Spielberg's Lincoln

[My Name Is Kate]

(02-19-2013 08:02 PM)Liz Rosenthal Wrote:  I'm not descended from slaves, but *I* resent the fact that the U.S., touted as a beacon of light to the world, started out with 250 years of slavery and 100 years of Jim Crow, something that only ended during my childhood, while the aftereffects linger on. Abraham Lincoln himself wrote to his friend Joshua Speed in 1855 that (I'm paraphrasing) he'd almost rather live in Russia, a country where they make no pretense of liberty, than live in a country that is supposed to treasure liberty but, hypocritically, does not act that way.

If we just "move on," and choose to "forget" the shameful aspects of our history...

I see no point in continuing to resent "a fact" which so many have fought and died to correct over the history of this country. I'm curious as to what this country would need to do for you (not just you, of course, but anyone who feels like you do) to no longer feel resentful toward it, or will you always feel that way? I think it is pretty remarkable that a country with the ideals of America, as expressed in the Constitution, was created at all during a time when there was not much else besides tyranny and imperialism as models for government (according to what you wrote above). I suppose I could feel resentful too because women were discriminated against in many ways, and didn't have the right to vote until the 1920s or so (I'm drawing on my sparse reserves of historical knowledge here), but in my opinion, that would be just plain silly.

If you (again, anyone) find resonance with the above quote by Lincoln, then do your sympathies lie more with the South, which made no pretense at all of liberty for certain Americans, or with the North, which had qualms about actually enslaving certain Americans, but had no qualms about segregating and demoralizing them?

I guess you didn't notice that I said I was not advocating "forgetting" the atrocities of the past. I was just trying to be practical when I said that it was best to "move on" and let go of useless and destructive emotions.