I am currently reading The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter. Ralph does not seem a good man, despite his status in American lore, based on the quotations therein around ‘race’. He seems an elite pro-Protestant intellectual, with a deliberate or ignorant misunderstanding of the power, politics and bigotry which create socioeconomic disparity. It is chilling to consider all that ‘we’ as white people have been led to believe by the simple fact that history is written by the oppressor. Retirement would be better spent exploring all that is not illuminated in history, questioning why worth was bestowed on some but not others, or considering all that fabled titans of literature really wrote.
I am currently reading The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter. Ralph does not seem a good man, despite his status in American lore, based on the quotations therein around ‘race’. He seems an elite pro-Protestant intellectual, with a deliberate or ignorant misunderstanding of the power, politics and bigotry which create socioeconomic disparity. It is chilling to consider all that ‘we’ as white people have been led to believe by the simple fact that history is written by the oppressor. Retirement would be better spent exploring all that is not illuminated in history, questioning why worth was bestowed on some but not others, or considering all that fabled titans of literature really wrote.