America imagines itself at once as a beacon of freedom and as a white republic. And you can't hold those two views together without contradiction. Without depositing a kind of madness at the heart of the nation.
The second sentence is a mission statement for our nation a nation in which the governor comes not from the divine right of kings or the sword of conquerors, but by a social contract that's signaled in the very first word of the sentence.
All throughout the north, black people are on high alert because slave catchers are out sort of like ICE, snatching people off the street, picking them up, throwing them in jail, throwing them in these holding pens, sending them back to slavery. Even if you were born in freedom, you felt like your life was at risk.
James Wilson is the first to argue, no, they have zero, they have no authority over us at all. Now, this is such a groundbreaking argument that one of his mentors reads it and says, James, you're a young man, you have a, you know, big career ahead of you, don't put this out there yet. It's too bold.
Part of the punchline of the book is that black people can't purchase an escape from racism. We can't buy ourselves out of anti-blackness in the US. Moreover, black people know this.
Will Rogers was perhaps the most beloved public figure of his time. His radio show reached tens of millions of listeners. He was the highest-paid Hollywood star of the 1930s. He was so popular that there were serious efforts to draft him as a presidential candidate — efforts he had to publicly reject.
1mo ago
Underscored — save the words that stop you in your tracks.
