The article by Williamson was extremely interesting and brought to the surface some important content. The point that he made about how we must correct our past before we can move forward as country was very crucial to our day and age. The fact that racial bias is still occurring and has been practically since slavery is outrageous. Today we still have talks about racism and the topic gets circulated quite a bit but for some reason as a country we have not solved our problem and we are still having racist attitudes towards people who aren’t in deserving of it. His point really resonated with me because before I also know that you should move on from your mistakes with a lesson learned but never really thought of a bigger setting such as America. In a bigger setting, it is crucial to be able to go to the past and grab things in which need to be fixed in order to move forward in an efficient way.
All in all, from both articles, the main points made find a way to focus on the strength of a community. For example the problems exemplified in Williamson’s article are in desperate need of a leader in which McFarland portrays. For a great idea or movement to be expressed to the full capacity a great leader needs to be able to compassionately get through the followers and make room for all people with all walks of life.
I also found the part about needing to correct our past very interesting. In the reading he advocated for taking a hard look at history that is difficult to swallow. I feel like this class has already shown me that a lot of what we commonly learn about history is not the full story.
Some of the points Williamson brings up like recognizing our past mistakes as Americans and moving forward, and recognizing a common humanity in all races reminds me of some of the issues surrounding the statues on monument ave. This is a very complicated issue, should we try to contextualize the statues and leave them standing, like some have suggested, or do we tear them down all together. How can move forward on this issue?
I agree with you, the article did what many of the other articles failed to do. It takes in account for the changes due to time and show leadership, and related terms, being more fluid rather than set
U found the part about correcting the past before moving forward interesting and difficult. Looking into the oast can be tricky but when we look back and realize our mistakes it is important that a change happens.
Reading this makes me think about how in order for real change to occur, movements must be accessible to a large number of people.