The thing about American Exceptionalism?is that?the concept itself is just a myth that often requires people to over-glorify the past. Of course the same people who believe in American Exceptionalism also hate talking about the history of things like Slavery, Jim Crow, the Prison System, Sexism, and Homophobia in this country. Those kinds of unflattering topics are best left in the past as far as many right wing zealots are concerned. But we can talk about saving Europe in WWII all day long.
They love talking about the founding fathers, how brave, and righteous they were. They love to talk about landing on the moon first and all of the great scientific contributions America has made to the world. They don’t want to acknowledge that those achievements came with a price, and that price was paid by those who were exploited throughout America’s history. It’s like obsessing over the paint job on a car when it’s rotting from the inside out. If you have a conservative friend or family member that you really want to annoy today, this is the ticket!
Let me start off by saying I am not a fan of Louis Farrakhan. He has said too many racist and flat out crazy things for me to admire the man and?I put him in the Glenn Beck category. But he does make sense every so often, and when he does he can knock it out of the park!
In this interview with Mike Wallace, he quickly dissects Wallace’s foolish comment and pours some cold water on the notion of American superiority. However, I think Wallace was setting that up for him, it just felt like a set up question. But still it was one of the most brilliant answers I had ever watched, and as much as I disagree with Farrakhan, I’d love to see him debate Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly. It would be a guilty pleasure — like watching a panther chase down a deer. This is a 10 minute video, but the first segment is less than 4 minutes — that’s the part you should focus on.
Video two is from the HBO show “Newsroom”, I plan to get all the seasons for the show and binge watch just because of this clip! I honestly wish this character could speak at every college and high school in the country! Although the Jeff Daniels character takes a different view of America’s history than Mr. Farrakhan, I think the similarities and differences are very compelling.
