Tag: 04

I got a familiar feeling after reading both Zinn chapters this week – having my bubble burst. While definitely not a feeling I enjoy, that emotion is immediately overcome with frustration about not being given an accurate account of events earlier in my life. Just as I had believed the dominant narrative about the founding of our country, I was also fairly naive when thinking about the Civil War, Emancipation Proclamation, and what Zinn calls the black revolt of the 1950s and 1960s. Reading these chapters make it abundantly clear that there is a glaring flaw in our education system. The Emancipation Proclamation is portrayed as the be all and end all of the abolitionist movement, when in reality the motivation for it was purely politically and economically motivated and the federal government actively fought to withhold the rights it had promised to black Americans. The fact that I am only now learning the extent to which this occurred at 19 years old is ridiculous to me. 

Besides the failure of the federal government, I was struck by another theme in these two chapters – the pitting of poor white Americans against poor black Americans. Before the Emancipation Proclamation, poor whites were employed as overseers for plantations to stop them from helping slaves escape to freedom. Following the “freeing” (I don’t feel quite right saying slaves were actually freed after the Emancipation Proclamation alone after these readings), poor whites and poor blacks were competing for the same underpaid jobs and insufficient housing, perpetuating the same racism and racial violence that allowed upper class wealthy white men to maintain the same power and status they had before. While a hard pill to swallow, learning these facts and the true accounts of history is far more important than feeling comfortable with the wrong account.

As Americans we agree that the American Revolution was an inherently good thing – it gave us freedom from foreign control and independence to rule our own people in the ways we see fit. While the Founding Fathers had more than a few significant flaws, generally as Americans we are proud of the work they did to shape our nation. However, this Zinn made me think about the course of events a little bit differently. I feel like the American Revolution is typically painted as a spontaneous, grass-roots uprising motivated out of pure patriotism and the will for independence. Reading Zinn this made me realize how much more calculated this war truly was and what the actual motivations of it were.

While the unrest and anger of the lower and middle classes was definitely present, that anger was not initially targeted at the British. Following the French and Indian War, the gap in wealth was extraordinarily high. The top 5% of Boston controlled 49% of the city’s assets, and those patterns were similar in other cities. This resulted in outbreaks of mob violence against the elite, which made them wonder if they could harness this energy and use it for their own personal gain. England needed the colonies far more than they needed England and with the French finally gone and enough unrest already present, the upper class realized exactly how to get what they wanted by redirecting the anger of the poor from them to the British. In doing so, they were able to “enlist enough Americans to defeat England without disturbing too much the relations of wealth and power that had developed” (74). They painted this movement as a benefit for all, when in reality 69% of the signers of the Declaration of Independence had held office under English rule and were able to avoid the draft by paying for it. They were able to make the poor think it was their idea and then make them do the elite’s dirty work. When you see exactly how well thought through this revolution was, you understand why Zinn called it “a work of genius” (59). 

While that may be true, given the account of the revolution I had been taught about this unification of the people and pure desire for independence that drove it with all men being equal and fighting the good fight together, this more accurate account left me a little disappointed. This is probably due to a naive, fourth grade sense of the American Revolution (history’s not my thing) but this feeling is one I’ve become rather familiar with this semester. It feels to me a lot like learning how charismatic leaders – a very positive term – can easily turn extremely manipulative. While the harnessing of the anger of the poor to achieve the needs of the upper class was a brilliant move, it feels similarly manipulative. There is a long history of the elite using the poor or less privileged to drive their own agenda and knowing that our country was built the same was not surprising but definitely burst my bubble a little bit. They summed it up best – tyranny is tyranny.

Reading Miller’s piece, the distinction she made between the two types of inequality was something I hadn’t thought about before. Temporary inequality as she called it is something that to me seems like you can grow out of – you eventually graduate from school and no longer have teachers telling you what to do, you get older and either have kids of your own and assume the role of parent or you just reach the age where you are no longer subject to your parents’ every wish, etc. As Miller aptly names it, this inequality is temporary. However, the true problem Miller states is in permanent inequality where “your birth defines you” (224). While with temporary inequality the goal is to eventually end the inequality between the two parties, the opposite is true for permanent inequality.  

The thinking of the dominant group in permanent inequality that Miller describes reminded me of our class discussion about groupthink. The tendency in groupthink is to label the other group as weak or stupid or evil, and dominant groups do the same thing. That is apparent in the examples Miller gives on 225 when she discusses the commonly held perceptions of black people being less intelligent or women being ruled by emotion. The dominant group in each of those cases label the subordinate groups as bad or in some way inferior as a method of preserving their power. This paper begs the question of how the subordinate group can defy the dominant group and change those expectations and perceptions.

Mabey’s statement that today’s typical American consists of “spectator-citizens waiting for the right type of leader(s)” when describing the leader follower relationship, which I don’t completely agree with. Then he goes on to say that leaders appear somewhat away from the actual culture, and dependent on by citizens. When talking about political leaders I completely disagree with this. However, if talking about a leader as someone who efficiently communicates to masses, then I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. I think most leaders in that sense are seen above the masses, with more authority (but not deatached), and because of this they are able to speak on behalf of the masses. Along with this, even toxic charismatic leaders base what that do and say on their followers. Followers play a big role in this process, and leaders both good and bad recognize this.

I do agree with his points that there are certain unrealistic expectations set on leaders and that our models of leader follower relationships need to be reevaluated. I feel like in today’s society, with so many things affecting us so terribly, more and more people are becoming active citizens at younger ages, even if it’s not by choice. For example, we can’t just sit around and wait for someone to do something to fix the environment, if we did we all would be dead. In conclusion, active citizenship is an important leadership role. Also, followers need to follow with a mission and for a reason, not just waiting for the leader to do something.