David Walker.

[LWolf]

Interestingly enough, I've spent the last couple of days doing assigned readings for a class; one of the readings was David Walker's "An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World". It appears in the first volume, third edition, of The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, edited by Henry Louis Gates,Jr., and Valerie A. Smith.

The following are some quotes from the introduction to "An Appeal", the bolding mine:

"David Walker's Appeal, published by its author in 1829, shocked and alarmed many white readers in the North as well as the South because of Walker's insistence on white racism as a national problem, of which slavery was its most egregious manifestation."

"Walker published three editions of his Appeal in 1829 and 1830, each one increasingly urgent and frank in its denunciation of racial injustice."

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Replace "slavery" in the first quote with "lynching," or with "murder by cop," and what has really changed?

I'm with BLM.


Here's an online version of An Appeal:

http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/walker/walker.html

[villager]

1. k&r for exposure! nt

[oberliner]

2. Are you seriously arguing that nothing has really changed since 1829?

With respect to racism?

[LWolf]

3. I'm not really arguing anything.

I'm noting the similarities in Walker's conversation to today's conversation.

I could be noting all the changes that have occurred, as well, but that's not my point. As long racism is still hurting and killing people, as long as racial justice has not been achieved, they haven't changed enough. That's my pov, if you're interested.

Really, though, I just thought it was interesting that I'm reading a black man's outrage and grief from 1829, and it sounds so similar to what I read here, and other places, daily in 2016.

[oberliner]

4. Fair enough

I just think maybe now we actually have an awareness of the injustices that did not exist (willfully) many years ago.

People, though, do tend to gloss over just how ugly the history of this country has been, especially with respect to slavery.

[LWolf]

5. Cell phone videos

have made it impossible to be unaware. Of course, there are still plenty of people willing to rationalize injustice away.

Even with the extra awareness, and all the conversation, it's still happening. Just like back in 1829, there are still way too many people who don't want to hear, don't want to change.

[oberliner]

6. Yes indeed

Those videos have really made it impossible to deny reality. And with the ability to spread the videos to large numbers of people very quickly, we are in a very different age.