As I was watching the History Channel's new series Abraham Lincoln, I was impressed with the quality of the production. Abraham Lincoln is a seven-and-a-half-hour miniseries that aired February 20th-22nd – a beautiful combination of cinema and documentary, Executive producer Dave Sirulnick explains that unlike a traditional documentary, the event includes scripted sequences with actors to bring the story to life.
Sirulnick says …
“The combination of all those tools, if you will, to tell this epic story and this very personal story is what we like to bring to these and we think that it is a really wonderful new format.”
I certainly agree – how refreshing to watch quality programming on the History Channel that expands the mind while entertaining with rich detail. Plan to watch reruns if you missed it. Highly recommended for all ages.
Expert interviews grace the production – including presentations by President Barack Obama; Gen. Stan McCrystal, past commander of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC); and the following:
* Christy Coleman, executive director of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation and former president and chief operating officer of the American Civil War Museum;
* Dr. Allen Guelzo, Director of the James Madison Program’s Initiative in Politics and Statesmanship;
*Dr. Edna Greene Medford, Chairperson and Professor of History at Howard University, specializing in 19th century United States history, with an emphasis on slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction;
* Harold Holzer, director of Hunter College's Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute. Holzer previously spent twenty-three years as senior vice president for public affairs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York;
* Dr. Caroline Janney,
Director of
the John L. Nau III Center
for
Civil
War
History
at
the
University of
Virginia:
* Dr. Catherine Clinton, pioneering historian of the American South and the Civil War, and author or editor of 25 books.
These interviews combined with archival photos and news accounts – Lincoln’s letters, writings and speeches, and remembrances from his contemporaries – provide a fresh, present-day understanding of the man who saved the Union, won the war, and secured emancipation.
The Point of My Blog Entry Today
As I was thoroughly enjoying the miniseries, I was struck by the appearance of two people in the production – to me, their images and their voices did not fit. I instantly questioned the accents of the two, and there's where my story for today began. I feel shame for my unfair judgment. I knew better, but I write this entry today to show how even traces … hints … suggestions associated with old stereotypes, whitewashed history, and “American nationalism” taint our minds and cause us to filter the world through a narrow and frankly prejudiced perception.
You see, I thought the television image of these folks didn't fit the history of the country. In a mind – an organ too prone to establish credibility and authenticity with a faulty first impression – these two “authorities” looked and sounded to like foreigners. I quickly thought, “What in the hell are these folks doing in this great show that has been so meticulously produced with attention to facts? Why would these people – obviously not those with traditional “American” backgrounds – be featured in a series bent on interpreting important American history?
I had no right to feel that way. At once, my mind made the inductive leap, slid down the slippery slope, and landed right in the middle of a baseless, irrational attitude of bias. I felt the whole process take place in less than a second. I felt unable to stop the process.
You see, I had no idea who these experts were. I didn't know whether they were U.S. citizens or not. I had no earthly reason to doubt their word or their inclusion on the show. Yet, my immature “white textbook” mind was calling on me to contort the truth and make judgments based on our own incomplete and bias history.
It took me a few minutes to realize …
The truth is, we are Americans of every nation, and all of us were once viewed as newcomers. Our tongues, our faces, and our intellects are all 100% American. We gain our greatest strength in our diversity and in the perceptions of all who grace our shores and … who live and learn our history.
If any viewpoint was questionable, it was mine as I unfairly judged the inclusion of those not typical or different. God, what was I thinking? I sat in shame for awhile and then considered how I should share this with others.
Let me introduce you to the objects of my objection and firmly cement their credibility and amazing backgrounds in your mind.
Richard Blackett is one of the people I just mentioned. He has a B.A. (Hons) in International Relations from the University of Keele, England and a M.A. in American Studies, from the University of Manchester, England. Sorry, Mr. Blackett.
Blackett's teaching experience includes the following:
2113-2014 -- Harmsworth Visiting Professor of American History, Oxford University
2002 -- Andrew Jackson Professor of History, Vanderbilt University
1996-2002 --Moores Distinguished Chair of
History and African-American Studies, University of Houston
1996-2003 -- American Studies, University of Houston.
1990-1991 -- Professor, Department of History, Indiana University also Director of Graduate Studies
1989-1990 -- Acting Editor, Journal of American History
1985-1987 -- Professor, Department of History, Indiana University and Associate Editor JAH
1978-1985 -- Associate Professor, Department of Black Studies, University of Pittsburgh
Richard Blackett is the Andrew Jackson Professor of History at Vanderbilt University and an historian of the abolitionist movement in the US, particularly its transatlantic connections and the roles African Americans played in the movement to abolish slavery.
He is the author of Building an Antislavery Wall: Black Americans in the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement, 1830-1860 (Louisiana State University Press, 1983); Beating Against the Barriers. Biographical Essays in Nineteenth-Century Afro-American History (Louisiana State University Press, 1986); Thomas Morris Chester: Black Civil War Correspondent (Louisiana State University Press, Da Capo Press, 1989); Divided Hearts. Britain and the American Civil War (Louisiana State University Press, 2001); Making Freedom: The Underground Railroad and the Politics of Slavery (University of North Carolina Press, 2013); editor, Running A Thousand Miles for Freedom: The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery (Louisiana State University Press, 1999); and The Captive’s Quest for Freedom: Fugitive Slaves, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, and the Politics of Slavery (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
Manisha Sinha is the other person to which I owe an apology. She is an Indian-born American historian, the Draper Chair in American History at the University of Connecticut, and a leading authority on the history of slavery and abolition and the Civil War and Reconstruction. Sorry, Ms. Sinha.
She was born in India. Her father was Srinivas Kumar Sinha, an Indian Army general. She received her Ph.D from Columbia University where her dissertation was nominated for the Bancroft Prize.
Sinha is the author of The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina, which was named one of the ten best books on slavery in Politico in 2015 and recently featured in The New York Times’ “1619 Project.” Her multiple award winning second monograph The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition, which won the Frederick Douglass Book Prize. It was named Editor’s Choice in The New York Times Book Review, book of the week by Times Higher Education to coincide with its UK publication, and one of three great History books of 2016 in Bloomberg News.
Manisha Sinha is the recipient of numerous fellowships, including two yearlong research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities as well as two from the Mellon Foundation. Professor Sinha is the Eighth recipient of the James W.C. Pennington Award in 2021.
In Closing
The point of this personally revealing blog entry is to underscore just how easy it is to let your old prejudices and preferences slip in under the radar, effectively cloud your perception, and influence you to take a turn that you should never have made. Comfortably at the wheel, I subconsciously choose a direction planted deep in my experience from long ago – an irrational, potentially injurious partiality … in short, a mindless prejudice.
I think this simple misjudgment has some huge implications for anyone who cares about justice and equality. We may believe that we understand completely the complexities of important issues of the day; however, our unconscious understandings continue to affect us in subtle and indirect ways. They can even cause us to continue to harbor negative feelings and beliefs about members of minority groups.
If we deny the existence of our own aversive racism, we may not even think such judgments are wrong. But, in fact, as humans, we often tend to have more positive reactions to our own race than to that of others, reflecting a pro-in-group rather than an anti-out-group orientation – including negative reactions like denouncing minorities' views, social standings, customs … and even intellect.
This aversive fault is not overt and explicit, but rather unconscious and implicit in nature. Sadly, the aversion is often employed to avoid the stigma of overt bigotry and to protect a conceived, non-prejudiced self-image. We can falsely believe we are privileged to such opinions … even to such social standings … and, again (very sorry Richard Blackett and Manisha Sinha) to such views of American history.
Even subtle bias is a potentially damaging form of discrimination. It can also be rooted in deeper feelings of prejudice and hatred. God bless wonderful productions like the History Channel's Abraham Lincoln. These television shows do so much more than link us to our past: they provide insight into our present struggles and offer directions for the future.
I know this series taught me quite a lot about Old Abe, the Great Emancipator. It taught me even more about myself. Isn't that the measure of a truly great production – not only what you learn from it but what you can apply after viewing it? I hope you understand what I mean.
Prejudice
your whiteness,
your blackness
your freeness
I don’t care about niceness
I’m more partial to meanness
I’m all the things
bad ugly and cruel
my venom pure evil
I’m partial to a fool
No one is safe
no not Christian or Jew
If you’re Buddhist or Muslim
I will hate you too
Richer or poorer
or shades in between
I will exploit your weakness
That’s always been my scene
Woman or man
Transsexual or gay
those straight as an arrow
they’ll all forget to pray
Fear and deception
are the tools of my trade
Sometimes the water looks calm
but it’s a trap I have laid
Love is the weapon
I most truly despise
Because it reveals who I am
and it opens your eyes
Copyright © Richard Lamoureux | Year Posted 2020
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