The Problem of (Teaching) History: “1619” or “1776”?

This post is closely related to my June 19 article regarding critical race theory (CRT). Most of the legislation seeking to curtail the teaching of CRT has included criticism of The 1619 Project as well. CRT and “1619” both raise the question of how history is understood and taught.  

The Problem of Microhistory

Each one of us has our own personal history, which should, one would think, be rather straightforward and non-problematic. But in writing my life story, now available in print, some historical “facts” came under question. June did not remember some of our family history the same way I did.

The two siblings in Ann Patchett’s intriguing book The Dutch House (2019) discuss their family’s microhistory. One asks, “Do you think it’s possible to ever see the past as it actually was?” The other reflects on how we humans

overlay the present onto the past. We look back through the lens of what we know now, so we’re not seeing it as the people we were, we’re seeing it as the people we are, and that means the past has been radically altered (p. 45).

The Problem of Macrohistory

Recently I also read The Sense of an Ending (2011) by British author Julian Barnes. In that novel, one “high school” student remarks, “History is the lies of the victors.” The teacher retorts that “it is also the self-delusions of the defeated.”

At that point, the most brilliant student in the class says, rather cynically, “History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation” (pp. 16-17).

If that is true in personal or family history; it is especially true in writing macrohistory. But the problem is more than just the imperfections of memory and the inadequacies of documentation.

The most serious problem is the biases of the historians and the conscious or unconscious interpretation of past events for the benefit of a particular segment of society.

Thus, the squabble over The 1619 Project continues.

U.S. History: “1619” or “1776”?

In 2019, The New York Times Magazine published The 1619 Project, developed by journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and others.

The year 1619 was when the first African slaves set foot in North America. The 1619 Project, then, “aims to reframe the country's history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United States’ national narrative" (from this link).

The 1619 Project was strongly criticized by politicians such as former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (see here) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who proposed the Saving of American History Act of 2020 (see here), and especially by former Pres. Trump.

On the day before the 2020 presidential election, by executive order DJT established the 1776 Commission. Republican politicians continue to praise the flawed 1776 Commission report and to castigate The 1619 Project.

The “1776 Pledge to Save Our Schools” is being signed by numerous politicians, such as the two current Republican gubernatorial candidates in Kansas, who were rebuked by an editorial in the June 28 issue of the Kansas City Star.

There are some obvious problems with The 1619 Project, including some historical inaccuracies (as noted in this 3/6/20 Politico article). It also fails to link the beginning of U.S. history to the mistreatment of Native Americans (as this 9/26/20 opinion piece explains).

But most who oppose teaching CRT and “1619” want to shield students from much of the “ugly” history of the past. They need to consider, though, the truth of the following meme. (The painting depicts some dreadful history of Canada’s First Nations children, similar to what happened in the U.S.) 

_____
**Of the many articles I have read related to this post, I am linking here to only one, Eugene Robinson’s 6/28 opinion piece in The Washington Post, which is accessible here without a paywall. The sixth paragraph on is directly about The 1619 Project.

A Combative and Compassionate “Lily”: The Life of Yuri Kochiyama

Rarely am I moved to tears while watching a movie, but recently seeing Come See the Paradise (1990) brought tears to my eyes, especially when the Kawamura family, including their lovely daughter Lily (who was married to an Irish American), was sent to an internment camp.

I couldn’t help but think about that touching movie when reflecting on the life of Yuri Kochiyama, the real-life woman who, like Lily, was born in California to immigrants from Japan—and yuri is the Japanese word for lily. 

The Crux of “Lily’s” Life

Perhaps few of you have heard of Yuri, the remarkable Japanese American “Lily” born 100 years ago, but hers is an interesting story and one worthy of thoughtful consideration.

On May 19, 1921, Seiichi and Tsuyako Nakahara became the parents of twins, a boy and a girl they named Mary Yuriko. They lived in a relatively affluent White neighborhood, and as a youth Mary attended a Christian church and taught Sunday school classes.

But things drastically changed on December 7 when Mary was 20. Her father, just home from the hospital, was arrested by FBI agents. He died the next month. Shortly after that, Pres. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 and Mary and her family were sent to an internment camp in Arkansas.

Max Garrott, my friend and esteemed missionary sempai (older colleague) was forced to leave Japan in 1942 and served for a time as a chaplain at the Japanese internment camps in Arkansas. During Passion Week and Easter in 1944, Dr. Garrott preached at the camp where Mary Yuriko was interned.

Perhaps she heard him preach or lead Bible study that week as she continued to be an active Christian even while incarcerated in the Jerome, Arkansas, camp.

While there, she met her future husband, Bill Kochiyama, a nisei (second-generation Japanese American) soldier fighting for the United States. The couple married in 1946 and moved to New York City two years later. There she became widely known as Yuri Kochiyama.

Yuri (“Lily”) died seven years ago, on June 1, 2014, at the age of 93.

The Combative “Lily”

After moving to New York and into public housing there, for the rest of her life Yuri Kochiyama was an activist. She became an outspoken and combative critic of the mistreatment not only of Japanese Americans but of other mistreated minorities living in the U.S.

In 1963 she met Malcomb X and became a combative supporter of his work for racial justice and human rights. When he was assassinated in 1965, the picture of the fallen Black leader in Life magazine shows Yuri crouched in the background, cradling his head.

During the 1960s, Yuri also became a contentious critic of the war in Vietnam and then for decades of what she saw as American “imperialism.”

The Compassionate “Lily”

Five days after her death in June 2014, the White House honored Kochiyama on its website:

Today, we honor the legacy of Yuri Kochiyama, a Japanese American activist who dedicated her life to the pursuit of social justice, not only for the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, but all communities of color.

That was an appropriate recognition for the combative and compassionate “Lily.”

Five years ago on what would have been her 95^th birthday, a Google Doodle, which was both praised and criticized, said this about Yuri:

Kochiyama left a legacy of advocacy: for peace, U.S. political prisoners, nuclear disarmament, and reparations for Japanese Americans interned during the war. She was known for her tireless intensity and compassion, and remained committed to speaking out, consciousness-raising, and taking action until her death in 2014.

Here is one of “Lily” Kochiyama’s most quoted statements: 

While we may not agree with all the people and causes Yuri Kochiyama supported, can’t we at least appreciate these words of hers?

_______

** Yuri Kochiyama’s contentious and compassionate life’s work seems to be getting more and more recognition. 

A children’s book titled Rad American Women A – Z was published in 2015, and Yuri was the Y for the 26 women written about in that book.

In 2019 a book was published under the title Can I Get a Witness?: Thirteen Peacemakers, Community-Builders, and Agitators for Faith and Justice. The third chapter, following essays about Cesar Chavez and Howard Thurman, is titled “Setting the Captives Free: Yuri Kochiyama and Her Lifelong Fight against Unjust Imprisonment.”

Criticizing Criticism of Critical Race Theory

Critical race theory (CRT) is one of the hottest topics of the day, so it seems fitting to critique the profuse criticism of it.

Basically, critical race theory is an academic concept that explains racism as a social construct. That is, racism is understood not merely as the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies. Why, though, should that be a target of constant criticism? 

(From a 1/22/2017 post by Kyia Young)

Political Criticism of CRT

The political criticism of CRT has been strongest since September of last year. On Sept. 4, then President Trump had the Executive Office of the President issue a memorandum for the heads of executive departments and agencies.

That memo ended with these words: “The divisive, false, and demeaning propaganda of the critical race theory movement is contrary to all we stand for as Americans and should have no place in the Federal government.”

Since then, several states (Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas) have banned/restricted the teaching of CRT.

Perhaps most egregious is Oklahoma’s ban, for earlier this year it was reported that over 80% of the citizens of that state had never heard of the Tulsa race massacre at the end of May 1921.

Nevertheless, on May 7 Oklahoma Gov. Stitt signed a bill that seeks to prevent teachers from saying things so that “any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex.”

But how could Tulsa 1921 possibly be taught without Black students feeling some anguish at the way Blacks were so seriously mistreated then, without White students feeling some guilt at what their ancestors had done, and without all feeling considerable discomfort?

However, all across the country Republican-led states are criticizing CRT, and more states will likely ban/prohibit the teaching of CRT in public schools.

SBC Criticism of CRT

In recent years, perhaps a higher percentage of Southern Baptists have voted for Republican politicians than voters belonging to any other major Christian denomination. Accordingly, CRT has been widely discussed, and criticized, by Baptist pastors and Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) leaders.

There was a major push by the new organization known as Conservative Baptist Network (CBN) to get Pastor Mike Stone of Georgia elected as the next president of the SBC.

In the run-off election on June 15, he lost by a narrow 52%-48% vote at the SBC annual meeting in Nashville. (Lee Brand, Jr., a member of CBN’s steering council, was elected 1st vice president.)

In CBN’s May 20 statement endorsing Stone, the third reason they gave for their support was his opposition to CRT. They boasted that Stone “holds that the Bible is the only analytical tool he needs, leading him to reject unbiblical ideologies such as Critical Race Theory.”

Criticizing the Criticism of CRT

In twentieth-century American Christianity, an important emphasis emerged on what came to be widely labeled as “sinful social structures.” Early on, that emphasis was found in the writings of Walter Rauschenbusch and other Social Gospel proponents.

In A Theology for the Social Gospel (1917), Rauschenbusch wrote that “we are continuing to sin because our fathers created the conditions of sin by the African slave trade and by the unearned wealth they gathered from slave labor for generations” (p. 79). Sin was embedded in the system of slavery.

Fifteen years later, Reinhold Niebuhr published his highly influential book with the sometimes misunderstood title Moral Man and Immoral Society. That means, for example, some slaveowners might treat their slaves kindly (morally) while simultaneously the system of slavery was grossly immoral.

True, some teachers might use CRT in harmful ways. But the greatest harm to society will come from those who refuse to recognize the reality of sinful social structures.

The longer that reality is denied and attempts to understand/dismantle it are rejected (such as by most criticism of CRT), the stronger the roots of racism will become and the longer the detrimental effects of racism will be experienced by so many People of Color.

Yes, criticism of Critical Race Theory must be forthrightly criticized.

So, What about the Blind Men and the Elephant?

Last month I posted “Pondering Pachyderm Perambulation,” relating to the book Circling the Elephant (2020) by John J. Thatamanil. But there was more I wanted to say about that book and the important subjects it explores—so, here goes.  

What Do We Learn from the Blind Men?

There is value in pondering the old story of the six blind men and the elephant. But there are also problems that arise from a serious consideration of that fable/allegory. (Author Thatamanil considers five of those problems on pages 5 to 11 of his book.)

To me, a basic problem is this: If all you knew about an elephant was from what you learned from six blind men, would you have anything like an adequate idea of what an elephant is? Not at all.

True, you would know something about six aspects of the animal called an elephant, but that would be far from understanding a real pachyderm.

More importantly, one has to know something about an actual elephant for the fable to be instructive.

So, what does this say to those who take the old story as helpful for understanding the various religious traditions of the world? Does each tradition have something true to teach us about God (by whatever name God is called)? Perhaps.

But can we reach an adequate understanding of what God is really like by just putting all the religious teachings together? Not at all. One has to know something about God for the old fable to be helpful for interreligious discussion.

What about the Value of Religious Diversity?

Author Thatamanil seeks to develop a theology of religious diversity, asserting that such diversity is beneficial rather than problematical.

The fact of religious plurality certainly must be recognized, and as I wrote back in 2010, all of us should relate to different religious faiths with an attitude characterized by adjectives such as open, respectful, and dialogical.

There are, undoubtedly, benefits by learning from those of other religious traditions. But a full-blown pluralism that accepts all as more or less equally “true” or “good” is highly questionable.

Is religious diversity good when some forms are injurious to people, such as in supporting over/under relationships, racism, neglect of the social/physical world, etc., etc.? Aren’t, in fact, some religious views clearly better than others?

“Liberal” scholars such as Thatamanil and those who basically agree with him are loath to say so.

And, certainly, the differences within the various religious traditions must be fully recognized as well as the differences among those traditions.

Still, to say that all expressions of religion are basically the same and all are basically good, or bad, is seriously mistaken.

What about Social Ethics?

Knowing an elephant is partially like a tree, or a wall, or a rope, etc. says nothing about the beneficial or detrimental effects elephants have on humans.

Interreligious (or even intrareligious) discussions can end up without shedding much light on how the various religious views impact the way humans live and interact in society.

How do religious beliefs, of any tradition, impact living/loving in the “real world” (by which I mean the world in which people live their day-by-day lives)?

Back in 1975, Christian ethicist John C. Bennett (1902~95) published a seminal book titled The Radical Imperative: From Theology to Social Ethics. The emphasis was on moving from an emphasis on religious doctrines to focusing on the social responsibility of (Christian) believers.

Maybe now is the time to move from a theology of religious diversity to considering how religious faiths help or hinder the flourishing of human beings in society today.

In that regard, Thatamanil does recognize a fundamental problem in traditional Hinduism, the inherent caste system which lingers to this day, including the ongoing “discrimination and horrific violence against Dalits” (p. 105).

The caste system embraced by Hinduism is injurious to (Asian) Indians (even those in the U.S.; see here and here) to this day.

To speak metaphorically, the blind men sharing their limited views of an elephant can’t, for example, understand or deal with the harm caused by a stampeding elephant.

Thank God for Uncle Tom(s)!

It is probably apocryphal, but the story is told that when Pres. Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe near the beginning of the Civil War, he declared, “So this is the little lady who started this great war.”

Think with me now about this “little lady,” who was born 210 years ago (on June 14, 1811), and about Uncle Tom, her best known character.

The Power of the Beecher Family

The Beecher family was highly prominent in the U.S. during the nineteenth century. Lyman Beecher (1775~1863) was one of the best-known preachers in the country, and eight years after his death the still extant Lyman Beecher Lectureship on Preaching at Yale Divinity School was established.

Henry Ward Beecher (1813~87), the eighth of Lyman’s thirteen children, also became one of the premier preachers of the 19th century. In fact, Debby Applegate’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Henry is titled, The Most Famous Man in America (2006).

But neither her father nor her famous little brother exerted as much influence on American society as did Harriet Beecher (1811~96).

She married Lane Seminary professor Calvin Stowe in 1836, and because of one of the many books she authored, the name Harriet Beecher Stowe became a household name.

The Power of the Pen

“The pen is mightier than the sword” were words found in a 1839 play written by English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and those words have been used innumerable times since then.

There was a lot of might in Harriet Beecher’s pen as she wrote her powerful novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Before being issued as a complete book, it was published serially in National Era, an abolitionist newspaper published weekly from 1847 to 1860.  

The first chapter of what became the famous book of Harriet Beecher Stowe (HBS) was printed in National Era 170 years ago, on June 5, 1851. (Click here to read the first chapter of HBS’s story as printed in that issue.)

The entire book was published the following year and immediately became a bestseller. In fact, it became the best-selling novel and the second best-selling book of the 19^th century, following the Bible.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s, giving rise to the words attributed to Lincoln referring to HBS as the little lady who started the big war.

The Power of “Uncle Tom”

In HBS’s novel, Uncle Tom was a loyal Christian who died a martyr’s death. I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin about 25 years ago, and I remember how impressed I was with Uncle Tom. Indeed, his powerful personality as created by HBS helped forge the determination of many to rid the nation of slavery.

But sadly, Uncle Tom morphed first into a servile old man and then to a racial epithet hurled at African American men deemed, by other Black people, to have betrayed their race.

The story of that unfortunate transition is told by Canadian university professor Cheryl Thompson in her book, Uncle: Race, Nostalgia, and the Politics of Loyalty, published in March. She seeks to show how from martyr to insult, “Uncle Tom” has influenced two centuries of racial politics.

Black writers such as James Baldwin, among many others, came to use the name “Uncle Tom” to refer to Black men who were too submissive to Whites. Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Barack Obama have all been accused of being Uncle Toms.

What a shame that the name of the powerful Black man created by HBS was turned into a slur!

But just as the Uncle Tom of the “little lady’s” novel was an important instigator of freedom for Blacks in the 1850s, so have many men called Uncle Toms in modern times been powerful proponents for freedom and justice for all.

So, yes, thank God for Uncle Tom—and for Uncle Toms such as those noted above!

Remembering Rachel

Some of you know the name Rachel Held Evans well; others, not so much. Regardless, it seems appropriate to take some time to remember Rachel now, just before the 40^th anniversary of her birth on June 8. I'm greatly saddened that she didn’t live to celebrate the big 4-0, as she died on May 4, 2019.

Who Was Rachel Held Evans?

Rachel Grace Held was born in Alabama but moved with her birth family to Dayton, Tennessee, when she was 14. Dayton, you may remember, is where the (in)famous Scopes Trial was held in 1925.

Five years later, Bryan College, named for William Jennings Bryan, the prosecutor at the 1925 trial, was founded in that small city. Rachel’s family moved to Dayton because her father got a job at the college there.

Rachel graduated from Bryan College in 2003 and married Dan Evans, her college boyfriend, that year. Rachel and Dan’s two children were three and one when Rachel died.

During her much-too-brief life, Rachel Held Evans (RHE) became a prominent Christian blogger, author, and speaker. But because of her faith in Jesus, she regularly rejected the biblicism, patriarchalism, and homophobic ideas of the conservative Christianity of her youth.

What Did Rachel Write?

RHE wrote four books published between 2010 and 2018, the year before her untimely death. The first was Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions. Four years later it was republished as Faith Unraveled with the same subtitle.

Her 2012 book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, became a New York Times bestseller in e-book non-fiction, and her Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church (2015) also became a New York Times bestseller nonfiction paperback.

Rachel’s only book I have read is her last one, Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again, published less than a year before her death. I was much impressed by it.

Here is just one of the many statements I liked in that book: “The apostles remembered what many modern Christians tend to forget—that what makes the gospel offensive isn’t who it keeps out but who it lets in” (Kindle ed., p. 186). 

Those words embody her central emphasis. 

Goodreads.com has nearly 700 quotes from Rachel’s books that have been placed on their website by her readers (see here). There have also been over 10,500 ratings of Inspired posted on Goodreads—which is far fewer than those for her previous two books!

Why Remember Rachel?

One main reason I remember Rachel and encourage you readers to do the same is because her central emphasis, as indicated above, expresses the truth of one of my favorite old Christian hymns, “There’s a Wideness in God’s mercy.”**

Here is what others said about her shortly after her death.

Writing for Religious News Service on May 4, 2019, journalist Kately Beaty lauded RHE for preaching “the wildly expansive love of God.”

Two days later, Eliza Griswold’s article in The New Yorker was titled, “The Radically Inclusive Christianity of Rachel Held Evans.” (Griswold was a Pulitzer Prize winner in 2019.)

Also on May 6, Emma Green’s article in The Atlantic referred to RHE as a “hero to Christian misfits.”

Elizabeth Eisenstadt Evans’s piece about RHE in the June 5, 2019, issue of Christian Century was titled “Apostle to outsiders.” Journalist Evans (no relation to Dan) wrote in the last paragraph, “Christianity in America is more lively, loving, generous, and honest because of Rachel Held Evans.”

Journalist Green concluded her May 6 article with these words: “Evans spent her life trying to follow an itinerant preacher and carpenter, who also hung out with rejects and oddballs. In death, as that preacher once promised, she will be known by her fruits.”

Yes, let’s fondly remember Rachel now and give thanks for the many fruits her much-too-short life is still producing.

_______

** There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy (1862) by F. W. Faber

1 There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
like the wideness of the sea.
There’s a kindness in God’s justice,
which is more than liberty.

3 But we make God’s love too narrow
by false limits of our own,
and we magnify its strictness
with a zeal God will not own.

4 For the love of God is broader
than the measures of the mind,
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.

(From Voices Together, 2020)