February 4
GUEST: Dr. Caroline Janney, Professor of the American Civil War, Director of the John L. Nau Center for Civil War History at the University of Virginia, and author of five books, talks about the power of "lost causes" and how our country can overcome racism and white nationalism.
History of the American Civil War
History of the American Civil War
The shocking events that happened to the United States this January 6 had many historical precedents. The problem is that most Americans simply aren't aware of them. Take the festering racism that is at the core of any colonial enterprise. Native Americans and Black slaves have always been disposable when there was land to be had or money to be made.
The recent successes of the Black Lives Matter movement was sure to provoke a white nationalist backlash, the same as it always has before. Turning the loss of white privilege into political power is something that a leader like Trump was able to do quite easily.
Do we as a nation simply impeach Trump and go on with our lives? Or do we look at the combination of white nationalism, lost causes and gross income disparity and decide to heal our society? Some of the pillars of our republic are rotting and need replacing. Swapping a ridiculous fascist for an agreeable neoliberal will only delay things for another four years. In the meantime, we live in a society rife with violence and economic injustice. We live in a country that has been at war with the Third World for the last two decades.
Dr. Janney suggests that past mistakes have always informed our national present. We opened our emerging colony up to slavery 400 years ago. That lingering racism is still in our DNA, doing its dirty work in every Proud Boy's heart.
