Mocking the great abolitionist and slavery wasn’t just ignorant. It was a display of privilege, entitlement, and the ease with which white men rewrite Black pain as punchlines.
Just saw a great documentary today called “The Last Class” about Harvard and Berkeley professor Robert Reich. In it, he notes the line between a good education based on facts and a strong democracy— and a world of lies that leads to tyranny such as we find ourselves in now.
I recall how DT crowed how much he loved the uneducated. Without facts and without history, critical thought and asking important questions and seeing the big picture is rarely possible.
This is why Americans no longer live in a democracy and are losing all their rights.
Thanks for your comment. I agree that without a foundation in facts and history, we leave ourselves vulnerable to manipulation and tyranny. As Reich says, education is essential to democracy. That’s precisely why attempts to distort the truth, especially about figures like Frederick Douglass, are so dangerous.
Joking at the misfortunes of others in never funny. Joking about something so historically devastating as slavery is doubly not funny. But things like class and dignified behavior have been replaced by callousness and ignorance.
Absolutely. There’s nothing funny about the suffering of others, especially not the generational trauma of slavery. What we’re seeing isn’t just tasteless humor; it’s a symptom of a culture that’s trading empathy and dignity for cruelty disguised as entertainment.
A culture that has traded empathy for cruelty, as you wrote, and then, when you point this out, accuses you of being a fragile snowflake. This poison is everywhere, it seems.
This as well as other even more attacks on our American Democracy are the motivation I use going forward in my interpretation of Frederick Douglass. Each assault makes me dig deeper into the legacy Frederick Douglass left to us.
I will take this with me this week as I travel to Yorktown Va to read the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment and Gordan Granger’s General Order #3.
On June 20th I will speak truth to power as I travel to the Hermitage (home of President Andrew Jackson) in Nashville KY (a state did not ratify the 13th Amendment until 1976).
In the words of Frederick Douglass from his speech “What the Black Man Wants” said; “Now is the time! This is the hour. Our streets are in mourning, tears are falling at every fireside. We have almost come to the point of conceding the rights of suffrage. I fear if we fail to do it now. If the abolitionists fail to press it now. We may not realize for centuries to come the same disposition that exists at this present moment. There will be a rant undergrowth of treason interfering with the quiet operation of the Federal Government.”
Let us all move forward in the spirit of Frederick Douglass- AGITATE, AGITATE! AGITATE!”
Your dedication keeps my ancestor’s words and legacy alive where they’re needed most. Thank you for carrying that torch to Yorktown and the Hermitage. Truth to power, always. Safe travels, and keep agitating.
It all comes off like desperate attempts to ignore their cognitive dissonance when it comes to the truth. The levels of deliberateness that's needed to be this obscene is abhorring. In a way, their mockery speaks to Douglass' actual power because there wouldn't be the slightest effort to downplay him if he wasn't such a historic giant.
It's giving pubescent puffery; a textbook example of how little boys pretend they're big and strong so they can hide how fragile and weak they are. Your use of the word 'mediocre' was rather kind; I prefer the term 'evil' because it's more befitting . May the spirit of Frederick Douglass haunt them for the rest of their pathetic lives and may their beds in hell have the etchings of their names for Eternity.
This clip and accompanying critique has multiplied on this platform. However, I thought the more astute and deliberative conversation would be found here: and I was right. Chiefly, I relish your use of "mediocre" to describe the composition of both men. The chuckling, Von's telegraphing of the "joke," with the mugging and coyness: they are both willfully unserious.
You almost forget this is our sitting Vice President, how Vance plays along, mining the bit for wokeism and conjoining the untowardness with the Trump-Republican culture war and their ideological demands disrupting historical throughlines in institutions of scholarship and esteemed curation like the Smithsonian. If I didn't already know Vance engages and/or likes the content of puerile, pseudointellectual antisemitic social media profiles or elevates the far-right political faction in Germany under the guise of "free speech," my mouth might be agape (but no). I am still embarassed by the absence of consideration for legacy as well as decorum on display, however.
Thank you for the marching orders. I will continue to agitate, stand against and in the breach for those in need.
Thank you for this thoughtful and incisive comment. You put your finger on something that often gets lost in the noise, the sheer unseriousness of it all. The mugging, the performance, the hollow bravado. It’s not just disrespectful; it’s corrosive. And yes, it’s easy to forget that one of the participants in this spectacle is the sitting Vice President of the United States. That fact alone should give us pause.
I appreciate your recognition of the word “mediocre” because it felt important to name what we’re seeing: not boldness, not brilliance, but a smug, performative ignorance masquerading as cultural commentary. And as you so powerfully point out, it’s not happening in a vacuum. This moment is part of a broader erosion of truth, legacy, and dignity, one that endangers everything from public memory to the integrity of our institutions.
Your final words moved me. To agitate, to stand in the breach, to resist the forgetting. That’s the work. And I’m grateful to be in that work with you.
Thank you, I am humbled by your response and appreciate the meditative, instructive spirit in which you contribute to the community, here. There is always emotional ballast, there is always a way forward together.
Just saw a great documentary today called “The Last Class” about Harvard and Berkeley professor Robert Reich. In it, he notes the line between a good education based on facts and a strong democracy— and a world of lies that leads to tyranny such as we find ourselves in now.
I recall how DT crowed how much he loved the uneducated. Without facts and without history, critical thought and asking important questions and seeing the big picture is rarely possible.
This is why Americans no longer live in a democracy and are losing all their rights.
Thanks for your comment. I agree that without a foundation in facts and history, we leave ourselves vulnerable to manipulation and tyranny. As Reich says, education is essential to democracy. That’s precisely why attempts to distort the truth, especially about figures like Frederick Douglass, are so dangerous.
Joking at the misfortunes of others in never funny. Joking about something so historically devastating as slavery is doubly not funny. But things like class and dignified behavior have been replaced by callousness and ignorance.
Absolutely. There’s nothing funny about the suffering of others, especially not the generational trauma of slavery. What we’re seeing isn’t just tasteless humor; it’s a symptom of a culture that’s trading empathy and dignity for cruelty disguised as entertainment.
A culture that has traded empathy for cruelty, as you wrote, and then, when you point this out, accuses you of being a fragile snowflake. This poison is everywhere, it seems.
No words, just tears. 😰😰😰😰😰😰
This as well as other even more attacks on our American Democracy are the motivation I use going forward in my interpretation of Frederick Douglass. Each assault makes me dig deeper into the legacy Frederick Douglass left to us.
I will take this with me this week as I travel to Yorktown Va to read the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment and Gordan Granger’s General Order #3.
On June 20th I will speak truth to power as I travel to the Hermitage (home of President Andrew Jackson) in Nashville KY (a state did not ratify the 13th Amendment until 1976).
In the words of Frederick Douglass from his speech “What the Black Man Wants” said; “Now is the time! This is the hour. Our streets are in mourning, tears are falling at every fireside. We have almost come to the point of conceding the rights of suffrage. I fear if we fail to do it now. If the abolitionists fail to press it now. We may not realize for centuries to come the same disposition that exists at this present moment. There will be a rant undergrowth of treason interfering with the quiet operation of the Federal Government.”
Let us all move forward in the spirit of Frederick Douglass- AGITATE, AGITATE! AGITATE!”
Your dedication keeps my ancestor’s words and legacy alive where they’re needed most. Thank you for carrying that torch to Yorktown and the Hermitage. Truth to power, always. Safe travels, and keep agitating.
It all comes off like desperate attempts to ignore their cognitive dissonance when it comes to the truth. The levels of deliberateness that's needed to be this obscene is abhorring. In a way, their mockery speaks to Douglass' actual power because there wouldn't be the slightest effort to downplay him if he wasn't such a historic giant.
It's giving pubescent puffery; a textbook example of how little boys pretend they're big and strong so they can hide how fragile and weak they are. Your use of the word 'mediocre' was rather kind; I prefer the term 'evil' because it's more befitting . May the spirit of Frederick Douglass haunt them for the rest of their pathetic lives and may their beds in hell have the etchings of their names for Eternity.
Well written and necessary. And you managed to write it without bashing anyone.
This clip and accompanying critique has multiplied on this platform. However, I thought the more astute and deliberative conversation would be found here: and I was right. Chiefly, I relish your use of "mediocre" to describe the composition of both men. The chuckling, Von's telegraphing of the "joke," with the mugging and coyness: they are both willfully unserious.
You almost forget this is our sitting Vice President, how Vance plays along, mining the bit for wokeism and conjoining the untowardness with the Trump-Republican culture war and their ideological demands disrupting historical throughlines in institutions of scholarship and esteemed curation like the Smithsonian. If I didn't already know Vance engages and/or likes the content of puerile, pseudointellectual antisemitic social media profiles or elevates the far-right political faction in Germany under the guise of "free speech," my mouth might be agape (but no). I am still embarassed by the absence of consideration for legacy as well as decorum on display, however.
Thank you for the marching orders. I will continue to agitate, stand against and in the breach for those in need.
Thank you for this thoughtful and incisive comment. You put your finger on something that often gets lost in the noise, the sheer unseriousness of it all. The mugging, the performance, the hollow bravado. It’s not just disrespectful; it’s corrosive. And yes, it’s easy to forget that one of the participants in this spectacle is the sitting Vice President of the United States. That fact alone should give us pause.
I appreciate your recognition of the word “mediocre” because it felt important to name what we’re seeing: not boldness, not brilliance, but a smug, performative ignorance masquerading as cultural commentary. And as you so powerfully point out, it’s not happening in a vacuum. This moment is part of a broader erosion of truth, legacy, and dignity, one that endangers everything from public memory to the integrity of our institutions.
Your final words moved me. To agitate, to stand in the breach, to resist the forgetting. That’s the work. And I’m grateful to be in that work with you.
Thank you, I am humbled by your response and appreciate the meditative, instructive spirit in which you contribute to the community, here. There is always emotional ballast, there is always a way forward together.