Learning New Things

I've been reading a lot of interactions of people with Jelani Cobb over the past few days, about Lincoln, the Civil War, the contribution of Black soldiers, and a whole bunch of other issues. If you want to see some of it, it'd be easy to find on Twitter. For what it's worth, these are the thoughts that the discussion triggered in my mind:

• Why is everyone so defensive?
• If we can't be open to the possibility of learning something new from the likes of Jelani Cobb, then we are all in trouble.
• Were all northerners responsible for slavery? Of course not. But the entire white economy of both North and South benefited from it. If we can't acknowledge that then how can we even attempt to engage in the history of slavery in America.
• Similarly, did I create the white privilege under which I have lived my whole life? I hope not. But I certainly benefited from it. I can't undo that but I can start by acknowledging it.
• I went to grade school and high school in the north (Wisconsin) in the 50s and 60s. Was I taught about the many attempts by slaves to break their shackles? Hardly. About the thousands of Black soldiers without whom the Civil War would not have been won? No.
• I was taught (even in a northern school) that slavery was only a secondary cause of the War. "States Rights" was the noble issue of the South.
• I also wasn't taught much nuance about Abraham Lincoln's role as the Emancipator. Rather, mythology was taught instead of history.
• Does this mean that my school and its teachers were acting in bad faith. No. But good faith does not always equate to truth. Indeed, their good faith is all the more reason to be willing to learn something new from people who were excluded for the textbooks of that era.
• This is not all on the schools of the my childhood. Or even on the other actors who were NOT acting in good faith. It is also on me.
• I spent too much of my life--especially after the civil rights laws were passed in the 60s--believing that things were better, that they were on some nonstop path to the disappearance of racism. I was wrong. I've never been more wrong about anything. To the extent I did that, I was part of the problem.
• One thing that has happened in the Trump era is that this has definitely become clearer. Politicians abide bigotry as long as they get their tax cuts. People (friends?) whom I've known most of my adult life are expressing open racism on social media. Religious leaders give all sorts of "mulligans" to racism, xenophobia, and misogyny.
• Hey, I'm a 70-year-old white dude, and probably not even aware of my own hidden prejudices. So what am I to do?
• At the very least, I am determined to spend whatever years I have left learning from people like Jelani Cobb, and others like him. If some of what they say makes me uncomfortable, instead of getting defensive, maybe I should be looking inside me. I don't know if I can be part of the solution, but maybe--in the end--I can stop being part of the problem.