tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20136268.post8240823109338466518..comments2024-02-08T23:48:48.397-05:00Comments on <p><big>JOHN BROWN TODAY</big></p><p><i><center>A Biographer's Blog</center></i></p>: Louis A. DeCaro, Jr. . .http://www.blogger.com/profile/10895195726778019518noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20136268.post-19131322135157067942010-10-29T11:29:39.590-04:002010-10-29T11:29:39.590-04:00John-Thank you for your thoughtful response. Your...John-Thank you for your thoughtful response. Your former position at HF makes for a most interesting theme and discussion. If you wish to contribute a reflection along these lines relating to JB, I'd be happy to feature it. You can reach me through Alliance Theological Seminary.<br /><br />No single figure in U.S. history draws into himself the conflicting presuppositions, passions, and interpretations of "America" as does John Brown. You undoubtedly understand Public History much better than I do, but I tend to believe that the core of so many U.S. whites' revulsion to Brown is partly miseducation and partly a kind of protective sense of their conception of the U.S. It is difficult for a large segment of whites to own up to how comprehensive and complete the racist oppression brought about by chattel slavery actually was in this nation, and the utter contradiction and hypocrisy of "freedom loving" white ancestors and heroes who either supported slavery or relegated it to a secondary problem category. As Brown recognized, the entire nation was effectively a slave nation, where even in the North it was illegal to oppose slavery's legal rights. Human beings were treated as mere property, their labor stolen, their bodies exploited, their humanity "niggerized" and even their "free" counterparts in the North lived in the shadows of fear, discrimination, and injustice. Would terms like totalitarianism, fascism, and tyranny even suffice to describe what slavery was in our own nation? <br /><br />Yet most whites assume that slavery was a kind of grandiose inconvenience. Indeed, I would argue that while there are few depraved minds today who would defend slavery, the white society still perceives slavery as a secondary issue--not a monstrous abuse of humanity, but as a problem of sorts, and one that is now long gone and difficult to grasp, having been "edited" of its horrors, injustices, and its long-standing ill influence upon our society. I hate to say that it comes down to racism, but if it is not racism, it is at least a monstrous form of <i>societal selfishness and narcissism.</i> I fully believe that the popular view of slavery (and John Brown too) would be quite different if this travesty had afflicted white forebears, and John Brown had raised a sword to help them. That writers and teachers, from bloggers to intellectuals in academia, can speak of him as a "terrorist," and even as an "enemy," only affirms this point in my thinking. Frederick Douglass once referred to racism in the U.S. as a "peculiar form of aristocracy," and I would contend that such an "aristocracy" has as its birthright the privilege of the majority to ignore the injustices of their nation, diminish the suffering of the lower castes, and condemn and dismiss any of their own class who "betray" their aristocratic sensibilities and privileges--and no "white" man did so as did John Brown. In light of this reality, I don't know that there is a way of "redeeming" John Brown in Public History, as long as the "orthodoxy" of that discipline is premised upon these aristocratic presuppositions. Although there is a real shift in Brown's favor in this 21st century, it is no surprise that the rhetoric of Brown as an inimical domestic terrorist continues to flow forth in public institutions--including one that celebrates the underground railroad! It takes a great deal of skillful self-delusion and cultural audacity to pull it off. But after all, this is what describes much of "America" the dream and its well padded poets and authors--over against the beleaguered, often frustrated chroniclers of the nightmarish history of the United States. As Brown would probably put it, "So we go."<br /><br />Best wishes--LDLouis A. DeCaro, Jr. . .https://www.blogger.com/profile/10895195726778019518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20136268.post-78349621338430256512010-10-29T10:11:52.583-04:002010-10-29T10:11:52.583-04:00Dr. DeCaro,
First, let me say I've loved read...Dr. DeCaro,<br /><br />First, let me say I've loved reading your blog. Brown deserves far more public attention than anyone seems willing to give him, and I think your blog helps to bridge the academic/public gap.<br /><br />As someone who worked at Harpers Ferry NHP for a number of years, I struggled with a modern analogy to help visitors understand Southern reaction to Brown. I often characterized their reaction as believing Brown to be a Terrorist, quickly adding that the word did not exist in the period. I'd typically bookend this characterization of the radical Southern perspective with the equally radical Northern perspective that Brown was a saint.<br /><br />I don't think I'd be very happy sitting in on Mr. Cooper's presentation, and would be that visitor heckling him afterward. Yet I still feel that Brown and public history is a hard nut to crack. The (chiefly Southern) allegiance to the institution of slavery, and (chiefly Northern) abhorrence of that institution is something the visitor doesn't feel in their gut after 150 years.<br /><br />Personally, my heart lies with Brown, and I'd have handed him every cent in my pocket if I'd have met him in the period. The park, when I worked there, understandably needed to play a more middle of the road opinion. I'd love your perspective on Brown and Public History. How does one help visitors feel what it was like in the 1850s, so they can viscerally understand Brown's struggle and Virginia's response.John Rudyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05613203957933442701noreply@blogger.com