#united states history
Betsy Ross
A small reminder that we’ve been here and fighting since the beginning of this nation. It’s been a brutal week for many of us, and we are mad as hell. Take your anger and turn it into action.
If you’d like to purchase Betsy Ross, please follow THIS LINK to my Etsy.
Listening to Hamiltonis one thing. Watching it is another entirely.
Let’s talk about what we get from the music. Sure, most of the story is told, but we (at least, I) assumed that a majority of the time, each character was telling their own story. It was all a general perspective. Without any visual cues, we only saw part of the story, part of the magic of Hamilton.
Yesterday, as I watched the production, I found myself tearing up for a majority of the show. Hamiltonis a work of art. And yes, of course I recognize the criticisms of the show and they are valid, but I also find the commentary of the show itself fascinating. Lin-Manuel Miranda created a masterpiece, and watching it for the first time yesterday, I could truly see that.
Now onto Aaron Burr. As high schoolers, most of us knew him as the guy who killed Hamilton in a duel. Emphasis on the duel. I distinctly remember talking about the duel in my A.P. US history class far more than the man behind the gun.
Hamiltonchanges this.
The show opens with Burr directly addressing the audience, asking them a rhetorical question they’ll eventually have answered mere minutes later. This sets him up as the narrator; it’s his lens we’re seeing the story through. Listening to the soundtrack, I didn’t realize this. It took watching the story, watching the times Burr watches the story around him, even interacting with others as if he knows how the conversation is going to go already.
As the show continues, it becomes more obvious that Burr is the one telling the story of Alexander Hamilton’s legacy. This is especially clear at the end, when he’s telling the audience to “look it up Hamilton was wearing his glasses.” He’s trying to justify his actions, to try to show he’s not a monster. He was trying to protect his family, and was unwilling to take the risk. Even so, he still sounds remorseful. As if wanting to take back his actions.
After Hamilton’s death, Burr goes on to narrate the aftermath, continuing until Eliza takes over. At that point, Eliza is the one preserving and continuing his legacy. The exchange of narration, however, is telling. Though Eliza was sharing his legacy and ensuring it endured, so was Burr by telling the story. By being the one to narrate it, to share it, despite having also been the man that killed him.
It’s as if Burr wishes to make up for killing Hamilton by making sure that he shares and continues his legacy. He’s repenting for his sin. The only way to see this, though, is by watching the musical. Though you can hear the emotion in Burr’s voice in the songs, seeinghis reactions is the only way to truly capture the full story.
Hamiltonis a reflection of Burr’s life as much as it is Hamilton’s. As the musical progresses, this becomes more obvious. Burr continues to address the audience, again asking questions and wondering why he continues to be inadequate when compared to Hamilton.
I mean, it’s obvious they’re foils of one another. Burr is unwilling to pick a side, unwilling to take a stand; Hamilton, however, is strong in his values and believes you must pick a side and stay strong in your convictions. He is unwilling to play the game of politics in the way that Burr does. Hell, they’re even divided on the nature of duels. Where Hamilton thinks the duel with Charles Lee is necessary, for example, Burr finds ridiculous. What’s interesting, though, is by Act II, they seem to have switched their beliefs entirely. When Burr chooses to shoot Hamilton, he is taking a side. He’s taking a stand via duel, something he previously believed to be absurd. Hamilton, however, aims upward, choosing this instead of risking the life of his opponent by shooting him. His actions further indicate he’s unwilling to kill someone in a duel, something he likely would have been more than willing to do in Act I. These characters have been developed so well that they are perfect foils of one another. It’s impressive.
Hamilton’salways impressed me. I remember hearing about it and thinking I’d be the only one interested (I’d recently gone through a phase where I was obsessed with Alexander Hamilton. I don’t know or understand why. I blame APUSH junior year). When I saw Hamiltontake off, I was delighted. And to finally have the opportunity to see it now, years later, after having sung the soundtrack countless times? It’s incredible.
Listening to Hamiltonis one thing. Watching it is another entirely.
Let’s talk about what we get from the music. Sure, most of the story is told, but we (at least, I) assumed that a majority of the time, each character was telling their own story. It was all a general perspective. Without any visual cues, we only saw part of the story, part of the magic of Hamilton.
Yesterday, as I watched the production, I found myself tearing up for a majority of the show. Hamiltonis a work of art. And yes, of course I recognize the criticisms of the show and they are valid, but I also find the commentary of the show itself fascinating. Lin-Manuel Miranda created a masterpiece, and watching it for the first time yesterday, I could truly see that.
Now onto Aaron Burr. As high schoolers, most of us knew him as the guy who killed Hamilton in a duel. Emphasis on the duel. I distinctly remember talking about the duel in my A.P. US history class far more than the man behind the gun.
Hamiltonchanges this.
The show opens with Burr directly addressing the audience, asking them a rhetorical question they’ll eventually have answered mere minutes later. This sets him up as the narrator; it’s his lens we’re seeing the story through. Listening to the soundtrack, I didn’t realize this. It took watching the story, watching the times Burr watches the story around him, even interacting with others as if he knows how the conversation is going to go already.
As the show continues, it becomes more obvious that Burr is the one telling the story of Alexander Hamilton’s legacy. This is especially clear at the end, when he’s telling the audience to “look it up Hamilton was wearing his glasses.” He’s trying to justify his actions, to try to show he’s not a monster. He was trying to protect his family, and was unwilling to take the risk. Even so, he still sounds remorseful. As if wanting to take back his actions.
After Hamilton’s death, Burr goes on to narrate the aftermath, continuing until Eliza takes over. At that point, Eliza is the one preserving and continuing his legacy. The exchange of narration, however, is telling. Though Eliza was sharing his legacy and ensuring it endured, so was Burr by telling the story. By being the one to narrate it, to share it, despite having also been the man that killed him.
It’s as if Burr wishes to make up for killing Hamilton by making sure that he shares and continues his legacy. He’s repenting for his sin. The only way to see this, though, is by watching the musical. Though you can hear the emotion in Burr’s voice in the songs, seeinghis reactions is the only way to truly capture the full story.
Hamiltonis a reflection of Burr’s life as much as it is Hamilton’s. As the musical progresses, this becomes more obvious. Burr continues to address the audience, again asking questions and wondering why he continues to be inadequate when compared to Hamilton.
I mean, it’s obvious they’re foils of one another. Burr is unwilling to pick a side, unwilling to take a stand; Hamilton, however, is strong in his values and believes you must pick a side and stay strong in your convictions. He is unwilling to play the game of politics in the way that Burr does. Hell, they’re even divided on the nature of duels. Where Hamilton thinks the duel with Charles Lee is necessary, for example, Burr finds ridiculous. What’s interesting, though, is by Act II, they seem to have switched their beliefs entirely. When Burr chooses to shoot Hamilton, he is taking a side. He’s taking a stand via duel, something he previously believed to be absurd. Hamilton, however, aims upward, choosing this instead of risking the life of his opponent by shooting him. His actions further indicate he’s unwilling to kill someone in a duel, something he likely would have been more than willing to do in Act I. These characters have been developed so well that they are perfect foils of one another. It’s impressive.
Hamilton’salways impressed me. I remember hearing about it and thinking I’d be the only one interested (I’d recently gone through a phase where I was obsessed with Alexander Hamilton. I don’t know or understand why. I blame APUSH junior year). When I saw Hamiltontake off, I was delighted. And to finally have the opportunity to see it now, years later, after having sung the soundtrack countless times? It’s incredible.
February 27, 1813: For the first time, the U.S. government passes legislation for a national vaccination to fight the scourge of the vapors.
These are actual tiny child handcuffs used by the U.S. government to restrain captured Native American children and drag them away from their families to send them to the Indian boarding schools where their identities, cultures and their rights to speak their Native languages were forcefully stripped away from them.
As of this year: the U.S. supreme court ruled in a 5-4 decision that this systemic kidnapping of Native children is legal.
As of today: there are far more First Nations & Native American children in foster care than there were at the HEIGHT of this residential “school” system.
Over 60% of foster kids who age outta “care” are kicked out on the streets, imprisoned, or dead by the age of 20.
Your receipts: #ethnocide#adoption industry#white savior industrial complex
the article about this picture never fails to make me sick. i really encourage people to read it, though. for me, it helps to put even more into perspective just how evil the residential schools were. like, just imagine how young the child was that wore these handcuffs. it’s absolutely mind-blowing.
Post link
CIA documents released via FOIA confirm the CIA worked with Ukrainian fascist and mass-murderer of Jews Stepan Bandera to “exploit nationalist tendencies” in Ukraine, “exploit the minority question”,and“identify neuralgic points”.
The program is called ‹Project Aerodynamic›, and it was ongoing for at least 17 consecutive years and distributed a total of 28,847 pieces of literature. It is safe to assume that this supposed “literature” was in fact desinformation and propaganda.
More information can be found in this paper, more specifically in chapter 5.
Public viewing at Detroit’s Communist Party Headquarters (for decades in the Finnish Hall, 5696 14th Street) for Joe York, George Bussell, Coleman Leny and Joe Blasio; four of the men murdered by the Dearborn Police Department and Henry Ford’s gun thugs led by Harry Bennett during the 1932 Hunger March. Five months later, Curtis Williams would also die of his injuries.
From someone who teaches AP US History:
If you are confused as to why so many Americans are defending the confederate flag, monuments, and statues right now, I put together a quick Q&A, with questions from a hypothetical person with misconceptions and answers from my perspective as an AP U.S. History Teacher:
Q:What did the Confederacy stand for?
A: Rather than interpreting, let’s go directly to the words of the Confederacy’s Vice President, Alexander Stephens. In his “Cornerstone Speech” on March 21, 1861, he stated “The Constitution… rested upon the equality of races. This was an error. Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”
Q:But people keep saying heritage, not hate! They think the purpose of the flags and monuments are to honor confederate soldiers, right?
A: The vast majority of confederate flags flying over government buildings in the south were first put up in the 1960’s during the Civil Rights Movement. So for the first hundred years after the Civil War ended, while relatives of those who fought in it were still alive, the confederate flag wasn’t much of a symbol at all. But when Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis were marching on Washington to get the Civil Rights Act (1964)andVoting Rights Act (1965) passed, leaders in the south felt compelled to fly confederate flags and put up monuments to honor people who had no living family members and had fought in a war that ended a century ago. Their purpose in doing this was to exhibit their displeasure with black people fighting for basic human rights that were guaranteed to them in the 14thand15th Amendments but being withheld by racist policies and practices.
Q:But if we take down confederate statues and monuments, how will we teach about and remember the past?
A: Monuments and statues pose little educational relevance, whereas museums, the rightful place for Confederate paraphernalia, can provide more educational opportunities for citizens to learn about our country’s history. The Civil War is important to learn about, and will always loom large in social studies curriculum. Removing monuments from public places and putting them in museums also allows us to avoid celebrating and honoring people who believed that tens of millions of black Americans should be legal property.
Q:But what if the Confederate flag symbol means something different to me?
A: Individuals aren’t able to change the meaning of symbols that have been defined by history. When I hang a Bucs flag outside my house, to me, the Bucs might represent the best team in the NFL, but to the outside world, they represent an awful NFL team. I can’t change that meaning for everyone who drives by my house because it has been established for the whole world to see. If a Confederate flag stands for generic rebellion or southern pride to you, your personal interpretation forfeits any meaning once you display it publicly, as its meaning takes on the meaning it earned when a failed regime killed hundreds of thousands of Americans in an attempt to destroy America and keep black people enslaved forever.
Q:But my uncle posted a meme that said the Civil War/Confederacy was about state’s rights and not slavery?
A: “A state’s right to what?” - John Green
Q:Everyone is offended about everything these days. Should we take everything down that offends anyone?
A: The Confederacy literally existed to go against the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the idea that black people are human beings that deserve to live freely. If that doesn’t upset or offend you, you are un-American.
Q:Taking these down goes against the First Amendment and freedom of speech, right?
A: No. Anyone can do whatever they want on their private property, on their social media, etc. Taking these down in public, or having private corporations like NASCAR ban them on their properties, has literally nothing to do with the Bill of Rights.
Q:How can people claim to be patriotic while supporting a flag that stood for a group of insurgent failures who tried to permanently destroy America and killed 300,000 Americans in the process?
A: No clue.
Q:So if I made a confederate flag my profile picture, or put a confederate bumper sticker on my car, what am I declaring to my friends, family, and the world?
A: That you support the Confederacy. To recap, the Confederacy stands for: slavery, white supremacy, treason, failure, and a desire to permanently destroy Selective history as it supports white supremacy.
It’s no accident that:
You learned about Helen Keller instead of W.E.B, DuBois
You learned about the WattsandL.A. Riots, but notTulsaorWilmington.
You learned that George Washington’s dentures were made from wood,rather than the teeth from slaves.
You learned about black ghettos, but not about Black Wall Street.
You learned about the New Deal, but not “red lining.”
You learned about Tommie Smith’s fist in the air at the 1968 Olympics,but not that he was sent home the next day and stripped of his medals.
You learned about “black crime,” but whitecriminals were never lumped together and discussed in terms of their race.
You learned about “states rights” as the cause of the Civil War, but not that slavery was mentioned 80 times in the articles of secession.
“Privilegeis having history rewritten so that you don’t have to acknowledge uncomfortable facts.
Racism is perpetuated by people who refuse to learn or acknowledge this reality.
You have a choice.”
-Jim Golden
Castaneda is capturing my attention currently, she has a wealth of really articulate and well informed observations. Specifically I will have to bear this passage in mind (where this posts title is found):
Terrorism, militarism, and war masculinize the world, irrespective of how many women serve in the military or conduct suicide missions.1 Using gender to justify war in the twentieth century—bombing Afghanistan to “liberate” Afghan women from Afghan men, for example—recodes gendered hierarchies and relations of power that have, since the sixteenth century, sexualized conquest and justified European imperialism. The gender and sexual politics of religious fundamentalism, whether in the name of contemporary Christianity, Islam, or Judaism, continue to reify patriarchal, misogynist, and heterosexist structures of domination worldwide. “Global capitalism,” our postmodern restructured economy, exploits the labor of men, women, and children within gendered and sexed structures of power framed centuries ago. In the “global market place” women and girls of color remain the target of brutal sexual violence and murder, only now in “free trade zones”; are prey to rape by human smugglers and “law enforcement” agents, including border patrols; and are kept captive in homes where they are maids, housekeepers, and nannies in the “domestic economy of service.” The expanding market in “sexual tourism” is a hugely profitable, global phenomenon.
The rapacity of capitalism is well documented, as is the brutality of war, even as both are occluded from public discussion and/or sanitized in public media owned by a few conglomerates. What is not well documented, and what the articles in this volume elucidate, is the inseparability of gendered politics and other politics that produce/reproduce the U.S.-Mexico borderlands to create the issues we live with today: terrorism, war, and imperial hegemony.
Introduction: Gender on the Borderlands
Castañeda, Antonia.
Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Volume 24, Number 2 & 3,
2003, pp. xi-xix (Article)
Published by University of Nebraska Press
