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Once the future, US now captive to its past
Jun 17, 2021 1 min, 33 secs

My New York commute takes less than 25 minutes, but skirts the broad outlines of almost 250 years of American history.

At the top of Wall Street is the cemetery of Trinity Church, where one of the most storied founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton, is interred.

Not every American has so much history on their doorstep.

It was a rejoinder to the 1619 Project from the New York Times, a series of articles and talks which emphasised the African-American experience and endurance of white supremacy in the American story.

Polling conducted by the American Historical Association has shown, for instance, that Democrats believe that people of colour and women do not receive sufficient attention.

Republicans think that the military, religious groups and the Founding Fathers have been neglected.

Republicans overwhelmingly believe that American history should be celebrated, while Democrats think that history has to be reckoned with and atoned for.

Black History Month.

LGBT History Month.

Italian-American History Month.

But it's the very contradictions of the American story that help us make more sense of it.

The hand that penned the Declaration of Independence, with its bold statement that all men are created equal, also authored a scientific defence of white supremacy.

Abraham Lincoln called for the emancipation of slaves but did not believe in racial equality.

A nation that likes to think of itself as being a city on a hill has often adopted a bunker mentality.

So the Founding Fathers are cast less as architects of the new Republic, and more as slaveholders and white oppressors.

Its essentially saying 18th Century history should be our modern-day guide?

Issues that divided the Founding Fathers are still up for debate?

Competing versions of the American past have created antagonistic versions of the American present.

For more than a quarter of a century, I've occupied a seat in the stalls of history.

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