Xplisset, thank you for this moving and excellent piece of writing. I am a white woman. One of my closest friends is a black woman I work with. Because of my friendship with her, I spent a lot of time reading about slavery and how the slaves were treated pre-Civil War (and probably afterward). I was raised in the South, part of the Baby Boomer generation. I've heard terrible things come out of people's mouths. I remember the separate bathrooms and water fountains. That, of course, was not the worst of atrocities. The Klan walking up and down streets was terrifying. I was rebellious enough to ask why. No satisfactory answer. These things need to be kept in front of people always, especially with the sick regime in the White House.
This was far from a "busted little essay." I was first attracted to this Substack by the quality of the writing. I subscribed because it helped me to look at familiar things from a different perspective. A piece like this, which demonstrates both, makes me happy I became a paid subscriber. You deserve to get a lot more than the 18 paid subscribers you need to break 100.
Like many others, I suspect, I viewed the Epstein sex-trafficking ring as A Bad Thing, A Moral Failure, and Another Example of How the Powerful Exploit the Less Powerful. I never thought to compare it with the kinds of abhorrent practices associated with the institution of slavery as you so graphically describe it in this essay. And the subtitle of the essay is superb.
It was in college that I first learned to think about some of the imperfections of our country that I had been seeing while growing up, and how it might be possible to work to make her better -- to be all that we could be, to live up to the promises of our founding documents. But I don't think of her as broken. At least not yet. She's far from perfect, with some parts jury-rigged together as she flies. We've been making changes to keep her going for the benefit of her passengers. But she's now been taken over by group of terrorist zealots who are trying to dismantle her. Maybe break her up so they can sell off the parts for profit. Or squeeze everything out of her before they jump ship. Maybe it's time for the passengers to rush the cabin, like the desperate heroes of Flight 93, but this time to stick the landing, like the crew of Flight 236.
Thank you, Xplisset for all your insights and time. I can only imagine how hard it is to write, write so well so often. Remember, you can take days off. Jessica’s Craven and Jesther Cox Richardson take two days off a week and any extra time when they need it. They will let us know with a quick post and a photo. Joyce Vance does her burnt out post with photos of her chickens
For us. Heather, of a photo of the water in Maine, Jessica with her two new adopted cats. Think about doing that. We need your voice. I am a paid subscriber and am a white female older - environmentalist retired language arts teacher. Stories bind us. We need to hear everyone’s. We need to read and we need to write. There are so many incredible young men and women running for office. All colors, all walks of life and I am so excited and supporting them all. This is what I can do. I look forward to your posts in my email. I am not on any social media, but you need to be sure to take time for you.
A brilliant essay that I will bookmark to read again and again. Thank you, Xplisset. I am grateful for your powerful voice in these turbulent times. Glad to be a paid subscriber. Here‘s to breaking 100!
I've been reading a conservative substack. I visit it now and then just to see what they're going to say. This past week, a post detailed how people in NYC voted for Mamdani because it was the "correct" thing for liberals to do... not because he might have been speaking about the concerns of real people. This guy who wrote the post went on about voting with "the tribe" and not thinking about their votes. He got mad at his sister's Black boyfriend for defending her in an argument about culture. He claimed she didn't appreciate "white culture" and that her boyfriend was a bad influence, getting her to think that "black culture" was more valuable. (He offered no evidence that this was the boyfriend's viewpoint.)
WTF? What exactly is "white culture?" Are all white people alike, with shared ancestral histories and uniform experiences? And what is "black culture?" Black people have origins as diverse as the average white people. (Ahem. Africa is a continent. It is NOT a country. And not all Black people are Africans.)
The conversation devolved into talking about how many Black people voted for Obama because he was from their "tribe." And that White people voted for him because it was "the thing to do" to prove that they weren't racist. One commenter claimed that Obama was a nobody who did nothing while in office.
I pointed out that presidential historians by and large have put Obama in the top ten or twelve of our presidents, while Trump is either dead last or close to it. These are experts from across the political spectrum, professionals who evaluate the performances of presidents from Washington on down the list.
And yet, for some reason, they still can't accept that a Black president could have won on merit, competence, morals, ethics, intelligence, trustworthiness, wisdom, faithfulness, family values, and much more. No, they must insist that historians can't be trusted, that a Black man can't become president without the "sympathy" vote or the "political correctness" vote.
They insist that unless we are racists ourselves, we shouldn't notice people's skin color or race. How can we not? We notice their height, hair color, gender, clothing, age, weight, and everything else about them. But we should never notice their skin color? Bull dung.
The real question is how we react to those physical characteristics. We all make judgments based on appearance. How do we judge blond women with big boobs? How do we judge that guy with a fat belly? How do we judge that person with a developmental disability?
We can't help the judgment. We can't help those immediate reactions. But the real question ... the real test... is what we do with those judgments. Do we get to know that autistic kid and learn how to communicate? Do we get to know that blond woman and find out that she's a college professor? Do we get to know those Black teenagers so we don't cross the street when we see them coming?
And do we vote for a Black man simply because he's the right person for the job? Or do we vote for someone else because we make negative assumptions about Black men? Or are those conservative commenters correct... that we vote for the Black candidate out of "correctness" or even out of guilt?
Thanks, Xplisset, for making me think more about this.
"We can't help the judgment. We can't help those immediate reactions. But the real question ... the real test... is what we do with those judgments."
This is an important observation, one that leads to the "real question," the one we have to address time after time in the course of our lives. Well done.
Damn! I consider myself to be a decent writer. I'm pretty good in fact but nothing like this. Even in your greatest moments of self-doubt (we all get them from time to time) you are Doing your Duty.
May I speak for everone in this forum and say that your work is positive, impactful and sorely needed in these most troubled of times?
Xplisset, thank you for this moving and excellent piece of writing. I am a white woman. One of my closest friends is a black woman I work with. Because of my friendship with her, I spent a lot of time reading about slavery and how the slaves were treated pre-Civil War (and probably afterward). I was raised in the South, part of the Baby Boomer generation. I've heard terrible things come out of people's mouths. I remember the separate bathrooms and water fountains. That, of course, was not the worst of atrocities. The Klan walking up and down streets was terrifying. I was rebellious enough to ask why. No satisfactory answer. These things need to be kept in front of people always, especially with the sick regime in the White House.
This was far from a "busted little essay." I was first attracted to this Substack by the quality of the writing. I subscribed because it helped me to look at familiar things from a different perspective. A piece like this, which demonstrates both, makes me happy I became a paid subscriber. You deserve to get a lot more than the 18 paid subscribers you need to break 100.
Like many others, I suspect, I viewed the Epstein sex-trafficking ring as A Bad Thing, A Moral Failure, and Another Example of How the Powerful Exploit the Less Powerful. I never thought to compare it with the kinds of abhorrent practices associated with the institution of slavery as you so graphically describe it in this essay. And the subtitle of the essay is superb.
It was in college that I first learned to think about some of the imperfections of our country that I had been seeing while growing up, and how it might be possible to work to make her better -- to be all that we could be, to live up to the promises of our founding documents. But I don't think of her as broken. At least not yet. She's far from perfect, with some parts jury-rigged together as she flies. We've been making changes to keep her going for the benefit of her passengers. But she's now been taken over by group of terrorist zealots who are trying to dismantle her. Maybe break her up so they can sell off the parts for profit. Or squeeze everything out of her before they jump ship. Maybe it's time for the passengers to rush the cabin, like the desperate heroes of Flight 93, but this time to stick the landing, like the crew of Flight 236.
Thank you, Xplisset for all your insights and time. I can only imagine how hard it is to write, write so well so often. Remember, you can take days off. Jessica’s Craven and Jesther Cox Richardson take two days off a week and any extra time when they need it. They will let us know with a quick post and a photo. Joyce Vance does her burnt out post with photos of her chickens
For us. Heather, of a photo of the water in Maine, Jessica with her two new adopted cats. Think about doing that. We need your voice. I am a paid subscriber and am a white female older - environmentalist retired language arts teacher. Stories bind us. We need to hear everyone’s. We need to read and we need to write. There are so many incredible young men and women running for office. All colors, all walks of life and I am so excited and supporting them all. This is what I can do. I look forward to your posts in my email. I am not on any social media, but you need to be sure to take time for you.
I apologize for being late reading this one - yet another really great essay.
A brilliant essay that I will bookmark to read again and again. Thank you, Xplisset. I am grateful for your powerful voice in these turbulent times. Glad to be a paid subscriber. Here‘s to breaking 100!
I've been reading a conservative substack. I visit it now and then just to see what they're going to say. This past week, a post detailed how people in NYC voted for Mamdani because it was the "correct" thing for liberals to do... not because he might have been speaking about the concerns of real people. This guy who wrote the post went on about voting with "the tribe" and not thinking about their votes. He got mad at his sister's Black boyfriend for defending her in an argument about culture. He claimed she didn't appreciate "white culture" and that her boyfriend was a bad influence, getting her to think that "black culture" was more valuable. (He offered no evidence that this was the boyfriend's viewpoint.)
WTF? What exactly is "white culture?" Are all white people alike, with shared ancestral histories and uniform experiences? And what is "black culture?" Black people have origins as diverse as the average white people. (Ahem. Africa is a continent. It is NOT a country. And not all Black people are Africans.)
The conversation devolved into talking about how many Black people voted for Obama because he was from their "tribe." And that White people voted for him because it was "the thing to do" to prove that they weren't racist. One commenter claimed that Obama was a nobody who did nothing while in office.
I pointed out that presidential historians by and large have put Obama in the top ten or twelve of our presidents, while Trump is either dead last or close to it. These are experts from across the political spectrum, professionals who evaluate the performances of presidents from Washington on down the list.
And yet, for some reason, they still can't accept that a Black president could have won on merit, competence, morals, ethics, intelligence, trustworthiness, wisdom, faithfulness, family values, and much more. No, they must insist that historians can't be trusted, that a Black man can't become president without the "sympathy" vote or the "political correctness" vote.
They insist that unless we are racists ourselves, we shouldn't notice people's skin color or race. How can we not? We notice their height, hair color, gender, clothing, age, weight, and everything else about them. But we should never notice their skin color? Bull dung.
The real question is how we react to those physical characteristics. We all make judgments based on appearance. How do we judge blond women with big boobs? How do we judge that guy with a fat belly? How do we judge that person with a developmental disability?
We can't help the judgment. We can't help those immediate reactions. But the real question ... the real test... is what we do with those judgments. Do we get to know that autistic kid and learn how to communicate? Do we get to know that blond woman and find out that she's a college professor? Do we get to know those Black teenagers so we don't cross the street when we see them coming?
And do we vote for a Black man simply because he's the right person for the job? Or do we vote for someone else because we make negative assumptions about Black men? Or are those conservative commenters correct... that we vote for the Black candidate out of "correctness" or even out of guilt?
Thanks, Xplisset, for making me think more about this.
"We can't help the judgment. We can't help those immediate reactions. But the real question ... the real test... is what we do with those judgments."
This is an important observation, one that leads to the "real question," the one we have to address time after time in the course of our lives. Well done.
Thank you for this gift of beautiful writing, reality check and tenderness.
Brilliant and moving. Thank you.
Well-written piece about some of the “worst of times!” Thank you…
Look up "Gimli Glider" sometime. A classic cockup, as our British cousins say.
I'm going to sneak past that damnable AI and find out about it. I seem to have heard that name before and now I am curious.
Damn! I consider myself to be a decent writer. I'm pretty good in fact but nothing like this. Even in your greatest moments of self-doubt (we all get them from time to time) you are Doing your Duty.
May I speak for everone in this forum and say that your work is positive, impactful and sorely needed in these most troubled of times?
This was extraordinary, thank you.
I had no idea.. thank you