“America” the movie
I went to see the Dinesh D’Souza movie “America” the other evening.
I have to say it was a mixed bag. The ads, as well as the beginning of the movie, indicated it would explore what the world would be like without America. But the movie wandered away from that interesting premise pretty quickly and never really came back to it.
The movie retained my interest, but I’m not so sure that anyone who isn’t already on the right will be going to see it. The topic is huge, and it bites off a lot more than it can chew in an attempt to debunk the propaganda from the left about how awful America is, how racist and how imperialist and how hypocritical. How can this be accomplished in less than two hours? It can’t, except in a cursory manner, although I applaud D’Souza for trying. It has to be done.
And of course most of the reviews predictably pan the movie, and would do so even if it were excellent. Unfortunately, it’s not excellent enough, although it’s not bad, either. There’s also a bit too much of D’Souza himself, who’s just not a compelling personality nor a movie star. I wish he’d found someone else with more star power to narrate the movie.
Of course, those of us who pay a lot of attention to history already know most of what the movie points out. But still, there were a number of things in it with which I was unfamiliar. I hadn’t realized, for example, that there were some freed blacks before the civil war who owned slaves. And although I already knew a lot about Saul Alinsky, seeing the movie’s clips of him talking was an eye-opener. There was something about his demeanor that was absolutely chilling and made my blood run cold.
I hope the movie is far more successful than I think it will be. We desperately need more efforts to counter the left’s lies, because it’s late, and getting later.
I’m curious what those of you who’ve seen the movie think about it.
“I wish he’d found someone else with more star power to narrate the movie.”
Like O’Keefe?
Both Red Indian tribes and blacks tried to ape the white Aristocratic Southern Democrat philosophy of life. Whether this was their attempt to hack into the system by assimilating, is hard to say. I mean, the entire Democrat philosophy back then was that the Southern white gentry was a superior born to rule group of individuals. That’s why blacks and women were inherently inferior and needed to be put in their place.
If people thought they could become assimilated into the Southern gentry class by owning slaves, like the white man did, they were misunderstanding something very critical. But if they weren’t doing so, and merely wanted to fit into a higher social class amongst white Americans, then showing slaves as a form of wealth may have given them access to better trade routes or business associations. After all, not everyone who involved themselves in the slave trade, were white Southern Democrat land owners. They were just the consumers that provided a set of religious dogma that justified the political and economic exploitation of inferior humans.
My biggest complaint was that it didn’t do ANYTHING to support the subtitle “Imagine a world without her”. Would we have had a civil war to free the slaves? Would the Germans have won WWI and WWII? Wright brothers? Venture capitalism? Information age? Louisiana Purchase? Sewards Folly? Moon landing? Israel? etc, etc. Would North America now be divided between English, French, Spanish, and Russian colonies?
I actually find D’Souza a convincing narrator. Star power is thoroughly overrated: we need unknowns to stand up and lift.
Like you there were historical facts of which I was not aware that come through the many facts of which I was aware.
I also puzzled about the world without America tag. Perhaps D’Souza is saying that the left’s perspective of America (by ignoring all the good) is giving the world no America. Perhaps I should say that by erasing American exceptionalism in the broad brush of racist, colonialist, and capitalist evils the left has taken America from the world. Look at our commander-in-chief who leads from behind, doesn’t support historical allies, turns us into a borderless country, rules by executive order…
Incidentally, my 17 yo son and I loved the opening credits and its ingenious celebration and use of America’s innovative history. At our viewing the audience clapped at the end and stood for the national anthem. In unltra bule Hawaii, no less.
My 13-year old son and I went last week. I agree that it strayed from its premise of what the world would be without America.
However, I think he was aiming it toward younger people and others who don’t read right-leaning news every day. Just getting some talking points out there to counter the garbage coming from the left. It’s a start.
I thought it was a pretty interesting movie. It was nice to see something pro America. I would highly recommend taking your kids, grandkids, any one really. It may have wandered occasionally, but it didn’t drag. ( only thing I didn’t like was sitting through the preview trailers for other movies. Seemed like that lasted almost as long as the movie itself. And did you notice you walked by popcorn and soda in the lobby? )
I hope people will see it to help support movies that aren’t left wing agitprop for a change.
Agree about the Alinsky clips. And Tocqueville’s explanation of slavery / no slavery regarding Kentucky and Ohio was new to me.
Also, I thought D’Souza was compelling as a narrator, simply because he’s an immigrant who loves this country and chose to be here.
I liked “America”, but I thought his “2016” was a better movie overall.
It’s a shame this couldn’t have come out in 2008. While watching, I had a sense of “too little, too late”.
I agree that Alinsky came across as a creep.
I ve heard D Souza say you need to buy his companion book to get the total picture.
My husband & I are going tonight &
we are bringing 2 Obama voters along !!!
My 25 y/o son & his fiancee ! We have been making progress at bringing them into the Conservative anti/
Democrat fold. Mostly by pointing out the hypocrisy of the Left & how they as younger Americans will have their rights nibbled away. Also I tell them the *fairness* in society that the Liberals want to achieve only applies
to the *dependent* non working, benefits recipients
& they,as the *working class* are the ones who will be paying for them NOT the rich.
So we ll see how it all
pans out !
Sorry hit the button too soon.
I saw the movie and agree with your review 100%.
I, too, picked up a few factoids like the fact that there were black slaveowners.
It needs a wider audience and needs to go to TV. Persuade the undecided. A little too academic as just a rebuttal to Howard Zinn.
Is Zinn that important?
The real counterfactual would have been interesting. I thought at the start it would show what America would have looked like if we lost the Revolutionary War. In that way the title was misleading.
Cornhead Says:
July 17th, 2014 at 4:28 pm
Yes, I think so. His “People’s History of the United States” is required reading in countless high schools and colleges around the country.
While he didn’t originate it, he has a lot to do with the reflexive anti-Americanism that many people feel.
It’s a shame this couldn’t have come out in 2008. While watching, I had a sense of “too little, too late”.
They wouldn’t have let it come out. They would have used copyright infringements, MPAA law suits, DMCA violations, other various other ways to freeze, stall, or corrupt his funding.
Saul Alinsky:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=saul+alinksky
I agree with most of your comments. The movie just didn’t get to where the title implied. However, no star power is needed. He makes his points and comes across as someone who believes.
I think too much time was spent on the myths. At one point, I wondered if I was at the right movie. The comment about Ohio and Kentucky was just inappropriate. Ohio was an industrial economy; Kentucky was an agricultural economy.
You are dead right – Alinsky is chilling. Far more time should have been spent on him and his acolytes. Obama did far more than attend a few lectures in New York. And there has to be more about the linkage between Hillary and Alinsky. She is a believer.
I don’t think D’Sousa showed enough about how Alinskyites are already showing what we are without America. Maybe there will be another movie about how the Social Progressives have infiltrated the entire educational infrastructure. That is how America is being destroyed. It starts with the professors at the Schools of Education, gets the brainwashed teachers into the schools where they “teach” K-12 students about the evils of America. The students then go to colleges where the Social progressive professors affirm what the students have been taught. And then they move into the workplace.
Another movie should be about what Obama has done to the entire administrative government. Everything from the EPA’s sue and settle playbook to the Justice Department, etc, etc. That is following Alinsky to the letter. Infiltrate and destroy.
BTW – I suggest you read John Dewey and his approach to education.
My take was basically the same as yours. I might have liked it a bit more.
The movie was a defense of America and its ideals. A point-by-point refutation of the left’s slanders.
That’s harder to put into a title (and may hold less interest) than the counterfactual title.
So, I guess they did it for ticket sales.
As I’ve posted before: he rather muffed the progression from indentured servants into slavery — perpetual indentured status.
Even Dinesh misses the multi-generation creep from indenture (of the Irish and Welsh and Scots, primarily) into a Permanent sub-class.
BTW, the number one way to become indentured was to get out of gaol because of debt/ fines. America was Australia before Australia: the dumping ground for the proles.
Whereas Dinesh portrays kids being Shanghai’d in the streets — the typical target was anyone caught committing petty theft — however trivial. This could be as trivial as hunting a hare or deer in the wrong forest at the wrong time.
The minute America was lost to Britain she vectored over this diaspora towards Australia. By far the number one crime committed was poverty.
For movie fans who remember Rob Roy, the title character’s number one concern was to avoid the ‘toll booth’ — ie gaol time so long as it took for his clan to raise the missing monies.
Further, very much in the style of ‘modern’ Afghans, it was hardly uncommon for impoverished parents to sell their kids into indentured service.
In sum, just about every manner of undesirable was ejected from the home islands.
&&&
The Irish were wildly over-represented. Indeed the typical ‘house nigger’ in the Caribbean was always Irish, and female, to boot. Their diaries are still out there in the archives.
(Use your imagination.)
In fact so many Irish were used as indentureds in the Caribbean that some estates had one in five in their labor force from the emerald isle.
A caste system pretty much arose: with the fresh ones off the boat being at the absolute bottom of the pecking order. It was not uncommon for the big man, the owner, to never visit his sugar estate in the Caribbean. Very much in the royal manner, he’d send his agents instead.
Such gentlemen often had astounding estates in Ireland, too. Sailing to the Caribbean was an island too far.
(This landed gentry handed down their estates through the generations. By the 19th Century it was astounding as to how many movers and shakers in British politics (cabinet members) held such immense properties, think 10 to 15,000 acres and more. Ireland was run exactly along Caribbean principles. Oscar Schindler would’ve fit right in.)
Africans were overwhelmingly enslaved by their fellows and desert Muslims. (the Tuaregs at the top of the list, of course)
Most were sent to Muslim lands — as castrates. This is why their genetic legacy is so limited in the Med. (
After a fashion, even the Duck of Death imported Black talent. His final body guard was Black. (Like Saddam, even he didn’t trust a Muslim!) This became so pronounced that racial animus is now so profound that it’s unsafe to be Black and in Libya.)
During the height of Portuguese economic power, vast numbers were enslaved to power up Brazil. These souls replaced those lost to old world disease. (Entire tribes had evaporated upon exposure.)
The ONLY location in the New World that really produced population growth in a major way — for African slaves — was the Antebellum South.
A ‘trade’ that had largely collapsed during the Revolutionary War limped along until it was banned, circa 1806. From that point forward, it was illegal to bring ‘fresh ones’ in from Africa…. Not as if there was any demand. The reproduction rate of Black slaves was so great that no-one much protested when the (imported) trade was abolished.
Eventually, even bringing slaves across state lines was largely circumscribed. (Selling slaves across state lines was banned. They could make the transit only if their owner was also setting up a new plantation.) All of these ‘baby steps’ were laid out by Lincoln in his Cooper Union address.
Buchanan entirely reversed all of them with his interventions into the Dred Scott ober dicta. (Which he subsequently admitted to doing!)
Dinesh never addresses the flip-flop nature of guilt association between the Democrat party and todays ‘Progressives.’
He never brings up the salient fact that the Revolution destroyed indenture — as a practice — in the Americas.
Further, rather than staying happy with slavery, the new nation took one step after another to shut it down, entirely.
Federalizing slavery (Dred Scott, ober dicta) blew the nation apart.
&&&
In a twisted way, Barry is a modern Buchanan. He’s creating pre-civil war conditions — and rather deliberately, too.
Deja vu, we have been here before. Read Unintended Consequences as a primer if/when it all comes down to dust and to understand the roots of what makes America America.
The Northern States hated slavery and wanted to get rid of it, because the idea of a perpetual DNA sub class that would forever be enslaved and never free, didn’t appeal to people not indoctrinated in Democrat religions.
The Southern States demanded that federal goons track down slaves and bring them back, forcing the States to agree whether they liked it or not. That was their version of fighting for freedom and “State’s Rights”, or at least that was the Democrat propaganda later generations believed.
According to Wikipedia (so it must be true), “A black man named Anthony Johnson of Virginia first introduced permanent black slavery in the 1650s by becoming the first holder in America of permanent black slaves.”
Fascinating, huh?
Haven’t seen the movie but liked the point that D’Sousa and his interviewer made in the recent interview NATIONAL REVIEW did with D’Sousa about the movie: that the Left wants to shame the US, because when you shame someone it’s easier to steal their stuff.
I watched DD’s preceding movie on Amazon last week to get an idea of his style.
First, I loved the fact that DD put in the time and effort to make the sort of off-beat documentary/polemic he did. He was trying to capture the Leftist NPR soft-spoken, Down To Earth, Human, Real, non-polemical polemical style which is brilliant and effective, and enjoyable because it appeals to the gentility and reasonableness in us all, the Spoonful Of Sugar With The Needed Side Of Peas And Carrots which is the genius propaganda style of the intellectual Left, NPR, NY Times, New Yorker, etc.
Second, he made it all personal in a mostly appealing way. This is a technique the Left has developed to corrupt perfection.
Here is the but (based on the previous movie). But DD has not mastered the art form. There were a number of times where he seemed to be doing a parody of the art form. I say this with great sympathy; he came close, and he was being creative in a way non-Leftists are not, but he needs more editing and more insight.
I say this with utter sincerity and hope: DD really needed a Neo, a Lileks, a Steyn, and a VDH to help him watch and edit and advise. Kevin Williamson would be especially good. These are the sorts of connections which are not made among the non-Left.
The 2016 documentary I saw lacked the sharpness and seamlessness DD was trying for. This is attained by the right people going through something a thousand times, focusing second by second, word by word, image by image, until it is as smooth as silk. This does not happen on the non-Left.
Forget the politics and inaccuracy of Ken Burns, Ken Burns ought to be the ideal. Or, the guy who created the Living On Earth series for NPR, an utterly brilliant piece of Leftist propaganda which was fascinating even for non-Leftists.
To ride a hobby horse: the necessity and historical intimacy of the Democrat Party to slavery, opposition to the 13th amendment, segregation, KKK, Jim Crow, opposition to anti-lynching laws, pure and evil hatred of black people for many many decades, the total NATIONAL Democrat opposition to the treatment of black people as human beings, the explicit use of the word nigger for decade after decade for political gain, is a cornucopia of fascinating and moving documentaries.
Why are these not done? If the Republican Party had done the same thing, we would have a channel like the Hitler channel on cable daily dishing the details. (And why no Mao or Stalin channel?).
I have suggested to much disdain the need to argue that the Democrat Party, and only the Democrat Party, ought to be paying black people reparations.
The legal, moral, ethical and political case for the Democrat Party paying reparations is far more solid than the case for reparations generally. Actually, there is nothing but an emotional case for reparations generally. Why not argue for the actual criminal entity to pay? Can anyone see the “documentary” value in the position? And can anyone see the application to modern politics which need never be spoken but which can be unmistakably conveyed? Through fact based, subtle, brilliant documentary?
But non-Leftists have no taste for this sort of thing. They are too mesmerized by the three card monty.
I hope DD gets better and better. He is trying to do it right and I hope he succeeds.
I thought it was as you said.
2016 had way too much Dinesh.
This was better.
Saw it with an older white crowd.
Only I and my wife stood for the anthem, but she was standing because I was, did not recognize the anthem.
I highly recommend it.
Tonawanda,
You’re on the right route. Hit the Left where it hurts, while making money off of em.
To add to your list of what the Democrats did across this nation before and after 1850, the Democrats also put women into a non voting, subservient role, just as they put blacks in a field hand role. It was declared from birth that who you were, was meant to be a laborer supporting the White Aristocracy. That is a Democrat religion, a dogma, and ideology that connects to all Leftist churches and faiths. The US Civil War I, all it did was bankrupt a few Democrat land owners, but did not provide much of anything else to women or slaves. The opportunity to be free, sure, but also the opportunity to be hunted down by the KKK, funded by Democrats like Byrd, for their pleasure.
It’s all connected together, the Leftist alliance. But people who refuse to believe in the history of the Democrat party, because of some faint family allegiance to the Democrat propaganda, will not see because they cannot see.
We thought the film was well done, may be just a wee
bit too long but then there was a lot of material to cover.
I considered it a good historical review for my son & his fiancee, as I am sure he never watches the history channel or discover TV around the 4th of July when they have all those USA marathons. I laid some ground work in pre discussing it by saying that yes our country has made mistakes but on balance we are much better a nation then the Left believes & the Left are anti Constitution, anti Bill of Rights because in a snooty fashion they believe they are better suited to decide what should be in the Constitution & what *Rights* we as citizens deserve. I feel that pointing out to wavering Leftist/Proggs that the leaders in their movement *always know what is best for the underlings* scores lots of points for conservatives & really rankles the Left. Another effective strategy can be use of *nanny state* & pointing out that Hillary or Elizabeth Warren is like your mom or grandmom all over again. Most young men have a hard time re upping with Mom all over again, lol. Some of the movie sunk in because they did not quibble or ridicule any of it & my son even asked me who would I be voting for! Lastly I said that the Left wants you NOT to be patriotic, they want you to dislike your own country, not that they really care but because the LEFT can manipulate you more easily if you do not love your nation.
We saw the film upon its opening and loved it. Is it imperfect? Sure. But it was enlightening and gave viewers some much-needed ammo for debates with liberals. Yes, I know facts don’t matter to the left, but conservatives don’t need to feel guilty anymore once they see this movie, especially that disgusting segment about Alinsky.
The technique of letting the anti-American crowd state their case in their own words was particularly effective, imho. People need to see just who is teaching their kids these days. I think the way D’Souza dismantled their arguments was particularly effective. No one does this, and it was instructive if we are going to ever try to push back.
I knew about Indian warfare and I knew about Irish slavery and black slave owners. I did not know the full story about the Mexican-American war. Everyone might have been better off today if we’d kept the whole thing and our money, too. If I were a parent I’d definitely want my family to see this because they’re learning nothing but rubbish in school anymore.
One of the things I love most about naturalized citizens–and I am married to one–is their unabashed love for America. D’Souza is no exception and he is the right man to make this kind of film. It’s refreshing to hear someone say out loud, “I love America…” warts and all.
I have the book and was thrilled to see it’s #2 at the NYT list. Take that, Costco!
I cried at the beginning. I did. I saw it at 9:00 in the morning all by myself in an Orange County, California theater. It has been so long since I felt agreement with my patriotism. The flag, the symbols, the words, the pictures: they mean something to me. I’ve been defending that for so long with such outrage as to why it should even be under attack, and then to see the expression of America’s unparalleled success and exceptionalism so easily set forth in picture, song and movement, I felt as if a blanket had enveloped me and I flushed hot and my breath escaped in a gasp and I realized “I love this Nation,” and the power of the revelation could not be contained, so I cried, for the glory of the past, the threat to the future, and the bonds of the present.
Tonawanda … Yes. I’ve always felt there needed to be an NPR of the right to appeal to the urbane demographic that wouldn’t condescend to listen to the likes of Rush. DD and others like him would fill that role nicely.
You know, it’s a dog’s world and we can always find “something to poop on.” But hey, I love her, I doooo, yes, I dooo. Uhmm. Good doodoo.
Obama is a he-bitch. He’s like, can I smell you! Can I? And then he walks away to another pack. How dare he? I mean, I put my crotch in his face, man. That bitch. Ohhh. I’ll never do that again. He likes those dogs from Europe. Welfare dogs raised on government money. Those dogs think their poop don’t stink. They don’t even poop. I don’t think they are dogs. They are aliens. And I don’t think they even have dogs in Arabia? Obama. What a bitch.
I think you missed the brilliance of D’Sousa’s effort, his theme that America is the exception to the rest, that only America has shown an exceptional exception to the demand of conquest. Further, how about some props for making the case against America before he demolishes those arguments. You saw the documentary from your eyes. Those eyes didn’t need the first half when the case is made against America, but that is what will draw the progressives in.
Off topic a little but in response to the question “Is Zinn that important?”…Yes he is! like Chomsky and (until recently) Alinsky, Zinn is one of those figures who has had FAR more impact on American culture, education and politics than most who are not on the left understand.
To offer an example, I first encountered “People’s History” in 6th grade. Yep, 6th grade! A student teacher read us extended passages (with full knowledge and consent of the teacher) without any counterargument or discussion. Granted, this was shortly after the book was published and in a bastion of leftist absurdity (Madison, Wisconsin), but still. Of that impressionable class of 11 year olds, only two boys offered any dissent. I was one of them. Granted, I came from a diehard Democratic family, but Democrat in the Truman/Kennedy, cold-war liberal inclination NOT the New Left. The other boy also was from a Democratic family (yes, he and I were precocious enough to have political discussions) but of the same inclination.
This was back in the 80’s, when public K-12 education was not yet completely dominated by Gramscian/Alinskyite hacks and their useful idiots. How much more do you think Zinn is taught/indoctrinated today?
Yes, Zinn is that important.
America, the movie, the life, the still alive frame,
Where it ends, and it must end, is altogether whether
It is too difficult to bring all these thing together
And make purpose the master so the master is not slaved.
I first learned about free-black middle-class merchants in the South who owned slaves in a college history course. I don’t recall whether any blacks actually owned plantations. I confirmed what I learned in college when I visited a historical theme park in Virginia and discussed the issue with the period guide in the slave quarters mock-up.
My impression is the black-white aspect of slavery was an inherent part, but the main operative aspect of slavery was the legal status. As such, a freed black in the South had his (full?) civic rights and could conduct business, buy a home, get rich, vote, and everything else, among whites. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong and there was, in fact, some sort of apartheid system for freed blacks, but it could well be that free blacks weren’t handicapped by discrimination in the antebellum South.
Evidence for affluent blacks in the antebellum South is the sharp class differences that emerged immediately after the Civil War. It didn’t just happen that an equal group of poor ex-slaves just sorted themselves with some becoming rich over night. Affluent blacks before the war were affluent blacks after the war.
The blacks who migrated to northern cities seeking work were predominantly ex-slaves or descended from them, rather than antebellum free blacks.
When I did my college term paper on MLK and learned about the cold reception MLK received at Watts, it shed light on northern poor black resentment for affluent southern blacks.
I have a few questions. First of all, I appreciate what DD is trying to do. However, I must ask some tough questions about such efforts.
1) Isn’t this really the same thing as some of those left movies that are really just propaganda with little general popular appeal? Much like Al Gore’s movie. Sure the faithful go see it and gush over it, but does it really reach the audience one wants?
2) Follow-up: what are the box office statistics for the film? Now I’ll answer the question. total take around $9M since its release. While it ranked 12th this past weekend, the better comparison is the total gross as this measures the number of people paying to see the film. For June, some comparisons:
Xmen $229M
Maleficent (a not very good Disney effort( $224M)
Godzilla $198M,
reference http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/
So America’s take is about 4% (!) of the current run of June release movies; and the 3 listed above while successful, are definitely not blockbusters.
My point is that this is a wasted effort. It’s not reaching the people that need to see it. Sorry, but sometimes conservatives are clueless in terms of reaching the masses, while the left has advanced their techniques to an art form.
I went to the movie to help Dinesh pay his legal bills. Glad I did.
I thought his production techniques were a step up from America: 2016. And his ability to get big name Leftists to speak on camera was effective.
I wish he’d included parts of Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s “Blame America First” speech at the 1984 Republican convention.
My impression is the black-white aspect of slavery was an inherent part, but the main operative aspect of slavery was the legal status. As such, a freed black in the South had his (full?) civic rights and could conduct business, buy a home, get rich, vote, and everything else, among whites.
The first black that owned slaves was said to be in 1610 or around there. That meant really early colonial times, where there was no rule of law.
The Democrat plantation system in the South was only setup a few decades before 1850. So between 1810 and 1610, a lot of differences going on with slavery as an institution. Early on, it was merely the Old Testament or Greek version of slavery. You were indentured labor, but might have had laws protecting you because you were still a “full human”. No full humans existed on Democrat Southern plantations, except the overseer and the master. The master’s family, if it counted women, weren’t even considered equal to a Southern plantation owner. It was feudal beyond the feudal.
“1) Isn’t this really the same thing as some of those left movies that are really just propaganda with little general popular appeal?”
General appeal isn’t what people think it is. General appeal comes from a strong foundation of zealous believers. The Left fortifies their believer’s faith with certain consensus building tools, so that they will go out and Preach the Word of the Left’s Death God. If conservatives are afraid, stay quiet, and shut up, obviously there is no “general popular appeal” because conservatives have voluntarily killed their Voice.
So defensive propaganda designed to raise one’s own ally’s morale, is actually in the end effective for raising general popularity and acceptance as well. It seems counter intuitive, but that’s how humans are.
“So America’s take is about 4% (!) of the current run of June release movies; and the 3 listed above while successful, are definitely not blockbusters.”
Independent films generally have a hard time breaking the MPAA dead lock or monopoly. That’s always been natural.
“My point is that this is a wasted effort.”
It’s not a wasted effort, as determined by actual propagandists and operatives. If you think it is a wasted effort, either you do not study the art of propaganda or you are using some kind of scientific, physics, rule set to apply to human motivations and beliefs. Doesn’t work that way on this planet, unfortunately.
“The blacks who migrated to northern cities seeking work were predominantly ex-slaves or descended from them, rather than antebellum free blacks. ”
Reality is against the popular narrative: Blacks — the ex-slaves — stayed largely in the old south after the Civil War.
1) They didn’t have transferable skills. Overwhelmingly they became sharecroppers — reverting back to the subsistence agriculture still seen today in Niger and Nigeria.
2) They had no working capital or credit… no grubstake to get them on the trail west.
3) In the agricultural economy of the late 19th Century the requisite labor was supplied by neighbors — not uncommonly kin from the old country.
4) If and when there was a labor shortage the industries sent agents straight to Europe to get more ‘fresh ones.’ Famously the meat packing industry paid for the transit of no end of Poles and Lithuanians to Chicago. As a result there’s more Polish DNA in Chicago than Warsaw (!)
The ONE industry that famously brought Black talent across the nation was the railroads. Blacks had a monopoly as porters, cooks, baggage handling. So you’ll discover tight Black communities at every significant railroad ‘division point.’
(A ‘division point’ occurred whenever the railroad changed the make up of a train. A town would always arise around any newly established division point. Spokane, Washington was — and remains — a classic division point. Roseville, California became the northern California division point for the Southern Pacific Railroad.
No end of land speculation occurred in the 19th Century — all turning on where the railroad was going to establish the next division point. In this, they were pre-peating the 20th Century speculations as to where an interstate exchange or off ramp was going to be built.
Dara’a (Jordan — see Lawrence of Arabia) and the mythic Sweet Water of Once Upon a Time in the West were division points. — It was the water — Dara’a is actually miles out of the way. It just happens to be the only viable source of decent water for miles around.)
More generally, unemployed Blacks were routinely run out of town as vagrants — in the 19th Century.
The big surge out of the old south came with WWII. The US Federal government financed a massive relocation of young Black men out to the West Coast and up north. Overnight Oakland switched from Irish to Black. ( It was the main debarkation point for the USN out to the Pacific. As ever, Blacks had the monopoly on portage. )
THIS was the source of Black internal migration out of the South.
Ford, GM, etc. all shunned Black labor — until WWII — and government suasion.
If you look at period films of labor riots in the 1930s you’ll note that virtually everyone is white.
Under FDR, the union movement positively discriminated against Black talent.
It’s hardly surprising. On an apples to apples comparison Blacks are usually not competitive. A shocking number have IQs below 85. (50%) Which means that they can’t/won’t take the lead in any activity. It also means that they are generally unsafe workers. They don’t perceive risk before disaster strikes. This often takes the form of crippling their co-workers.
This persistent IQ gap — nay chasm — is at the heart of the big nanny state. It’s the source of the LIV — and much else.
The welfare state is an attempt to paper it over. If only it worked.
The South, for several generations around 1850, mostly under the direction of the Democrat party, breeded things like individual initiative out of the black race. It was pure eugenics. And Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger put Phase 2 of that eugenics into play later on.
neo –
There was a film by Mitch Anderson and Jason Tomaric (largely narrated by Niall Ferguson) called “The World without US” that explored that premise in a fascinating way. It’s a really good documentary.
I can’t see “America” until it comes out on DVD. They’re not exactly chomping at the bit to show it in China 🙂
Kolnai, foreigners generally see Americans as over sexed, crime addicted gangs shooting up neighborhoods like the Wild West, and various other American stupidities. Which is why they think of America as they do overseas. It’s all those movies from Hollywood.
Would anyone want people in Hollywood to rule over their town or state? I wouldn’t. Neither does foreigners want the US in their nation, for the same reason.
physicsguy,
It’s a process: http://doingdemocracy.com/
It might be wasted effort if D’Souza’s initiative fails to be leveraged as a building block to grow an activist social movement, which is what’s ultimately necessary to compete in the social political game.
Lead, fight, or get out of the way as they said about Iraq 2003-2006. Now it applies even more so to the war in the US.