I’ve long been guided by this saying by George Bernard Shaw:
“I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.”
I guess the Obamas believe in the same thong and that’s why the FLOTUS said:
“…How we explain that when someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don’t stoop to their level. No, our motto is, when they go low, we go high.”
I’ve always sought to reconcile how this country was founded and the ideals she was founded on. Monday night, Sen Cory Booker of NJ said these words that got me thinking:
“But our founding documents weren’t genius because they were perfect. They were saddled with the imperfections and even the bigotry of the past…
But those facts and ugly parts of our history don’t distract from our nation’s greatness. In fact, I believe we are an even greater nation, not because we started perfect, but because every generation has successfully labored to make us a more perfect union.”
The US is a great nation not only for what she has been, what she is now but the potential she still holds. Change and progress have come in fits and starts but come they have. I look at how divided the nation is now and wonder if it is a fit or a start. I hear the vitriol and rancor and wonder if we can really get it right this time!
History is an interesting thing. If it is not revised, it is a great tool….
After Michelle Obama’s speech on Monday, there was a claim by Bill O’Reilly of Fox that the slaves who worked on the White House were “well-fed”.
Well, there is actually a first hand account that disputes this claim and is from no other than Abigail Adams, the wife of the John Adams, the 2nd President of the US. She moved into the WH while it was still under construction. David Graham has a piece in the Atlantic about this so I pulled up the reference, which is a letter Abigail Adams wrote. It can be found in the National Archives.
“In the letter to her uncle, a Dr Cotton Tufts, she writes:
From Abigail Smith Adams to Cotton Tufts,
28 November 1800
Columbia City of Washington Novbr 28 1800
Dear Sir
…. The effects of Slavery are visible every where; and I have amused myself from day to day in looking at the labour of 12 negroes from my window, who are employd with four small Horse Carts to remove some dirt in front of the house. the four carts are all loaded at the same time, and whilst four carry this rubish about half a mile, the remaining eight rest upon their Shovels, Two of our hardy N England men would do as much work in a day as the whole 12, but it is true Republicanism that drive the Slaves half fed, and destitute of clothing…whilst the owner waches about Idle, tho his one Slave is all the property he can boast, Such is the case of many of the inhabitants of this place…”
I guess they were not that well-fed after all!
In all, I thought the black man who had more reason to be cynical and dark rather exuded more brightness and hope than the billionaire who exuded darkness and cynicism a week ago in Cleveland. Question is, who will the people listen to?