronavirus-induced freeze that dominated public attention, and they’ve spent only a fraction of their record-breaking war chest.” But the campaign trail that Trump will now attempt to return to has been changed by the events of America’s long, difficult spring. And the story behind his campaign comeback rally reflected these changes.
Earlier this month, Trump announced that he would hold his first rally in months, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 19th. According to the Times, Parscale picked Tulsa because it “seemed easy.” Oklahoma is an extremely Trump-friendly state, its COVID-19 outbreak had been relatively small, and it was further along the path to reopening than the rest of the country. But things only seemed easy. The Trump campaign managed to pick both a date—June 19th is Juneteenth, the date that commemorates the end of slavery in America—and a location—in 1921, white Tulsans killed hundreds of their black neighbors in one of the worst race massacres in American history—which only inflamed a public that was already protesting in the streets. The outcry forced the campaign to move the date of the rally to June 20th. When was the last time that Trump or his political operation have been forced to do anything they don’t want to do? (For more on the history and the context of policing and racism in Tulsa, read Victor Luckerson’s portrait of the activists pushing for change there.)
Meanwhile, there is still a pandemic going on. The rally will be held in the BOK Center, an arena that seats up to nineteen thousand people. Masks won’t be mandatory, and the top health official in Tulsa is pleading with the campaign not to hold the event. But the campaign is moving ahead. Trump wants to get back on the trail. But not even his rallies, which have proved a political oasis for the President’s ego in recent years, can escape the increasingly dire situation in this country. Attendees on Saturday have been asked to sign a waiver promising not to hold the Trump campaign liable if they get sick.


newyorker--2020-06-19--Diversity Fellowship Accepting Applications for the Next Five Minutes

We at the Breckinridge Institute are thrilled to support diverse voices in the arts once again through our annual fellowship .
The “ Breck ” has kickstarted the careers of acclaimed novelists , Emmy-winning showrunners , and Oscar-nominated filmmakers over the course of its thirty-year run , and we are now—for the next five minutes—accepting applications for our 2020 diversity fellowship .
1 .
Help us get to know you by submitting a personal essay , résumé , and artist statement .
Attach no more than one ( 1 ) PDF file labelled in the following way : Applications that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ convention will not be considered .
2 .
We ’ re attracted to artists who have a clear idea of what they ’ ll tackle during the fellowship .
Describe your project in one or fewer sentences .
3 .
What will have been achieved at the end of your proposed work ?
What will be irrevocably lost ?
4 .
Does your work address a social issue ?
Please describe any personal and professional traumas that make you qualified to address this topic .
5 .
How would you solve this problem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Could those policies pass in the House ?
How would we pay for them ?
That ’ s too lofty .
Get the hell out of my country .
6 .
How will you use the award funds ?
Submit an itemized budget for equipment , supplies , and Target runs .
7 .
Past Breckinridge recipients have found success in television writer ’ s rooms .
What would you bring to a room ?
Why are you a fit ?
Did you grow up in Columbus ?
Hmm .
Maddy ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pit Bulls & Parolees ” ?
No ?
Ah , too bad—the whole room ’ s binging that right now .
Q : Who will review my submission ?
A : We ’ re all kind of curious what a pitch deck is , if you want to send one over .
A : Writing duos should submit separate applications rife with incriminating information about their partner .
Q : Will I receive feedback on my application ?
A : Unfortunately , the rubric by which packet readers evaluate your worth is proprietary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ travel costs and living expenses ?
A : No , fellows are responsible for making their own accommodations in the country ’ s most expensive metropolitan area .
This form is no longer accepting responses .
Finalists have been notified .
Congratulations to this year ’ s class of Breckinridge fellows on an unforgettable six weeks of hard work and discovery .
Follow us on social media for details about next year ’ s fellowship .

We at the Breckinridge Institute are thrilled to support diverse voices in the arts once again through our annual fellowship. The “Breck” has kickstarted the careers of acclaimed novelists, Emmy-winning showrunners, and Oscar-nominated filmmakers throughout the course of its thirty-year run, and we are now—for the next five minutes—accepting applications for our 2020 diversity fellowship.
Submission Instructions
1. Help us get to know you by submitting a personal essay, résumé, and artist statement. Attach no more than one (1) PDF file labelled in the following way:
LastName_FirstName_SocialSecurityNumber_Résumé
Applications that don’t adhere to this naming convention will not be considered.
2. We’re attracted to artists who have a clear idea of what they’ll tackle during the fellowship. Describe your project in one or fewer sentences.
3. What will have been achieved at the end of your proposed work? What will be irrevocably lost?
4. Does your work address a social issue? Please describe any personal and professional traumas that make you qualified to address this topic.
5. How would you solve this problem? What policies would you enact? Could those policies pass in the House? How would we pay for them? That’s too lofty. Get the hell out of my country.
6. How will you use the award funds? Submit an itemized budget for equipment, supplies, and Target runs.
7. Past Breckinridge recipients have found success in television writers’ rooms. What would you bring to a room? Why are you a fit? Did you grow up in Columbus? Hmm. Maddy’s from Columbus. Are you watching “Pit Bulls & Parolees”? No? Ah, too bad—the whole room’s binging that right now.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Whites?
A: Yes.
Q: Who will review my submission?
A: See above.
Q: Should I include supplemental materials?
A: We’re all kind of curious what a pitch deck is, if you want to send one over.
Q: Can I submit as a writing duo?
A: Writing duos should submit separate applications rife with incriminating information about their partner.
Q: Will I receive feedback on my application?
A: Unfortunately, the rubric by which packet readers evaluate your worth is proprietary information.
Q: Do you cover travel costs and living expenses?
A: No, fellows are responsible for making their own accommodations in the country’s most expensive metropolitan area.
Deadline
This form is no longer accepting responses. Finalists have been notified. Congratulations to this year’s class of Breckinridge fellows on an unforgettable six weeks of hard work and discovery. Follow us on social media for details about next year’s fellowship.


newyorker--2020-06-19--Growing Up with Juneteenth

Growing Up with Juneteenth

When I was a little girl , in Texas , I thought Juneteenth belonged to us , meaning to the state of Texas generally and to black Texans specifically .
In my small town , the story of Gordon Granger , the U.S. Army general who announced , in Galveston , on June 19 , 1865 , that slavery was over , was told with seriousness and bits of gallows humor .
The older people joked that the Emancipation Proclamation had actually been signed two years before , but “ the white people ” wanted to get a few extra @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Negroes ” about it .
My father would say , with a sardonic smile and a short laugh , that it was worse than that : “ the slaves have never really been freed.
” The jokes played upon several basic truths .
The Emancipation Proclamation had , in fact , been signed more than two years before , but its provisions could only be applied in areas controlled by the U.S. Army .
Confederate forces in Texas did not surrender until June 2 , 1865 .
Even after Granger ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to enslave people who had not heard the news .
Those who had heard were often forcibly prevented from acting as if any material change had taken place .
Freedom had come in legal terms , but the story was not so clear on the ground as it was on paper .
Former enslavers unleashed violence upon the people whom they had claimed as property , and others threatened to do so in order to make people work .
Amid joy and hope was great malevolence and power .
As my father ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ slavery still lingered , putting true freedom out of reach .
I don ’ t recall white Texans celebrating Juneteenth .
Then again , I wouldn ’ t know ; the holiday was part of the summer , and summer took kids in my home town out of the schools and back into our racially separated communities .
For our part , Juneteenth meant drinking red soda water and eating barbecued goat , along with other traditional Southern dishes .
I loved the red soda water part .
I was not so much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just that I disliked the taste .
Goat was not a usual part of the menu in my area , so , if goat was to be had , one had to be killed and prepared , which I watched a neighbor do on one occasion , to my horror .
Whatever leanings I have toward vegetarianism grew out of watching a terrified animal as he was hung upside down , bleating , just before his throat was slit .
But that ritual was easily avoided , and we kids , our mouths @ @ @ @ @ @ @ playing games , throwing firecrackers , and lighting sparklers until night fell .
The holiday we celebrated with whites , though seldom together , was the Fourth of July .
The difference between the two days was apparent to me even as a kid .
Whites had much more reason to see the Declaration of Independence as the fulfillment of something : namely , of their desire to create a nation over which they exercised control .
From the country ’ s earliest days , whites in the South , in particular , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their power over African-Americans , power that they maintained , through legal and extra-legal means , even after slavery ’ s end .
The long effort to loosen that grip had been the project of black activists and their white allies during the second half of the twentieth century .
By the time of my early childhood , those efforts were just beginning to bear fruit .
For blacks , the Declaration carried a promise not yet fulfilled .
It was in this sense that Juneteenth and the Fourth of July were , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration about equality echo in the executive order that Granger read , that June , from the villa where he was living : The Confederacy , of which Texas had been a part , had emphatically rejected the Declaration ’ s language about equality .
Indeed , in his famous “ Cornerstone Speech , ” from 1861 , Alexander Stephens , the Vice-President of the Confederacy , called out Jefferson by name : Jefferson in his forecast , had anticipated [ slavery ] , as the “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ split.
” He was right .
.
.
The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution , were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature ; that it was wrong in principle , socially , morally , and politically .
.
.
.
Those ideas , however , were fundamentally wrong .
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea ; its foundations are laid , its corner-stone rests , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is not equal to the white man ; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition .
This , our new government , is the first , in the history of the world , based upon this great physical , philosophical , and moral truth .

When I was a little girl, in Texas, I thought Juneteenth belonged to us, meaning to the state of Texas generally and to black Texans specifically. In my small town, the story of Gordon Granger, the U.S. Army general who announced, in Galveston, on June 19, 1865, that slavery was over, was told with seriousness and bits of gallows humor. The older people joked that the Emancipation Proclamation had actually been signed two years before, but “the white people” wanted to get a few extra harvest seasons in before they told “the Negroes” about it. My father would say, with a sardonic smile and a short laugh, that it was worse than that: “the slaves have never really been freed.”
The jokes played upon several basic truths. The Emancipation Proclamation had, in fact, been signed more than two years before, but its provisions could only be applied in areas controlled by the U.S. Army. Confederate forces in Texas did not surrender until June 2, 1865. Even after Granger’s announcement, many whites in Texas continued to enslave people who had not heard the news. Those who had heard were often forcibly prevented from acting as if any material change had taken place. Freedom had come in legal terms, but the story was not so clear on the ground as it was on paper. Former enslavers unleashed violence upon the people whom they had claimed as property, and others threatened to do so in order to make people work. Amid joy and hope was great malevolence and power. As my father’s jibe suggested, the legacies of slavery still lingered, putting true freedom out of reach.
I don’t recall white Texans celebrating Juneteenth. Then again, I wouldn’t know; the holiday was part of the summer, and summer took kids in my home town out of the schools and back into our racially separated communities. For our part, Juneteenth meant drinking red soda water and eating barbecued goat, along with other traditional Southern dishes. I loved the red soda water part. I was not so much into eating goat. It was not just that I disliked the taste. Goat was not a usual part of the menu in my area, so, if goat was to be had, one had to be killed and prepared, which I watched a neighbor do on one occasion, to my horror. Whatever leanings I have toward vegetarianism grew out of watching a terrified animal as he was hung upside down, bleating, just before his throat was slit. But that ritual was easily avoided, and we kids, our mouths red, spent most of our time playing games, throwing firecrackers, and lighting sparklers until night fell.
The holiday we celebrated with whites, though seldom together, was the Fourth of July. The difference between the two days was apparent to me even as a kid. Whites had much more reason to see the Declaration of Independence as the fulfillment of something: namely, of their desire to create a nation over which they exercised control. From the country’s earliest days, whites in the South, in particular, saw their freedom as inextricably linked to their power over African-Americans, power that they maintained, through legal and extra-legal means, even after slavery’s end. The long effort to loosen that grip had been the project of black activists and their white allies during the second half of the twentieth century. By the time of my early childhood, those efforts were just beginning to bear fruit.
For blacks, the Declaration carried a promise not yet fulfilled. It was in this sense that Juneteenth and the Fourth of July were, in fact, related. The words that Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration about equality echo in the executive order that Granger read, that June, from the villa where he was living:
The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.
The Confederacy, of which Texas had been a part, had emphatically rejected the Declaration’s language about equality. Indeed, in his famous “Cornerstone Speech,” from 1861, Alexander Stephens, the Vice-President of the Confederacy, called out Jefferson by name:
Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated [slavery], as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right . . . The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. . . . Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.
As a child, I knew nothing of Stephens or his statement of the Confederacy’s bedrock principles. But it is no wonder that such attitudes, so passionately felt and expressed, would pass down through generations in some white families, and still remain resonant—and be familiar to me—when I gained consciousness as part of a community outside of my family. Although important, Granger’s reading of an executive order—an order based upon the will of a President already assassinated, two months earlier, by a man who feared black equality—was only a tiny step toward the work that had to be done.
I also did not know, as a child, how intensely African-Americans had fought to keep alive the memory of Juneteenth—to commemorate our ancestors’ struggles and their hopes, and to link them to our own. As I grew older, I learned, from my mother, about Emancipation Park, in nearby Houston. Emancipation Park is one of the oldest public parks in the state. It was founded, in 1872, when four men who had been enslaved raised money from two churches and purchased ten acres of land on which to hold Juneteenth celebrations. A few decades later, in the nineteen-tens, the city gained control of the land and made it a segregated public park. On Juneteenth, black people gathered there, in their Sunday best, to hear speeches and readings of the Emancipation Proclamation. All of this took place in the years of Jim Crow. Texas, with a smaller percentage of blacks than more notorious southern states like Mississippi or Alabama, was a very hard place. Between 1882 and 1968, it had the third-highest number of lynchings in the United States.


newyorker--2020-06-19--Juneteenth and the Meaning of Freedom

Juneteenth and the Meaning of Freedom

When word circulated earlier this month that Donald J. Trump would resume his campaign rallies on June 19th , with an event in Tulsa , Oklahoma , the confluence of date and location suggested that his typically leaden-handed racial trolling had taken on new levels of nuance .
On its face , the choice of Tulsa defies political logic .
In the upcoming Presidential election , Oklahoma is neither in play ( Trump currently holds a nineteen-point lead there ) nor lucrative ( it will deliver just seven electoral votes to the winner ) .
By comparison , Trump trails @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Pennsylvania , and eight points in Michigan—all states that have more electoral votes and are crucial to Trump ’ s reëlection hopes .
But , when taken in conjunction with the date—June 19th , or Juneteenth , the informal holiday on which African-Americans recognize the delayed emancipation of the enslaved inhabitants of Texas—the choice of the second-largest city in a sparsely populated , deeply red state assumes additional significance .
Ninety-nine years ago , the homes and the businesses of the black community in that city were levelled , and as many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white mobs in what came to be known as the Tulsa Massacre .
To close observers , Trump ’ s move seemed like a knockoff of Ronald Reagan ’ s decision to speak in Philadelphia , Mississippi—the site of the murders of the civil-rights workers Andrew Goodman , James Chaney , and Michael Schwerner—in August , 1980 , immediately after he had won the Republican Presidential nomination .
( In June , 2016 , Donald Trump , Jr. , made a campaign stop there on behalf of his father ; Trump himself made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , that summer , he polled higher than in any other state . )
But Trump , and whoever in his Administration proposed the Tulsa rally , likely had more contemporary concerns .
If the serial protests , the outrage , and the conflagrations of the past three weeks can be viewed as a statement about race in the United States , the rally was meant to be a response .
Like Reagan in 1980 , Trump is apparently seeking to shore up support among whites who not only tolerate racism but feel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the group being persecuted .
Yet even this inspired bit of middle-fingering the movement was shot through with Trumpian ineptitude .
For decades , even among African-Americans , Juneteenth was primarily celebrated by those who lived in or were from Texas .
In recent years , it has been more widely observed , but still overwhelmingly by African-Americans .
The Trump team , in designing the Juneteenth stunt , dramatically elevated awareness of the day .
Companies across the country have made Juneteenth a paid vacation day ; governors , including Ralph Northam @ @ @ @ @ @ @ declare it an official state holiday .
The backlash prompted Trump to postpone the rally by twenty-four hours .
In another sense , though , the Administration ’ s actions were entirely apt for a day bound up with the ambivalent history of freedom in the United States .
On June 19 , 1865 , when Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston , Texas , to deliver General Order No .
3 , proclaiming emancipation , the Civil War had been over for two months and freedom , at least theoretically , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years earlier , by President Lincoln ’ s Emancipation Proclamation .
( Congress had passed the Thirteenth Amendment , which abolished most forms of slavery , in January , 1865 , though it was not ratified until December . )
The size and the geography of Texas aided slaveholders in attempts to keep those enslaved from learning of emancipation .
This was vital to the war effort : Lincoln ’ s edict had been calculated to disrupt the Confederate economy , which depended on enslaved labor .
To the extent that Southern whites @ @ @ @ @ @ @ themselves , that labor force could be held in check .
The strategy didn ’ t work : news of the emancipation spread , and Confederate states were hampered by black people escaping to the Union lines , with many of the men enlisting in the Northern ranks .
The language of the Texas order spoke to the fragile nature of this new freedom ; the paragraph that affirms the end of slavery also warns the black population against idleness and notes that unauthorized gatherings at military posts will not be tolerated .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to balance Northern interests and to incentivize Southern states with at least the possibility of retaining slavery if they rejoined the Union : the order freed only those people enslaved in areas of the country that were rebelling against the federal government .
But Texas was in rebellion , and its black population did qualify for freedom on January 1 , 1863 , when the proclamation took effect .
Texas ignored the proclamation , as did the ten other Confederate states .
This all indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the significance of Juneteenth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ additional months of uncompensated labor from people who had been bought , sold , and worked to exhaustion , like livestock , throughout their lives is cause for mourning , not celebration .
In honoring that moment , we should recognize a moral at the heart of that day in Galveston and in the entirety of American life : there is a vast chasm between the concept of freedom inscribed on paper and the reality of freedom in our lives .
In that regard , Juneteenth exists as a counterpoint to the Fourth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ arrival of American ideals , the former stresses just how hard it has been to live up to them .
This failure was not exclusive to the South .
Northern states generally abolished slavery in the decades after the American Revolution , but many slaveholders there , rather than free the people they held in bondage , sold them to traders in the South , or moved to states where the institution was still legal .
The black men , women , and children who heard Granger ’ s pronouncement a hundred and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ slaves ; they were a barometer of American democracy .
There ’ s a paradox inherent in the fact that emancipation is celebrated primarily among African-Americans , and that the celebration is rooted in a perception of slavery as something that happened to black people , rather than something that the country committed .
The paradox rests on the presumption that the arrival of freedom should be greeted with gratitude , instead of with self-reflection about what allowed it to be deprived in the first place .
Emancipation is a marker of progress @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Trump , in planning to go to Tulsa for Juneteenth , was not trolling black people .
He was trolling the United States Constitution .
♦

Illustration by João Fazenda
When word circulated earlier this month that Donald J. Trump would resume his campaign rallies on June 19th, with an event in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the confluence of date and location suggested that his typically leaden-handed racial trolling had taken on new levels of nuance. On its face, the choice of Tulsa defies political logic. In the upcoming Presidential election, Oklahoma is neither in play (Trump currently holds a nineteen-point lead there) nor lucrative (it will deliver just seven electoral votes to the winner).
By comparison, Trump trails Joe Biden by five points in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and eight points in Michigan—all states that have more electoral votes and are crucial to Trump’s reëlection hopes. But, when taken in conjunction with the date—June 19th, or Juneteenth, the informal holiday on which African-Americans recognize the delayed emancipation of the enslaved inhabitants of Texas—the choice of the second-largest city in a sparsely populated, deeply red state assumes additional significance. Ninety-nine years ago, the homes and the businesses of the black community in that city were levelled, and as many as three hundred people were killed by white mobs in what came to be known as the Tulsa Massacre.
To close observers, Trump’s move seemed like a knockoff of Ronald Reagan’s decision to speak in Philadelphia, Mississippi—the site of the murders of the civil-rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner—in August, 1980, immediately after he had won the Republican Presidential nomination. (In June, 2016, Donald Trump, Jr., made a campaign stop there on behalf of his father; Trump himself made three campaign visits to Mississippi, where, that summer, he polled higher than in any other state.)But Trump, and whoever in his Administration proposed the Tulsa rally, likely had more contemporary concerns. If the serial protests, the outrage, and the conflagrations of the past three weeks can be viewed as a statement about race in the United States, the rally was meant to be a response. Like Reagan in 1980, Trump is apparently seeking to shore up support among whites who not only tolerate racism but feel that they, in fact, are the group being persecuted.
Yet even this inspired bit of middle-fingering the movement was shot through with Trumpian ineptitude. For decades, even among African-Americans, Juneteenth was primarily celebrated by those who lived in or were from Texas. In recent years, it has been more widely observed, but still overwhelmingly by African-Americans. The Trump team, in designing the Juneteenth stunt, dramatically elevated awareness of the day. Companies across the country have made Juneteenth a paid vacation day; governors, including Ralph Northam, of Virginia, announced plans to declare it an official state holiday. The backlash prompted Trump to postpone the rally by twenty-four hours. In another sense, though, the Administration’s actions were entirely apt for a day bound up with the ambivalent history of freedom in the United States.
On June 19, 1865, when Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to deliver General Order No. 3, proclaiming emancipation, the Civil War had been over for two months and freedom, at least theoretically, had been granted two and a half years earlier, by President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. (Congress had passed the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished most forms of slavery, in January, 1865, though it was not ratified until December.) The size and the geography of Texas aided slaveholders in attempts to keep those enslaved from learning of emancipation. This was vital to the war effort: Lincoln’s edict had been calculated to disrupt the Confederate economy, which depended on enslaved labor. To the extent that Southern whites could keep the knowledge of emancipation to themselves, that labor force could be held in check. The strategy didn’t work: news of the emancipation spread, and Confederate states were hampered by black people escaping to the Union lines, with many of the men enlisting in the Northern ranks. The language of the Texas order spoke to the fragile nature of this new freedom; the paragraph that affirms the end of slavery also warns the black population against idleness and notes that unauthorized gatherings at military posts will not be tolerated.
The Emancipation Proclamation itself had been hedged to balance Northern interests and to incentivize Southern states with at least the possibility of retaining slavery if they rejoined the Union: the order freed only those people enslaved in areas of the country that were rebelling against the federal government. But Texas was in rebellion, and its black population did qualify for freedom on January 1, 1863, when the proclamation took effect. Texas ignored the proclamation, as did the ten other Confederate states. This all indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the significance of Juneteenth. The fact that slaveholders extracted thirty additional months of uncompensated labor from people who had been bought, sold, and worked to exhaustion, like livestock, throughout their lives is cause for mourning, not celebration. In honoring that moment, we should recognize a moral at the heart of that day in Galveston and in the entirety of American life: there is a vast chasm between the concept of freedom inscribed on paper and the reality of freedom in our lives.
In that regard, Juneteenth exists as a counterpoint to the Fourth of July; the latter heralds the arrival of American ideals, the former stresses just how hard it has been to live up to them. This failure was not exclusive to the South. Northern states generally abolished slavery in the decades after the American Revolution, but many slaveholders there, rather than free the people they held in bondage, sold them to traders in the South, or moved to states where the institution was still legal. The black men, women, and children who heard Granger’s pronouncement a hundred and fifty-five years ago in Galveston were not slaves; they were a barometer of American democracy.
There’s a paradox inherent in the fact that emancipation is celebrated primarily among African-Americans, and that the celebration is rooted in a perception of slavery as something that happened to black people, rather than something that the country committed. The paradox rests on the presumption that the arrival of freedom should be greeted with gratitude, instead of with self-reflection about what allowed it to be deprived in the first place. Emancipation is a marker of progress for white Americans, not black ones. Trump, in planning to go to Tulsa for Juneteenth, was not trolling black people. He was trolling the United States Constitution. ♦
Race, Policing, and Black Lives Matter Protests


newyorker--2020-06-19--HAIM’s Carefree and Comfortable New Album

The latest record from HAIM , “ Women in Music Pt .
III , ” has a slouchy , comfortable @ @ @ @ @ recorded it while lounging in the breeze , letting inspiration drift around them like dandelion @ @ @ @ @ of their previous work has been pared back to a crisp , easy buoyancy on @ @ @ @ @ this apparent effortlessness doesn ’ t compromise emotional complexity ; “ Man from the Magazine @ @ @ @ @ are reflections on sexism and loss , made more powerful by the album ’ s @ @ @

The latest record from HAIM, “Women in Music Pt. III,” has a slouchy, comfortable quality—as though the three sisters recorded it while lounging in the breeze, letting inspiration drift around them like dandelion seeds. The busy production of their previous work has been pared back to a crisp, easy buoyancy on upbeat tracks. Still, this apparent effortlessness doesn’t compromise emotional complexity; “Man from the Magazine” and “Hallelujah” are reflections on sexism and loss, made more powerful by the album’s carefree air.


newyorker--2020-06-19--The History That James Baldwin Wanted America To See

On March 16 , 1968 , James Baldwin walked to the podium at a fund-raiser , at Anaheim ’ s Disneyland Hotel , to introduce Dr. Martin Luther King , Jr. Baldwin had recently arrived in Los Angeles from New York , after Columbia Pictures had bought the rights to Alex Haley ’ s “ The Autobiography of Malcolm X ” and asked Baldwin to write the script .
Though eager , he had ended up fighting desperately to bring his story of Malcolm to the screen .
Baldwin wanted Billy Dee Williams to play the lead , but the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There were even rumors that someone had suggested a darkened Charlton Heston .
The fund-raiser was meant to replenish the coffers of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference ( S.C.L.C . )
and to help fund King ’ s latest project , the Poor People ’ s Campaign .
King wanted to make the case for massive direct action , in Washington , D.C. , on behalf of the country ’ s impoverished .
To do so , he would need to marshal greater financial resources than ever before .
Desegregating lunch counters didn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poverty would cost the nation billions of dollars .
King found that many who once supported his desegregation efforts were less than enthusiastic about his agenda on jobs and poverty .
The idea of occupying the nation ’ s capital with poor people scared many activists—even some on the board of the S.C.L.C .
For others , such as Bayard Rustin , a trusted adviser to King since the days of the Montgomery bus boycott , such an act of civil disobedience courted violence and threatened to turn even more white Americans against @ @ @ @ @ @ @ S.C.L.C .
to focus on electing Democrats to political office , not on building a tent city or staging sit-ins at congressional offices .
How Baldwin ended up at the fund-raiser is unclear , although Marlon Brando , who organized it , may have invited him ; the two were close .
In any case , Baldwin had not been expecting to introduce King , and his short speech said little about the leader .
Instead , he told a brief story about the promise of the early days of the civil-rights movement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the country .
“ What Rosa Parks was saying in Montgomery , in 1956 , and what the Negroes were saying in their march .
.
.
the country did not want to hear or did not hear , ” Baldwin told the audience .
“ And as time rolled on and kids , including people like Stokely Carmichael , were being beaten with chains , going to jail , marching up and down those dusty highways , trying to change the conscience of this country , still nobody heard and nobody really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all about the wall of white supremacy that stood in the way of fundamental transformation .
His was an effort to jog the memory and , by extension , the morality of the audience , by telling a different story about what happened to a movement on the brink of failure .
When King reached the podium , he did not acknowledge Baldwin specifically , and instead offered a generic thanks to all those who had spoken before him .
It was only later that the two men conferred privately .
“ We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and tried to bring each other up to date .
Alas , it would never be possible .
.
.
.
” Baldwin recalled in his book “ No Name in the Street , ” from 1972 .
“ We had first met during the last days of the Montgomery bus boycott—and how long ago was that ?
It was senseless to say , eight years , ten years ago—it was longer ago than time can reckon.
” Baldwin ’ s general sense of the encounter was that King was a bit skeptical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ King since his first trip to the South , in 1957 , and had worked beside him over the years , he felt that King was discomfited by his presence .
“ Martin and I had never got to know each other well , ” he wrote .
“ Circumstances , if not temperament , made that impossible.
” In 1963 , King was caught on tape , by the F.B.I.
, expressing concern about Baldwin .
He didn ’ t want to appear on television with the writer , he said , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ movement.
” To King , Baldwin was not a civil-rights leader ; he was just one celebrity , among many , willing to lend his star power to the movement .
It ’ s not impossible to imagine , too , that Baldwin ’ s queerness unsettled him .
By the time of the fund-raiser , the distance between the two men had been widened by Baldwin ’ s sympathies for the militancy of the younger generation .
He was in Hollywood , after all , writing a screenplay on Malcolm X .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Baldwin had hosted a birthday party and fund-raiser for Huey P. Newton , the jailed leader of the Black Panther Party .
In 1968 , King felt intense pressure from such radical groups , and from recent shifts in the political climate .
The nation had seemed to turn its back on his moral vision .
Writing in The New York Review of Books , Andrew Kopkind , a white journalist of the New Left , declared that King had been “ outstripped by his times.
” A young black woman , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , had even accused King of selling out the Selma movement , as he and other members of the S.C.L.C .
board arrived for a meeting in Washington , D.C. Baldwin had long seen this turn against King on the horizon .
In 1961 , he had written an article for Harper ’ s Magazine titled “ The Dangerous Road Before Martin Luther King.
” In it , he noted how King ’ s voice had changed from the heady days of the bus boycott , and detailed the challenges that King was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a revolutionary time .
“ He was more beleaguered than he had ever been before , and not only by his enemies in the white South , ” Baldwin wrote .
“ Three years earlier , I had not encountered very many people—I am speaking now of Negroes—who were really critical of him .
But many more people seemed critical of him now , were bitter , disappointed , skeptical.
” Baldwin argued that King had to confront the meaning of a new , uncompromising spirit in the movement .
Leaders like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who rejected the underlying premise that made “ the traditional black leader ” necessary in the first place .
As Baldwin put it , “ These young people have never believed in the American image of the Negro and have never bargained with the Republic , and now they never will .
There is no longer any basis on which to bargain.
” Even in 1961 , Baldwin had sensed that these young people might have a point .
By 1968 , when he gave his speech in Anaheim , he saw @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rights and Voting Rights Acts , a few years earlier , might offer white America the sense of self-congratulation that Black Power was now denying it .
He knew that the civil-rights movement could easily be conscripted into the story of how Americans , in their inherent goodness , had perfected the Union .
The history being made could be bent in service of the lie .
For Baldwin , that lie had to be challenged at its root—which is why , perhaps , he devoted his introduction to telling a true story @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Baldwin had finished speaking , King gave a speech that echoed Baldwin ’ s account .
It wasn ’ t a story of American triumphalism .
Instead , King expressed concern that the movement was losing the battle for the soul of the nation .
He conjured , without a hint of nostalgia , a history of people acting heroically against the odds , a history full of disappointment and trauma .
He did not mince words : America was a decidedly racist country .
“ The problem can only be solved when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conscience , ” he said .
“ Now I am not sure if we have that many consciences left .
Too many have gone to sleep .
”

Like Baldwin, King struggled with America’s commitment to the belief that white people mattered more, and to the lie that made that belief palatable. “I must honestly confess that I go through those moments of disappointment when I have to recognize the fact that there aren’t enough white persons in our country who are willing to cherish democratic principles over privilege,” he said. “But I’m grateful to God that some are left.” As King brought his speech to a close, he tried, once more, to reach for the promise of America, vowing that the country would one day move forward because, “however much she strays away from it, the goal of America is freedom.” His sombre tone betrayed his words.
The importance of history had been in full view for both Baldwin and King just a few weeks earlier, at a Carnegie Hall event, in New York City, celebrating what would have been the hundredth birthday of W. E. B. Du Bois, the great African-American intellectual and the co-founder of the N.A.A.C.P. Du Bois, after seven decades of fighting for racial justice in the United States, had given up on America and died, in exile, in Accra, Ghana, on the eve of the March on Washington, in 1963. Although Baldwin had been working on an essay about Du Bois, he chose the occasion at Carnegie Hall to read a recently published piece, “Black Power.” Here, at this celebration of Du Bois, who dedicated his life to exposing America’s lies, Baldwin sought to shift the balance of concern from criticism of militancy among young black people to an honest assessment of the conditions that made such a turn necessary.
King disagreed with the rhetoric and symbolism of Black Power. He found no use for what he called a “mystique of blackness” or “the angry militant who fails to organize.” But he, too, was a student of Du Bois’s work, and he understood what Du Bois taught regarding “our tasks of emancipation.” “One idea he insistently taught,” King said in his speech at the event, “was that black people have been kept in oppression and deprivation by a poisonous fog of lies that depicted them as inferior, born deficient, and deservedly doomed to servitude to the grave.”
King’s remarks at Carnegie Hall, like his remarks in Anaheim, were shadowed by a note of despair. The country was in turmoil. “Negroes have heavy tasks today,” he said. “We were partially liberated and then reënslaved.” Although black people had been fighting for freedom “for more than a hundred years,” the only thing that was “explicitly certain is that the struggle for it will endure.”
Baldwin and King would be together one last time, at a fund-raiser in New York City. Baldwin didn’t have a suit for the occasion, so he ran out to have one fitted. Later, he returned to California to work on the Malcolm X film, the direction of which he was still debating with studio executives. On the night of April 4, 1968, Baldwin was sitting by his swimming pool with Billy Dee Williams, listening to an Aretha Franklin record, when the phone rang. It was his friend David Moses. “Jimmy,” Moses said. “Martin’s just been shot. He’s not dead yet, but it’s a head wound, so . . .” Baldwin dropped the phone and wept. A few days later, he wore his new suit to King’s funeral.
Baldwin was hardly naïve about the human capacity for evil, especially in white folk. “If you’re a Negro, you’re in the center of that peculiar affliction,” he said, “because anybody can touch you—when the sun goes down. You know, you’re the target of everybody’s fantasies.” But what shocked him was that white America had killed someone who espoused love, an apostle of nonviolence. King’s death revealed the depths of white America’s debasement and the scope of black America’s peril. “Perhaps even more than the death itself, the manner of his death has forced me into a judgment concerning human life and human beings which I have always been reluctant to make,” he wrote. “Incontestably, alas, most people are not, in action, worth very much; and yet, every human being is an unprecedented miracle. One tries to treat them as the miracles they are, while trying to protect oneself against the disasters they’ve become.”
If King was the preacher, Baldwin was the poet, and he sought to account for his confusion by gathering up the pieces—of himself, of black folk—buried beneath the disaster that was the country. That work kept his despair at arm’s length. To be sure, King’s death, just like those of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and all the others, did not stop time. White people did not stop being white people. Two days after King’s murder, the Black Panther Bobby Hutton was killed by Oakland police officers. Later, police rioted in Chicago, during the Democratic National Convention. The nastiness of the white world kept coming, and it gave black politics—and Baldwin’s voice—an edge. King’s death had revealed the bitterness at the bottom of the cup. What Baldwin saw on that dangerous road that led to King’s death, in Memphis, was the difficult question of whether or not the country had the courage to confront its demons. Could America tell itself the truth about how it had arrived at this moment? And did it have the moral stamina to surrender the comfort of its lies?
In July of 1968, just a few months after King’s assassination and against the backdrop of American cities burning, Baldwin gave an interview to Esquire. He set the tone of the exchange from the very start:
Q. How can we get the black people to cool it? A. It is not for us to cool it. Q. But aren’t you the ones who are getting hurt the most? A. No, we are only the ones who are dying fastest.
The editors did not seem to grasp how the moral burden of America’s nightmare rested not on the black people rioting in the streets but on the white people who held tightly to the belief that they were somehow, because of the color of their skin, better than others. These people, Baldwin argued, had to see themselves otherwise. New laws, gestures of sympathy, and acts of racial charity would never suffice to change the course of the country. Something more radical had to be done; a different history had to be told. “All that can save you now is your confrontation with your own history . . . which is not your past, but your present,” Baldwin said. “Your history has led you to this moment, and you can only begin to change yourself by looking at what you are doing in the name of your history.”
On August 12, 2017, James Fields, Jr., a twenty-year-old self-proclaimed neo-Nazi from Kenton, Kentucky, floored the gas pedal of his 2010 Dodge Challenger and roared down a narrow street full of anti-racist protesters, during the “Unite the Right” rally, in Charlottesville, Virginia. Heather Heyer, who was raised in nearby Ruckersville, was in the crowd. According to people who knew her, Heyer, thirty-two, had spent much of her life “standing up against any type of discrimination.” As Fields’s speeding car sent shoes, cell phones, and bodies flying into the air, Ryan Kelly, a photographer for the Daily Progress, captured the carnage. Heyer is framed between a man falling behind the car’s back bumper, one Air Jordan-clad foot twisted horribly in the air, and the tattooed torso of a white man in mid-somersault. She is leaning to the side as the muscle car hits her and plows through the crowd. Heyer died at the scene, and dozens more were injured. Fields was eventually convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
The occasion of this violence was a bitter battle over American history and how we ought to remember it. In March, 2016, Wes Bellamy, Charlottesville’s vice-mayor and a member of its city council, advocated for the removal of Confederate monuments to Robert E. Lee and Thomas (Stonewall) Jackson. Zyahna Bryant, a high-school freshman in Charlottesville, joined Bellamy’s effort. She circulated a petition demanding the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue in a local park and submitted it to the council. The council agreed to remove the statue by a vote of three to two.
Then, in 2017, all hell broke loose. Emboldened by the election of Donald Trump, who had often and overtly appealed to white identity, local white nationalists saw an opportunity to exploit the council’s decision. The nationalists believed that the actions of the council were an assault on white people. In their view, the soldiers of political correctness had disfigured and distorted American history, in general, and Southern history, in particular. Their outrage prompted the “Unite the Right” rally, the largest gathering of white nationalists and neo-Nazis in recent memory. That day ended with Fields’s murderous drive on Fourth Street.
It is telling that such brutality broke out over a fight regarding the symbols and uses of American history. As both Baldwin and King insisted, each in their own way, America is an identity that white people will protect at any cost, and the country’s history—its founding documents, its national heroes, its claim to be a moral force in the world—is the supporting argument that underpins that identity. This history is inseparable from the nation’s built environment; both monuments and the ways in which communities are spatially organized reinforce it. When King declared that the country’s moral vision had been clouded by “a poisonous fog of lies,” and when Baldwin said in Esquire that we needed to look at what we are doing in the name of our history, both were arguing that this history, the story we tell ourselves about what the country is, shapes the world we make going forward.
The debate over Confederate monuments makes this plain. For white nationalists, the Confederacy represents a triumph of a certain understanding of America, in which the superiority of white people in all social, political, and cultural arrangements is enshrined. From that perspective, open-air tributes to white supremacy make sense. The more complex question is what we do with those who are willing to condemn neo-Nazis but who still claim Confederate statues as part of their “heritage.” These are the people for whom Judge Richard E. Moore, of the Charlottesville Circuit Court, ruled, in April, 2019, that the Confederate statues must remain in the area. “While some people obviously see Lee and Jackson as symbols of white supremacy, others see them as brilliant military tacticians or complex leaders in a difficult time,” Moore wrote in his decision.
Moore was presenting a different narrative about the statues. After Charlottesville, though, American historians made clear that the monuments were not, in fact, erected as contemporaneous memorials of the Civil War. Most were built many years later, either between the eighteen-nineties and the first decades of the twentieth century, when most of the Confederate veterans began to die, or in the nineteen-fifties, when the demand for racial equality intensified. They were, in other words, monuments to an ideology, physical representations of the “Lost Cause” in public space. They insisted on the false claim that the Civil War centered not on slavery but on the heroic defense of the Southern way of life.
Black people challenged these monuments even as they were being built. In “Black Reconstruction in America,” from 1935, Du Bois exposed the lies at the heart of that era’s historiography, unmasking the influential works of the political scientist John W. Burgess and the historian William A. Dunning. The Dunning School, the first generation of trained historians to write about Reconstruction, told the story of the period as one of extensive overreach of federal power and the corruption of northern carpetbaggers; Dunning viewed the granting of political rights to former slaves as a monstrous mistake. Du Bois cast scorn on this attempt to write history as “pleasant reading for Americans.” For him, the Confederate statues represented the triumph of Dunning’s sensibility. The history that justified their construction banished, once and for all, the horrors of slavery, and left American identity safe and secure.
Nearly a century later, we are still trying to transcend such “pleasant reading.” Three days after the display of white supremacy in Charlottesville, the President held an infamous press conference in Trump Tower. He blamed “both sides” for the violence, and went on to flatly reject the idea of removing Confederate statues, employing a not-so-deft piece of moral relativism: “George Washington was a slave owner. . . . So will George Washington lose his statues? . . . How about Thomas Jefferson? . . . He was a major slave owner.” For Trump, celebration of the Confederacy—a region that committed treason to defend the institution of slavery—was American history. By playing on the knowledge that Washington and Jefferson were, to most Americans, unimpeachable, he sought to suggest that there was an argument for Lee, too, and to imply that taking down statues of the general was a slippery slope which would somehow unravel our most basic assumptions about America. His then chief of staff, General John Kelly, agreed, giving an interview, on Fox News, in which he said that protests of the statues showed “a lack of appreciation of history, and what history is.”
Trump’s and Kelly’s understanding of history is precisely what Baldwin critiqued in 1968. But Baldwin also insisted that such lies might enable us, if we’re honest, to tell the story of America differently. Trump, for all his bluster, asked a necessary question: What do we do with George Washington? For the President, this question was simplistic, binary: Do Washington’s statues stay up or come down? But that’s not how history works. We might ask, instead, what the story of slavery and Reconstruction—or of Washington and Jefferson—looks like when it neither glosses over the cruelty of this country nor rejects its potential for betterment.
Something like this question confronted the community of Princeton University, where I teach, in November, 2015. That month, the Black Justice League, a student activist organization on campus, staged a thirty-three-hour sit-in at the president’s office. The action was part of a national student movement in support of anti-racism protests at the University of Missouri. In one of the Black Justice League’s many demands, the students requested that the administration “publicly acknowledge the racist legacy of Woodrow Wilson,” rename the Wilson residential college and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and remove a mural of Wilson in one of the school’s dining halls.
This demand cut to the heart of Princeton’s self-understanding. Wilson was the president of the university from 1902 to 1910; much of what the school is, as a serious institution of higher learning, has been attributed to him. But the students wanted the university to complicate the story it told itself about Wilson, to acknowledge what his racist legacy meant to its black students, and to consider how that legacy, represented in public space, devalued them. There was indignity, they argued, in sleeping or eating in a building named after someone who thought you an inferior human being.
Spurred by the students’ protest, Princeton’s president, Christopher Eisgruber, and the school’s board of trustees established a committee to reëxamine the ways in which the university commemorated Wilson. Scholars, biographers, and members of the school community were invited to contribute to the conversation. Nell Painter, an emerita professor and the author of “The History of White People,” spoke to the heart of the matter. “It’s all about the questions we ask,” she said. “The questions have changed. I mean, the questions always change. That’s why we keep writing history.”