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fandomhigh2018-02-16 07:17 am
imafuturist) wrote in fandomhigh2018-02-16 07:17 am
Lies Your Other American History Teachers Told You, Friday
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," Tony began. "The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
"Ten bucks the guy sitting in the White House has no idea what those words are from," Steve said a little bitterly. "They're off the plaque on the Statue of Liberty and while some bigoted morons will point out that a poem is not legally binding, the spirit behind them has been guiding the United States, more or less, for the last two hundred years. Our enduring myth about ourselves is that this is where you come with nothing and through pure grit can become a millionaire, like Henry Ford did. Or Elon Musk."
"The idea, we will grant them, was real. Many people came to this country from places of rigid class structures or where revolutions in the style of our failed for one reason or another," Tony said. "And, for many, it was hope. The reality is a much harder pill to swallow. After the Civil War, there was a lot of population shifts. Newly freed black men and women came to Northern cities for jobs. An influx of European immigrants were also headed to northern cities, fleeing upheavals abroad too. This started created an economic powder keg."
"You might have heard it mentioned in the last election as 'economic anxiety'," Steve said. "Another word for it is nativism. Or xenophobia. The status quo was changing and those at the top of the heap, faced with the notion that they might get treated as badly as they had been treating others once the shoe was on the other foot, fought hard against it. You've probably seen the signs in your other history books: no blacks or Irish need apply."
"You can think of the nation as an organism. Most creatures strive for a sort of homeostasis--equilibrium." He just had to correct himself like a giant nerd. "But in this instance, the sense of equilibrium is a little Animal Farm. All are equal, but some are more equal than others. And any challenge to that, any tipping of what they want the system to be is met with violent opposition. Lynching of black Americans, riots involving Irish, German, Hungarian--a whole mass of 'unfamiliar' European immigrants..." Tony trailed off with a sigh. "There were also Nativist political groups popping up all over the country with the full intent of reasserting their idea of America."
"White, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant," Steve said dryly. "Conveniently forgetting they were maybe two generations off of a boat themselves--and definitely ignoring that an entire population had been brought to the United States against its will while another had been and was continuing to be wiped out in a unceasing quest for more farmland and gold--the Nativists used their money and their power to try to stay on the top of the heap." He smiled. "But the new immigrants, the ones coming from nothing and with nothing to lose? They were very, very used to this kind of stuff back in the Old Country, too--whichever Old Country they hailed from--and they had workarounds. Labor unions, for instance, which is something most history books will kind of skate right over."
Tony smiled as well, hopping up onto the desk to take a seat. "So, let's discuss. Do you believe the dream of America is alive or dead? Can ideals really exist in the world we live in or are they necessary because of it?"
Steve nodded. "And can we even begin to discuss the idea of a land of opportunity when American won't admit it has a problem with classism?"
"Ten bucks the guy sitting in the White House has no idea what those words are from," Steve said a little bitterly. "They're off the plaque on the Statue of Liberty and while some bigoted morons will point out that a poem is not legally binding, the spirit behind them has been guiding the United States, more or less, for the last two hundred years. Our enduring myth about ourselves is that this is where you come with nothing and through pure grit can become a millionaire, like Henry Ford did. Or Elon Musk."
"The idea, we will grant them, was real. Many people came to this country from places of rigid class structures or where revolutions in the style of our failed for one reason or another," Tony said. "And, for many, it was hope. The reality is a much harder pill to swallow. After the Civil War, there was a lot of population shifts. Newly freed black men and women came to Northern cities for jobs. An influx of European immigrants were also headed to northern cities, fleeing upheavals abroad too. This started created an economic powder keg."
"You might have heard it mentioned in the last election as 'economic anxiety'," Steve said. "Another word for it is nativism. Or xenophobia. The status quo was changing and those at the top of the heap, faced with the notion that they might get treated as badly as they had been treating others once the shoe was on the other foot, fought hard against it. You've probably seen the signs in your other history books: no blacks or Irish need apply."
"You can think of the nation as an organism. Most creatures strive for a sort of homeostasis--equilibrium." He just had to correct himself like a giant nerd. "But in this instance, the sense of equilibrium is a little Animal Farm. All are equal, but some are more equal than others. And any challenge to that, any tipping of what they want the system to be is met with violent opposition. Lynching of black Americans, riots involving Irish, German, Hungarian--a whole mass of 'unfamiliar' European immigrants..." Tony trailed off with a sigh. "There were also Nativist political groups popping up all over the country with the full intent of reasserting their idea of America."
"White, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant," Steve said dryly. "Conveniently forgetting they were maybe two generations off of a boat themselves--and definitely ignoring that an entire population had been brought to the United States against its will while another had been and was continuing to be wiped out in a unceasing quest for more farmland and gold--the Nativists used their money and their power to try to stay on the top of the heap." He smiled. "But the new immigrants, the ones coming from nothing and with nothing to lose? They were very, very used to this kind of stuff back in the Old Country, too--whichever Old Country they hailed from--and they had workarounds. Labor unions, for instance, which is something most history books will kind of skate right over."
Tony smiled as well, hopping up onto the desk to take a seat. "So, let's discuss. Do you believe the dream of America is alive or dead? Can ideals really exist in the world we live in or are they necessary because of it?"
Steve nodded. "And can we even begin to discuss the idea of a land of opportunity when American won't admit it has a problem with classism?"
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And can we even begin to discuss the idea of a land of opportunity when American won't admit it has a problem with classism?
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"The dream itself," he hedged, "is hurting. But I think dreams worth having don't really die. They might hit roadblocks, sometimes really huge ones, and that makes it even more important to work to see the dream be restored."
It was a weirdly optimistic view for him to take, but he had an occasional history of clinging to the weirdly optimistic in face of apparent disaster.
"That doesn't mean that bringing it back is going to be easy," he noted. "It doesn't even mean that it might happen in our lifetime. But if people don't believe that it's a dream worth fighting for, then it never will."
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"I don't think the dream is dead," he said finally. "Struggling, maybe. But having an imperfect world, or country, or whatever, and keeping on with trying to make it better makes more sense to me than giving up and going 'oh well everything is terrible let's just burn it all down'."
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