Glendale's past and ongoing controversy over 1619

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Glendale's past and ongoing controversy over 1619

By Richard Myers
Posted: 10/11/2020

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As we are experiencing in every session, the discussion was wide ranging and thoughtful. We began with a reference to the article about the initiation of a new study program to focus on teaching 1776 and patriotic values as a counter to the 1619 project. From there, good discussion went in many directions.

•   Responses to the CNN article on the 1776 Commission were varied and launched further discussions about equality among many groups of people in the USA.
•   Who writes history; from what perspective do they write it and how do we connect in this current divided country?
•   One participant shared ideas about how to approach a meaningful discussion with people who are politically opposite of you by pre-deciding to “hear each other out” and how she is approaching this in a friendship of her own.
•   There was talk of how to become “willing” to listen when you already think the other guy is wrong.
•   Another speaker shared her view on just how long these racial issues will take to get resolved she thinks it will take at least another generation; she brought up the view of racially mixed children will have a harder time being biased as they are experiencing family ties from two worlds.
•   We talked about how to bring people together in our own neighborhoods and the difficulties it poses when families live in apartments, work more than one job and, especially, in a pandemic where we cannot safely be together.
•   We discussed ways in which the Village can help bring understanding to our own community. Someone pointed out that we are already doing that by having these discussions twice a month. We are all sharing what we learn with the people in our lives and we are sharing the reading we are doing.
•   We talked, again, about the uniqueness of American slavery and it’s premise that black people were not completely human, therefore justifying the practice.
•   Finally, we closed the meeting with heartfelt words of appreciation for this group and for the people who keep coming back to grapple with making genuine change to create equality for all.

A fuller discussion of some of these topics he is available on our prior post.

Our next meeting will be on our regular schedule of 3rd Friday, October 16, at 12:00 PM Pacific Time. The topics suggested for consideration, at least for the initiation of the discussion, will be an issue that has been brought up about the fact that Glendale was for years a “Sundown Town", and two articles in regard to the ongoing controversy over the 1619 project. The first of the 1619 articles refers to action taken by the National Association of scholars, and the 2nd is an opinion piece by Bret Stephens.

Footnote:I

In another discussion, someone noted that lamp posts in Glendale have a band of swastikas encircling their base.

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Glendale's past and ongoing controversy over 1619