It seems that the puppet and his owners have fooled a lot of white conservatives also, especially about race.

This is not racism at all, but blindness to being manipulated. For all her talents, Ms. Angelou wasn’t immune to it…and neither is anyone else.

Thanks, Neo, for this post.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ETu33jxYkA

Anybody who actually thinks about the lyrics ought to be able to step back in time and get a sense of the context then.

I’m willing to recognize MA’s talents and accomplishments, as well as her faults and the hype that she garnered.

Thanks to NeoCon for the background.

Did you have to read all of Mein Kampf before making any personal response to it? Of course not.

As to your “Were white Americans justified…?” question, you seem to postulate that the Nazis set the stage and Americans were to respond to Nazi illogic with illogic of their own: i.e., Nazis don’t like blacks, we don’t like Nazis, so we must like blacks.

-the commenters who indicate one should, nay must, see Angelou in the context of her race and time. Do you do that with Jefferson?

I see Jefferson in the context of his time, though many do not. When Jefferson wrote, “Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just,” he was struggling with the dilemma of slavery in a free country.

-and those who insist the entire work must be read

Rather that those who have read the whole book are better able to make interpretations of the book than those who have just read a quoted paragraph of the book. Would you claim that those who have read only a paragraph of the book are better able to interpret the book than those who have read the whole book?
Don Carlos, here are some more questions for you.
Was Maya Angelou’s recollection of Miss Kirwin, her teacher in San Francisco, the recollection of a racist?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Let’s Talk Boxing: Louis versus Schmelling:

The classical boxing bouts that pitted American Joe Louis against Germany’s Max Schmeling symbolized the battle between the freedom of democracy against the tyranny of leftist fascism.

The 1930s dawned with the ascendence of the Nazi-fascist dictator Adolph Hitler to power in Germany and the election of Franklin Roosevelt to the presidency in America. This set the stage for the confrontation of two vastly divergent political views in the boxing ring.

The first match between Louis and Schmeling took place at Yankee Stadium in 1936. The fascist state considered Schmeling as a symbol of the Aryan race that was superior to all other people. Louis entered the fight with a record of 23 straight wins. Americans loved the “Brown Bomber” Louis as a hero of America. By the 12th round, Schmeling had knocked Louis to the mat and won the fight. It should be noted that Schmeling never joined the Nazi Party.

The political row between the U.S. and Germany had heated up by 1938. Schmeling’s Nazi handler bragged that he would never be beat by a negro.

Were white Americans justified in viewing the Schmelling/Louis fight in political terms, when the Nazi regime had also done so? If so, then why were black Americans not justified in viewing the Schmelling/Louis fight in political terms, though their interpretation of the political terms might differ from those of white Americans?
inquiring minds want to know.

I commented on the examples after quoting them.

That I reach a different verdict than you is part of “So it goes.” Diversity!

Yes, instructive indeed.

You are free to go on hating artists who are liberal Democrats. And calling black people racists for describing the sorrow and fear they saw as children among black people in the segregated South in 1938 when Joe Louis seem to be losing a fight, or the joy when he won.

Some agree with you, some don’t.

And no, of course you don’t have to have read an entire work to comment on it. But the examples (quotes) you give to illustrate your points should contain/demonstrate the thing you’re trying to say they contain.

And memoirs often contain examples of a person’s ignorance and stupidity and errors made when young (and even when older) without the books or the person actually being ignorant or stupid, or likely to repeat the error. Memoirs often involve people learning from their errors, and descriptions of how that happened.

And yes, I’m pretty sure most of the commenters putting Angelou in context in this thread would also put Jefferson in context.

-the commenters who indicate one should, nay must, see Angelou in the context of her race and time. Do you do that with Jefferson?

-and those who insist the entire work must be read before one can comment on a quote from it. A quote.

-and those who admire a literary work (or other art) while insisting that admiration is independent from knowledge of the artist’s politics, a kind of artistic myopia. That is one of the ways the Left sucks “intellectuals” in. You like the work and you’ll like the artist.

No wonder we’re losing.