You cherry-picked a few sentences out of context from the speech to make it look like this was some sort of patriotic address, but Douglass wasn't praising America. He was praising certain noble ideas in the Constitution and laying out point by point how America consistently not only betrays them, but deploys them rhetorically to obscure or advance its systematic cruelty as needed. Douglass and his contemporaries believed that the evil of slavery was intrinsic to America and its system of government, not some aberration. They didn't call the US the Slave Power for nothing.
So no, this speech is not a love letter to America, it's an indictment. And again, I think you know better, but the organization that employs you demands that you pretend otherwise.
I would urge you to re-read what I wrote. My essay makes the exact point that Douglass’ speech isn’t a love letter but an indictment. But the *reason* for the indictment, as he himself noted in the speech—both at the beginning and at the end—is hope: hope that America can live up to its promise, BECAUSE he believes in its founding principles. I’m not the one who cherry picks from that speech to suit my political agenda. My entire point, which I state very clearly in this essay, is that people on both the left and the right cherry pick from the speech and obscure his intentions.
And for the record, no one controls what I say or write. I write precisely what I think and believe, and FAIR has never demanded or even gently suggested that I do or say anything except what I think and believe.
Not in Douglass' words, but in the spin Angel puts on them in service of his astroturf right-wing "anti-racist" org
Still waiting for you to show me how I’m spinning Douglass’ words. How am I misunderstanding his message? I’d love to know.
You cherry-picked a few sentences out of context from the speech to make it look like this was some sort of patriotic address, but Douglass wasn't praising America. He was praising certain noble ideas in the Constitution and laying out point by point how America consistently not only betrays them, but deploys them rhetorically to obscure or advance its systematic cruelty as needed. Douglass and his contemporaries believed that the evil of slavery was intrinsic to America and its system of government, not some aberration. They didn't call the US the Slave Power for nothing.
So no, this speech is not a love letter to America, it's an indictment. And again, I think you know better, but the organization that employs you demands that you pretend otherwise.
I would urge you to re-read what I wrote. My essay makes the exact point that Douglass’ speech isn’t a love letter but an indictment. But the *reason* for the indictment, as he himself noted in the speech—both at the beginning and at the end—is hope: hope that America can live up to its promise, BECAUSE he believes in its founding principles. I’m not the one who cherry picks from that speech to suit my political agenda. My entire point, which I state very clearly in this essay, is that people on both the left and the right cherry pick from the speech and obscure his intentions.
And for the record, no one controls what I say or write. I write precisely what I think and believe, and FAIR has never demanded or even gently suggested that I do or say anything except what I think and believe.
Please explain. I really do not understand what you mean