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The rise of Barack Obama on the national political scene has inevitably rejuvenated
a debate as to who was the first black President. Author Toni Morrison argued that, figuratively, Bill Clinton was the first
black President; Lucas Morel believes otherwise.
Lucas Morel, Ph.D, Associate Professor of Politics at Washington
and Lee University, says that “to
the contrary of Toni Morrison, Abraham Lincoln not William Jefferson Clinton was our first black President and deserves
to be studied and celebrated as an integral contributor to black progress in
American History.” “No American regardless of color did more to establish human
equality as the basis for fulfilling America’s promise than Lincoln,” he argued.
Discussing the topic The
Problem of Black History: Race, Memory, and the American Creed at the
Heritage Foundation last week, Morel said that “Black history month has mixed
blessings because it emphasizes race and in so doing it obscures what makes the
achievements of Black Americans worth remembering and celebrating, not race but
the accomplishment of individual human beings.”
However, there are questions as to whether calling it
African-American History month alienates African-Americans from the rest of
American History. It is worth noting that there are many African-Americans
worth remembering in American History, but “what is Black History in the
context of American History? What is its relationship to American History and
to America more generally? Rather than being
divisive and separatist, could the narrative of Black History be uniting?”
asked Matthew Spalding, Director, B.
Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies at Heritage Foundation.
Morel argued that presumably those being remembered in the
African-American History month are being remembered not simply because they
were black but because they had done something significant in America. He then asked; “should there be an
African-American History month? Is it helpful to celebrate the achievement of
Black Americans as Black Americans? Or does this hinder our ability to become
one united people under a common current government?”
In reference to Fredrick
Douglass, (one of the leaders of the abolitionist movement and adviser to
President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War), Morel reiterated that “the
annual celebration could teach black Americans to love this country which they
and their forefathers have done so much to develop.” He said Douglass hoped for
a more accurate history of who made America what it is, and that Black history
month calls to mind American individuals to historical events that contributed
to our development as a people.
However, does this pose a challenge for African-Americans who
ought to have integrated in the community yet still commemorate events that are
non-inclusive?
Morel argued that “The problem with black history is that it
can reinforce the notion that blacks are a separate and distinct portion of the
American population and in some sense not fully absorbed into the American mainstream.
The goal of inclusion is compromised by the means that imply exclusion.”
Morel said that Frederick Douglass believed that to “focus on
Black American achievement necessitated by [a] hitherto racially prejudicial
account of American history can point in a direction away from the ideals and
practices that made America break from the past. By focusing on race, we
inadvertently highlight the very thing that the American creed of human
equality stands against.”
He added that “Fredrick Douglass discovered that the
constitution never mentioned race and therefore could and ought to be
interpreted as a pro-liberty document.” He noted that “the formation of what Douglass
called ‘complexional institutions’, that is, colored associations and
conventions were hindrances rather than helps in achieving a higher and better
estimation of public mind on blacks as a race.”
Morel said Douglass argued that as long as African-Americans
are seen and treated as exceptions, color prejudice will continue and they will
never become full members of the American community.
He added that according to Douglass, “the sum of black man’s
misfortunes and calamities are just here. He is everywhere, treated as an
exception to all the general rules which should operate in relations of other
men. He argued that you lay down a rule for a black man that you apply to no
other class of citizens.”
Rather than have different sets of exceptions, Morel said
that “Douglass argued that blacks should integrate with a greater white society
as much as possible. To make ourselves and be made by others a part of the
American people in every sense of the word. Whites needed to recognize that
their destiny was tied up with the destiny of blacks. So Douglass encouraged blacks where they
could, to avoid self-segregation. Common dangers will create common safeguards.”
Of course these forms of assertions did not go unchallenged.
Morel said “with comments like this, Douglass was criticized for not being
proud of his race.” African-American History month is an annual commemoration
which began as Negro History week in 1926 by Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson in Washington, D.C. Fifty years later it became Black
History month and now it’s referred to as African-American History month. Every
February, government, schools and communities hold various events in
commemoration of the African-American History. President Bush held this year’s
commemoration at the White House where he warned that the United States is at
risk of losing sight of past racial suffering, and said the recent displays of
nooses and jokes about lynching were “deeply offensive.”
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100 Comments for The First Black President?
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There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence.
Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.
It is wonderful how quickly you get used to things, even the most astonishing.
A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.
There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?
It’s wonderful what we can do if we’re always doing.
The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.
If you’re trying to take a roomful of people by surprise, it’s a lot easier to hit your targets if you don’t yell going through the door.
Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone.
I think it is good that books still exist, but they do make me sleepy.
The crowd gives the leader new strength.
Speak when you are angry—and you will make the best speech you’ll ever regret.
Feeling grateful to or appreciative of someone or something in your life actually attracts more of the things that you appreciate and value into your life.
Your world is made of your memories, and your memories are given to you by your world. The whispering voice of happenstance is always in our ears. ‘This is the world. This is the way things are. Look. Pay attention. Remember.’
Deeds, not words shall speak me.
There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth.
When you make a world tolerable for yourself, you make a world tolerable for others.
Confidence is the sexiest thing a woman can have. It’s much sexier than any body part.
He who boasts of his ancestry is praising the deeds of another.
There isn?t much better in this life than finding a way to spend a few hours in conversation with people you respect and love. You have to carve this time out of your life because you aren?t really living without it.
We play the hands of cards life gives us. And the worst hands can make us the best players.
Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.
I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.
It’s important to begin a search on a full stomach.
I sent the club a wire stating, PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER.
All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.
We can be sure that the greatest hope for maintaining equilibrium in the face of any situation rests within ourselves.
The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on.
It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.
It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.
Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it’s against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it’s against the oppressor. You don’t need anything else.
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Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.
You can only cure retail but you can prevent wholesale.
Over the years your bodies become walking autobiographies, telling friends and strangers alike of the minor and major stresses of your lives.
Order is not pressure which is imposed on society from without, but an equilibrium which is set up from within.
Peace is when time doesn’t matter as it passes by.
We think in generalities, but we live in detail.
Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.
Never read a book through merely because you have begun it.
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You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
You know what’s interesting about Washington? It’s the kind of place where second-guessing has become second nature.
It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction.
So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.
If you think taking care of yourself is selfish, change your mind. If you don’t, you’re simply ducking your responsibilities.
What some people mistake for the high cost of living is really the cost of high living.
Posterity is as likely to be wrong as anyone else.
Make hunger thy sauce, as a medicine for health.
Fig Newton: The force required to accelerate a fig 39.37 inches per sec.
You have no control over what the other guy does. You only have control over what you do.
Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it.
None are so busy as the fool and knave.
All the world’s a cage.
A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done.
So little time and so little to do.
Never make a defense or an apology until you are accused.
At my lemonade stand I used to give the first glass away free and charge five dollars for the second glass. The refill contained the antidote.
He who labors diligently need never despair; for all things are accomplished by diligence and labor.
Why do writers write? Because it isn’t there.
No.
I am doomed to an eternity of compulsive work. No set goal achieved satisfies. Success only breeds a new goal. The golden apple devoured has seeds. It is endless.
If one sticks too rigidly to one’s principles, one would hardly see anybody.
The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.
In America, they want you to accomplish these great feats, to pull off these David Copperfield-type stunts. You want me to be great, but you don’t ever want me to say I’m great?
As a scientist, I am not sure anymore that life can be reduced to a class struggle, to dialectical materialism, or any set of formulas. Life is spontaneous and it is unpredictable, it is magical. I think that we have struggled so hard with the tangible that we have forgotten the intangible.
We are able to laugh when we achieve detachment, if only for a moment.
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Do not be awe struck by other people and try to copy them. Nobody can be you as efficiently as you can.
You don’t get anything clean without getting something else dirty.
Typos are very important to all written form. It gives the reader something to look for so they aren’t distracted by the total lack of content in your writing.
A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.
Inspiration does exist, but it must find you working.
What children take from us, they give?We become people who feel more deeply, question more deeply, hurt more deeply, and love more deeply.
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Turbulence is life force. It is opportunity. Let’s love turbulence and use it for change.
The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt.
‘Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.’ Under the influence of this pestilent morality, I am forever letting tomorrow’s work slop backwards into today’s, and doing painfully and nervously today what I could do quickly and easily tomorrow.
Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.
Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently. For in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.
I have the worst memory ever so no matter who comes up to me – they’re just, like, ‘I can’t believe you don’t remember me!” I’m like, ‘Oh Dad I’m sorry!’
Nothing contributes so much to tranquilizing the mind as a steady purpose – a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
By the time I’d grown up, I naturally supposed that I’d be grown up.
Flattery is like cologne water, to be smelt of, not swallowed.
Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it – what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellowmen. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone.
It’s not the hours you put in your work that counts, it’s the work you put in the hours.
The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.
It’s the opinion of some that crops could be grown on the moon. Which raises the fear that it may not be long before we’re paying somebody not to.
Turn the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.
That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.
Get pleasure out of life…as much as you can. Nobody ever died from pleasure.
Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect.
By learning to discover and value our ordinariness, we nurture a friendliness toward ourselves and the world that is the essence of a healthy soul.
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Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.
I say luck is when an opportunity comes along, and you’re prepared for it.
Obama will be the 1st black president did you see the crowd he pull ed in Portland this week