A Liberal Dose, Feb. 24, 2022 "Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court"

 

A Liberal Dose

February 24, 2022

Troy D. Smith

“Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court”

 

People who are terrified by critical race theory almost always prove unaware of what it actually is: a legal studies framework that examines how race has been affected (and, in part, created) by law. It is patently inaccurate to claim that race and the law have not gone hand-in-hand in American history, or that the effects of that relationship are not felt in the present.

This is demonstrated in a recent history book that I have mentioned in these pages before –Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court by Orville Vernon Burton and Armand Derfner. In roughly 350 pages, it traces the intertwined story of race and law, from the colonial period to the 2020s. (Full disclosure- Vernon Burton was my grad school co-adviser and mentor.) The authors make a sobering point early in the work: for three hundred years, the law was used to justify racial oppression and maintain white supremacy, and then for four decades (the 1930s to the 1970s) it was used to fight against, and try to turn the tide of, that oppression. This was followed by another half-century (the 1970s until now) of largely walking back the gains made in that forty-year period. For the vast majority of American history, the law -as ultimately interpreted by the Supreme Court -has, in fact, served to buttress racism rather than to dispel it.

Slavery, after all, was legal for most of that time -and protected by law. The infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857 said that even free black people “had no rights the white man was bound to respect.” Even when slavery was ended after the Union victory in the Civil War, Southern states had repressive slave codes and, starting after Reconstruction, legally enforced segregation which the Supreme Court upheld in Plessy v Ferguson (1896). SCOTUS ruled in the 1820s and 1830s that Native Americans had never had the right to own their own land, and that they were “domestic dependent nations” whose relationship to the United States “resembles that of a ward to his guardian.” In 1889 SCOTUS upheld the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned Chinese people from immigrating to the U.S., saying the country had a right to prevent “vast hordes of its people from crowding in on us.” In 1922 the Court ruled in Ozawa v. United States that immigrants must be, not only white so far as skin tone, but specifically Caucasian. The following year, when Indian immigrant Baghat Singh Thind’s counsel pointed out that people from India are technically Caucasian, the Court ruled that they weren’t white enough to be U.S. citizens, Caucasian or not.

Many advances toward racial equality were then made over the following decades, especially during the Civil Rights era. However, the authors point out that, after 1970, the question became “Are discriminatory results of a law enough for the Court to strike it down, or is proof also required that the people who wrote and passed the law intended it to discriminate?” Conservative justices in recent decades have almost always taken a very narrow view of that question, with the least latitude possible, even when they give extremely broad latitude to questions of religion or the second amendment. In other words, they have been strict constructionists only when it suits them, and not on a consistent basis -the inconsistency coming on questions of race.

The book ends by observing that American democracy is not a thing that is broken, but rather a thing that is unfinished. That simple statement, whose truth seems so obvious to some, is somehow threatening to others. So threatening that, despite the historical accuracy of everything I have cited from this book, it is a discussion that would currently be illegal for high school teachers to have in Tennessee, and, if some have their way, might even be illegal in college history classes.

On second thought, maybe things are becoming broken.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE   

A Liberal Dose, Feb. 17, 2022 "History Is Still the Key to Everything- Don't Lose It"

 

A Liberal Dose

February 17, 2022

Troy D. Smith

“History Is Still the Key to Everything -Don’t Lose It”

 

Next week will mark one year that I have been writing this column. The first one appeared on Feb. 25, 2021, and was entitled “History is the key to everything.” That is the template I have tried -and, I think, mostly succeeded -to follow: bringing a perspective from the left that is rooted in history. My political outlook is informed by two things: what I feel in my heart to be moral and right, and beneficial and fair to the largest number of people, and what I have learned from studying history. A clear, well-informed knowledge of history is an invaluable aid in understanding the world around you in the here and now. On the other hand, an unclear and misinformed understanding of history, or a lack or knowledge about it, is very dangerous. It can run an individual, and a society, off the rails.

A deep concern about many people’s lack of historical context is part of what led me to agree to write this left-of-center column. I saw a lot of Americans repeating the mistakes, and sometimes intentional cruelties, of the past, and not recognizing patterns that should be objectively clear. A few years of politicians and their enablers re-working the very meaning of what “facts” and “science” are, in a sort of Orwellian doublespeak, had taken their toll. Six weeks before that first column, thousands of people (some from our little neck of the woods), convinced without any proof whatsoever that the election had been “fake,” stormed the Capitol in an effort to prevent the constitutional process of certifying a legal and fair election, injuring 140 police officers and actively seeking to murder the vice-president and several others. Most of us watched on TV with jaws dropped, because we had never expected to see such a thing in America- yet now some are claiming it never happened or was blown out of proportion.

If anything, things have gotten worse. Laws have been passed that are designed to make it harder for minorities to vote, because they might vote for Democrats. Books are being burned, books about the Holocaust are being banned, violent physical attacks on minorities have escalated. While some of my conservative friends ask why I am always complaining instead of trying harder to bring both sides together, I am seeing conservative columnists claiming that all Democrats are Satan-worshiping Marxists who hate America and must be stopped. I have to wonder if some former friend might attack or kill me because I said something they didn’t like, or if some student’s parents might try to take away my job because I teach actual history. Politicians in our own state legislature want to tell educators what they can and can’t say about the things those educators have studied intensely for years -to muzzle people who are trying to teach our children the truth about history in order to avoid the dangerous consequences of ignorance. They are the same politicians who sing about small government and individual freedom, and decry “cancel culture.” 

My wife and I often read the Bible together (I’m working on my sixth time through). Recently we read Jeremiah, with whom I have felt a close affinity since I was a teenager. God would give him messages to take to the people, then warn him that no one would listen -in fact, they would beat him and try to kill him. Jeremiah was not a fan of this plan -but “His message becomes a fire burning in my heart” and he is unable to hold it in even if he wanted to. I identify more than ever.

I will not teach lies, and I will not refrain from teaching the truth. Once upon a time, that was considered an American virtue, even by people who disagreed with the message. Now, they seek only to silence any message they do not like.

How American is that.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE   

A Liberal Dose, Feb. 10, 2022 "Why Taking Maus out of Middle School Does Matter"

 

A Liberal Dose

February 10, 2022

Troy D. Smith

“Why Taking Maus Out of Middle School Matters”

 

Last week I talked about the controversial removal of Maus from the middle school curriculum in McMinn County, a decision made by the school board and not by the teachers (the book is approved for 8^th grade by the state of Tennessee, by the way). Ostensibly, the board’s concern was a handful of swear words (despite it being brought to their attention that some other books they teach, such as To Kill a Mockingbird, have far more) and a picture of a naked female mouse. I looked through my copy of the graphic novel twice and couldn’t find this image; I learned that it was actually a tiny image in the background of a panel portraying Jews being herded into the showers to be gassed. Several board members also complained that the story was too disturbing for 13-year-olds.

My uncle (by marriage), Edgar Lebenhart, was a Jewish Czech immigrant and a Holocaust refugee. He and two of his brothers escaped their homeland when the Nazis took over, and virtually the entirety of their immediate and extended family died in concentration camps. Although he died back in 1978, some of you may remember him -he owned the shirt factories Path and EL Apparel. As a child I met both his brothers and their wives, one of whom was an Auschwitz survivor. I was curious about the number tattooed on her wrist, and my uncle explained the Holocaust to me -I was 8 -and I sought out books to learn more about it. I remember, at age 11, reading a Captain America comic book about an elderly woman who was an Auschwitz survivor, and thinking how much she looked like the woman I had met. My point is, I was certainly able to handle this kind of information by the time I was 13. Where language is concerned, there is nothing in Maus that I did not hear every day within five minutes of getting on the school bus. It is imperative that kids learn about this stuff -and 13 is not too young -and in the context of just how terrible it really was, or else it will be forgotten (as it already is by many young people, as I pointed out last time).

But there’s more going on than that. Word of the Maus banning came scarcely more then a week after news that a state-sponsored Tennessee adoption agency, under Governor Lee’s “religious freedom” law, had denied a family a child because they were Jewish. It came at the same time as news of hostages being taken in a synagogue in Texas… just three years after the horrible synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh… which was only one year after white nationalists marched through Charlottesville, Virginia (where they killed one counter-protester), chanting “Jews Will Not Replace Us” and “Blood and Soil” (which was a Nazi catchphrase.) In-between there have been countless incidents of synagogue vandalism and assaults on Jewish people. Heck, just the other day a dozen protesting Nazis in Florida beat up a Jewish bystander whose grandfather had survived the Holocaust. After decades of being done mostly in subtle ways, suddenly anti-Semitic prejudice is becoming open and violent. Similarly, violence or antagonism toward other minorities have increased dramatically.

All this would seem to indicate that education about the Holocaust, slavery, Jim Crow, and other such topics is becoming more vital than ever for young people. Yet, at the same time, more and more conservative politicians -egged on by their base, who in turn are egged on by reactionaries in the conservative media -are passing laws making it harder to teach such topics because it might make white people feel uncomfortable or guilty. It doesn’t take a genius to see the potential results. Maybe that McMinn board was influenced by such thinking and maybe it wasn’t, but considering all the books they didn’t ban it certainly doesn’t make them -or Tennessee -look good.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

A complete list of Liberal Dose columns can be found HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE   

A Liberal Dose, Feb. 3, 2022 "A Graphic Novel, A School Board, and Confronting History"

 

A Liberal Dose

February 3, 2022

Troy D. Smith

“A Graphic Novel, A School Board, and Confronting History”

 

30 years after winning the Pulitzer Prize, Art Speigelman’s graphic novel Maus: A Survivor’s Tale is back in the news (and back on the bestseller list). Spiegelman, who got his start as an underground comics artist and publisher in the 1970s, spoke at Tennessee Tech a few years ago about his work and about the history of comics, and is a wealth of information. His award-winning Maus was autobiographical. The framing story was about Spiegelman, the artist, trying to get his elderly father to tell him his story -while also trying to understand what caused the suicide of Spiegelman’s mother and the emotional and personality issues of his father, with whom he had a very tempestuous relationship.

The heart of the book was the story his father told him, detailing the experiences he and his wife had as Jews during the Holocaust who ultimately ended up in a concentration camp. Spiegelman depicted Jewish people as mice, playing on the fact that Nazis referred to them as “vermin,” and Germans as cats (with other nationalities being represented by other animals). He has stated that his reason for taking such an approach was to show how absurd it was, and by extension how absurd it is to divide people by race and ethnicity. Another effect is that seeing the intense suffering of such “cute” animals makes it easier for the (presumably human) reader to sympathize with them and be shocked by their treatment.

Obviously, the book has some extremely mature themes. On the other hand, you can’t talk about the Holocaust WITHOUT having extremely mature themes. Many teachers of middle school, high school, and college (myself included) have used it as a medium to delve into those themes, which are extremely important for our young people to learn about. The Holocaust, like slavery, segregation, the Trail of Tears, and many other things, is something that all citizens should know about and think about, and it needs to start when they are young. If that doesn’t happen, you wind up with the situation we have now.

A poll of Millennials and Gen Z people (so folks from their late teens to their late 30s) two years ago showed a “worrying lack of basic Holocaust knowledge.” 10% had never even heard of it. 63% did not know how severe it was (that 6 million Jews were killed), and more than half of those estimated the number at less than 2 million. More than half could not name one concentration camp. 11% (higher in some states) believed that the Jews caused it. That was two years ago -imagine how it’s going to be now, with state legislatures in red states passing laws banning “critical race theory” or anything that could cause anyone to feel guilty or be uncomfortable. This has led to, among other things, a school principal insisting to teachers that they now have to give equal and fair consideration to the Nazis, and a superintendent advising students they need to ask their parents whether the Holocaust really happened, not their teacher. Principals and teachers who continue to try teaching the truth about history, meanwhile, are getting fired.

The school board in McMinn County voted to remove the book from their 8^th grade curriculum, despite the fact teachers supported the use of it, ostensibly over a couple of swear words and a crude representation of a naked mouse (Remember, this is the Holocaust, where people were stripped naked and sent to their deaths). One board member thought that people being hanged or committing suicide should not be discussed in public education. 13-year-olds can handle a lot more than 5-year-olds, and they shouldn’t be treated the same. It was very unfortunate (for the reputation of Tennessee, such as it is nowadays) that this vote took place on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. 

That is the situation. Next week I will explain why it matters so much.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 

A complete list of Liberal Dose columns can be found HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE