Friday Links: God Said We Could Put A Carl's Jr. Here Edition
"While some nations vow never to forget, our American battle has always been over what we allow ourselves to remember" - Wesley Lowery, in 'Four Hundred Souls'
Nazis unwelcome: here’s my post about moving this blog off of Substack soon. I might put this stinger on every post until then to try to irritate Nazi Sympathizer Hamish McKenzie. I might forget/get bored and stop. Not today though!
For an introduction to this reading project, click here.
It’s never been easy to be anything but a straight, cis, WASP or WASPesque man in the United States. Something you’ll read and hear a lot amongst people who care about changing this fact is “they want us divided.” It’s true: the wealthy have tremendous class solidarity, and besides counting their money, their favorite thing is for the poors to tear each other apart over who is oppressed more.
But to watch Howard Zinn lay out exactly how the Founding Fathers conspired to keep power for the wealthy and property holders, using poor white people as “a buffer” between women, enslaved Black people, and Indigenous people—it’s pretty impressive. Then, after “The Intimately Oppressed” (a chapter on woman’s societal standing from the 1600s-1850), he ends with “In the midst of these movements, there exploded, with the force of government and the authority of money, a quest for more land, an urge for national expansion.”
Then I open Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz to “Cult of the Covenant,” with its first subheading reading “myth of the pristine wilderness” and the quote “…later European settlers were unaware of the former cultivation and sculpting and manicuring of the landscape. Abandoned fields of corn turned to weeds and bushes. Settlers chopped down trees in New England until the landscape was nearly bare.”
What was lost, all in the name a few white guys who wanted to be Britain Without A King.
What I’ve Been Reading This Week:
Same thing as I said on Wednesday, obviously, but newsletter structures are important. Today’s chapter listing:
A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn: “Tyranny is Tyranny,” “A Kind of Revolution,” and “The Intimately Oppressed”
Four Hundred Souls edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain: Part Four (1739-1779) and Part Five (1779-1819)
An Indigenous People’s History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz: “Two: Culture of Conquest” and “Three: Cult of the Covenant”
It should be apparent that I’m still figuring out the best way to organize all my thoughts as I read three books. Timelines aren’t 100% lining up yet. Zinn’s considerably weightier tome starts later in history than both Kendi/Blain and Dunbar-Ortiz. Worst of all, I’m struggling for something else to say besides “this was a bad idea, how could anyone think this was good or right?”
One thing that’s surprised me a bit is Dunbar-Ortiz’s tracing of Christian origins of colonization. European settlers came over here “for gold, God, and country” or whatever, and “Culture of Conquest” points out that Indigenous Americans were not the first group that Europeans had attempted to conquer and subjugate. The Crusades were a pretty brazen attempt at imperialism in the Middle East. The Scots-Irish had previously been brought in to forcibly settle what is now Northern Ireland after the British seized the land from Indigenous Irish. This made the Scots-Irish, with their Calvinist theology, primed and ready for settling the then-border at Appalachia. Four Hundred Souls is starting to get into enslaved people adopting Christianity, and the growing differences between white and Black churches. It strikes me (not for the first time) that evangelical church doesn’t teach you a lot of history, and even though I always suspected churches were divided for racist reasons, I’m “watching this develop with great interest,” as my historian grandfather would say.
One last thing: it was jarring to finally read about Sally Hemings. I don’t think I’d ever actually read anything about her. Maybe it’s facile to say I feel bad for her, but I sincerely, deep in my bones, feel the tragedy that “Hypocrite Virginia Man’s Concubine” is her legacy. She got a taste of high society life in Paris, and she and her brother tried their damndest to stay there, maybe get to freedom somehow—but we know what happened. My already low opinion of George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson is getting lower.
LINKS!
Something to listen while you read? YouTube shows me this stuff sometimes, and it’s the one time I’m grateful to the algo. Never have I ever heard of YONLAPA, and this very good pop rock is bit happier and danceable than I usually go. Please enjoy—shades of OK Go and Rooney.
Happy trails and good health to Ricky Rubio, one of my favorite players to watch over the last 15 years. Unfortunately, Pretty Tricky Ricky played for a who’s who of dysfunctional loser organizations in his career: Timberwolves, Jazz, Suns, Cavaliers. Man, I wish this guy could’ve been drafted by so many different teams, not been hit by injuries when he was. He’s retiring at 33 for mental health reasons, and Donovan Mitchell is relieved for him, so that tells me all I need to know.
has an excellent post on Rubio that emphasizes his use of literal personal touch to show care, a tiny detail I’ve heard referenced before—teams that high-five more do better. All the best to Ricky Rubio, a true point guard to his soul.An excellent piece at Defector from Luis Paez-Pumar on the importance of getting outdoor space when looking for a home. Or rather, on how getting good at grilling teaches patience. Meditation during cooking is…one of the most important things I do? I think is how that sentence ends? A pull quote, since Defector is subscription-based (but worth it!): “The problem was that I cut corners in order to shrink my grilling time, since it was dark and I was grumpy from hunger. My thought process was that I was already an expert, having completed exactly one successful grilling endeavor, and so I could be more aggressive.” Absolutely BEEN THERE, dude. Kind of a lifelong battle with cooking for me.
Three cheers to Rafi Ahmad, the 17-year-old Walter Payton Prep student who has helped plant nearly 2,000 trees in underserved neighborhoods, mostly on the west side of Chicago. Trey Arline at Block Club reports that Rafi’s won a $10k grant to continue his arboreal work and ‘boost climate resiliency’ on the south and west sides—an underrated need when we talk about making life more equitable.
As the biggest Orange County fan currently alive (debate me on who loves your child more, Mike White, you coward), I was thrilled when
decided to dig into how Orange County incubated most of the fascism we have to contend with in the U.S. today. “A land of Karens,” Francesca Fiorentini describes it, and she’s right. I’m an unabashed Los Angeles and San Diego lover, but man. Anaheim? Malibu County??! Here’s Behind the Bastards on Orange County: Part 1 | Part 2A piece about how to submit poems to lit mags while being a busy mom? Absolutely my life. Loved this blog from Renee Emerson over at
, the first paragraph made me grateful I only have the one kid.
What’re you still doing here? It’s cold outside! I think, anyway. They keep saying we’re supposed to get a huge snowstorm. As I finish this at 11 p.m. last night, there’s no snow yet. Who knows what 7:30 brings.
If you’re in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. Stay safe if the snow ever comes, especially you delivery drivers. If the coming snow is as promised, no one should have to leave the house, so tip extra for anyone who does.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris