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Hope and History
Nov. 5th, 2008 10:02 amThe world feels a little different today.
I studied American History for A-Level, mainly because the History teacher, Mr Davies, at my school was amazing - one of those teachers you remember all your life, not necessarily because they were a great teacher (he was) but because of the way they made you think, and work, and the ideas they introduced you to. At the age of 16, you don’t tend to question the established order of Things, but he encouraged us to. I’d never considered anti-monarchist as a position, but he regularly ranted about the royal family. We used to try to get him derailed on a rant as often as possible, because he was hugely funny. He’d be talking about, say, Slavery in the US and we’d sidetrack him and he’d go on a blisteringly cruel and funny 10 minute rant and then suddenly round on you with a question like ‘So in which year was the Dred-Scott case?’¹ as if nothing had happened, and you’d be left frantically trying to remember what he’d been talking about 10 minutes previously.
He didn’t ask for hands up, he’d ask random questions throughout the class to random people, so you had to listen. It was rather like being in a shark tank, not knowing when it will strike.
He said that one of the differences between the UK and the US is that the UK is spilt along class lines, the US along race lines. While race is an issue here, it isn’t the defining feature of our social structure here the way it is in the US, and vice versa.
He used to say that the race issue was so deeply ingrained in the US, that there would never be a black President in his lifetime.
I woke up this morning wondering if Obama can do it, if he really can change things, or whether the economy is just too fucked and the war too far gone and he’s just inheriting a broken regime, and will take the fall for that in 4 years time. At the same time, I’m amazed that there is a black president in the US, that the world has changed so much in 150 years, when that Dred-scot case ruled that black people were no more than property, and so much in just 15 years, and I think that in itself is a change, and a hope.
And I hope Mr Davies is alive and well and grinning to himself and being glad that for probably the first time in his life, he was wrong about something.
[1] – 1857
I studied American History for A-Level, mainly because the History teacher, Mr Davies, at my school was amazing - one of those teachers you remember all your life, not necessarily because they were a great teacher (he was) but because of the way they made you think, and work, and the ideas they introduced you to. At the age of 16, you don’t tend to question the established order of Things, but he encouraged us to. I’d never considered anti-monarchist as a position, but he regularly ranted about the royal family. We used to try to get him derailed on a rant as often as possible, because he was hugely funny. He’d be talking about, say, Slavery in the US and we’d sidetrack him and he’d go on a blisteringly cruel and funny 10 minute rant and then suddenly round on you with a question like ‘So in which year was the Dred-Scott case?’¹ as if nothing had happened, and you’d be left frantically trying to remember what he’d been talking about 10 minutes previously.
He didn’t ask for hands up, he’d ask random questions throughout the class to random people, so you had to listen. It was rather like being in a shark tank, not knowing when it will strike.
He said that one of the differences between the UK and the US is that the UK is spilt along class lines, the US along race lines. While race is an issue here, it isn’t the defining feature of our social structure here the way it is in the US, and vice versa.
He used to say that the race issue was so deeply ingrained in the US, that there would never be a black President in his lifetime.
I woke up this morning wondering if Obama can do it, if he really can change things, or whether the economy is just too fucked and the war too far gone and he’s just inheriting a broken regime, and will take the fall for that in 4 years time. At the same time, I’m amazed that there is a black president in the US, that the world has changed so much in 150 years, when that Dred-scot case ruled that black people were no more than property, and so much in just 15 years, and I think that in itself is a change, and a hope.
And I hope Mr Davies is alive and well and grinning to himself and being glad that for probably the first time in his life, he was wrong about something.
[1] – 1857
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