A Past for an American Future

 Does anyone other me have enjoyable memories of history classes? Americans who know their history are a distinct class. Considering the fights going on over the teaching of history by conservatives, we know they do not belong to this class. As usual, the root of the problem is race.

The Hedgehog Review's A Usable Past for a Post-American Nation | The Use and Abuse of History attacks this problem:

Is there a way to tell an honest story about our past, one that squarely faces the history of race and exploitation without evasion? Most Americans think so. In contrast with the narrow understanding of American history offered by the post-Americans, on one hand, and reactionary nationalists, on the other, it is the belief of most Americans that the United States is a flawed but worthy nation. They want students to learn the truth about the past, but they do not see the truth as having a simple or single moral valence.

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According to this extreme revisionist—and what I call post-American—perspective, we need an entirely new accounting of the past, not because the history we currently teach is incomplete but because all of American history is a lie. As post-Americans see it, this nation was founded on racism and is defined by racism. It is not just that America has a long history of racism. It is that America exists for, and because of, racism. It is a country for white people. White supremacy is its defining feature. The story of America was “stamped from the beginning,” in historian and activist Ibram X. Kendi’s words.6

The post-American perspective does not simply provide a new interpretation of American history. The problem that it claims to address is not the kind that can be solved by adding greater complexity or a fuller picture of race-based exploitation to the story. At the base of its historiographical ambitions is a stunning assertion: For those who seek social justice, American history does not belong to them and they do not belong to it. There is, in short, no usable past. In that spirit, an Illinois state legislator called for “the abolishment of history classes” in the state’s public schools because the course materials “lead to white privilege and a racist society.”7

The article answers its question:

Yet most Americans see race not as a load-bearing beam but as an interior wall that has kept us apart. The American house can be renovated. Interior walls can be removed without affecting the house’s structural integrity. Indeed, the old house was built on a strong foundation.  There remains much in the past to inspire and evoke pride, as well as to engender shame or anger. A Public Religion Research Institute poll conducted last fall found that 84 percent of Americans agreed that in history classes we should learn about “our best achievements and our worst mistakes as a country.” That included 80 percent of Republicans, 86 percent of independents, and 90 percent of Democrats.¹²

And sees an even grater problem:

Today, large portions of the American public see each other as enemies. It is hard to agree on our history when we find each other so repugnant, even dangerous. I believe that most Americans want to save our old house, but a growing number—on both left and right—have concluded that it is a tear-down. Maybe I am naive to think that we can still make this house a home. The walls are sagging and the wires are exposed, but I still see a fixer-upper. Post-Americans argue that racism is a load-bearing beam, and that it is time to remove it, even if we lose the structure. They call for new histories written by new historians. Maybe they are right. God knows we should have achieved racial equality by now. But if they are right, imposing a completely different story of the nation’s past will take a cultural revolution—it will require coercion and may even lead to violence. Are we ready for what might come after America?

Speaking of a past needing remembered: Grand dragon : D.C. Stephenson and the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana

What will we do? What do we see as a future America?

sch 10/17/22