Sunday June 11, 2023
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IT’S SUNDAY MORNING: Farmers’ Market
The return of vegetables and berries to Farmers’ Markets this month invites us to explore the color, textures, and flavors of earth’s bounty. And they remind us of those who bring such bounty to harvest. Carl Sandberg knew these people well, and the connection they had to life that we who rarely venture the Farmers’ Market can never know.
Photo by Roger Carr
Illinois Farmer
BURY this old Illinois farmer with respect.
He slept the Illinois nights of his life after days of work in Illinois cornfields.
Now he goes on a long sleep.
The wind he listened to in the cornsilk and the tassels, the wind that combed his red beard zero mornings when the snow lay white on the yellow ears in the bushel basket at the corncrib,
The same wind will now blow over the place here where his hands must dream of Illinois corn.
- Carl Sandberg
Top Story of the Past Week
COMMENTARY: Spotsy’s poorly educated school board and unqualified superintendent need to do some summer reading
We recommend Be Free or Die
by Martin Davis
To hear white evangelical Christians and hyper-partisan Republicans tell it, America’s schools and school boards are dominated by “woke,” leftist, Democratic (read “socialist” by their definition) ideologues. Works well for cheap campaign slogans - but it fails to reflect reality.
A 2017 study by the Brookings Institute that surveyed more than 5,000 democratically elected school board members across 49 states showed just the opposite.
Almost half of school board members were moderate or nonpartisan. Just 19% were liberal, and 31% were conservative.
There is no comparable study to show where we are today, but given the current revolt against classical education, it’s not hard to imagine that the portion of conservative school board members has grown. (That may well be changing, however, as the passions that pushed them into power in 2022 are waning, and they are beginning to lose local races.)
There’s no doubt where Spotsylvania’s school board sits - somewhere just to the right of Mussolini.
As I noted in the May 23 issue, while issues around sexuality are what energized voters to put Lisa Phelps, April Gillespie, Kirk Twigg, and Rahbi Abuismail in power, their Supreme Leader Mark Taylor is now threatening to expand the battle lines.
“The inclusion of sexually explicit content is not the only basis upon which materials may be contested,” he recently wrote. “We must clarify, modernize and maintain other pathways for challenges in our policy.”
Critical Race Theory and a white-washing of American history are almost sure to be among the other topics that Taylor wants to use to take still more books off bookshelves.
After all, ensuring white history dominates students’ educations is at the center of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s push to Make Virginia White Again.
Ever the optimist, I believe we could cut this issue off at the pass - as all those white cowboys did in the movies of old - with just a bit of education. To wit, a summer reading recommendation for the school board and Taylor.
Be Free or Die: The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls' Escape from Slavery to Union Hero
Illiterate, enslaved, and fearful his wife and child would be sold away, South Carolinian Robet Smalls did what the confederates couldn’t have imagined. He took control of a steam boat, sailed through Charleston Harbor, the reached the Union blockade to deliver the ship to the Union army.
That his scheme as not discovered, or stopped by any of several sentries who were in position to sound an alarm that something was off, or was blown out of the water by confederate canons and then by Union canons which didn’t immediately recognize Smalls are friend is the stuff of legend.
His life was the stuff of American Dreams, and the harsh reality of slavery in America.
Despite serving in the South Carolina house of representatives and senate, and then five terms in the U.S. Congress. Despite founding the Republican Party in South Carolina. Despite being a leading advocate for bringing Black Americans into the Union Army. Despite providing the Union navy not only with a valuable ship and its canons but valuable information as well that led to an assault on Charleston.
Despite all this and so much more, Smalls lived his life as a second-class citizen, always aware at any moment violence could end his life, and that economic opportunities he should of had were denied him.
This book, however, paints no juvenile picture of slavery. Among the Union soldiers and Northern politicians Smalls moved among and worked for, some were as dismissive of him and any white Southern planter.
When news of Smalls’ feat with the Planter (the ship Smalls stole) hit the New York papers, there was expressed doubt that a black man could have masterminded such a daring operation.
When he should have earned a princely sum in prize money for turning a confederate vessel over to the Union, politicians conspired to significantly short-change him.
And too often, he was addressed in patronizing terms. Even by President Lincoln.
The history of slavery in America is complex, multilayered, and very poorly understood by most Americans. (It will be even less-well understood under the new history and social studies standards Gov. Youngkin pushed through.)
Smalls’ story reflects that complexity. And it doesn’t take much to see from his story how the systemic and orchestrated effort to deprive Smalls his due - as well as what was due every other hard working formerly enslaved person - crippled Blacks’ ability to build wealth throughout the late 19th century, and well into the 20th century.
One wonders how reading this book would make any white student feel “guilty.”
This is the hard reality of the country that we are now entrusted with caring for and advancing to the next generation.
There’s nothing “exceptional” about a governing system that destroyed an entire group of people for nothing more than their skin having a deeper pigmentation.
There is, however, something exceptional about a country that can face that past and grow stronger from it. (To see what an exceptional country does when confronting the genuine horrors of its past, look to Germany. In this arena, Americans are in no wise “exceptional.”)
Be Free or Die helps us all do that.
But only if we allow people to read it, and dare open our minds to the truth of our past.
This school board and Taylor could do that. But they aren’t likely to do so.
And why? The answers lie in understanding why those who surrounded Smalls couldn’t treat him as an equal or learn from him, either. They couldn’t tolerate the thought that someone not like them - whether by race or world view or culture - could embody the ideals of exceptionalism better than they.
And that reason is precisely why Taylor, the four majority members of the school board, and no one less than the governor himself, are committed to making sure your young adults never learn it, either.
THE NEW DOMINION PODCAST: Dropping Monday, Coming Thursday
On Monday listen as Shaun and I talk with Daniel Cortez of Stafford County about a life well-lived, the rising tide of independents, and giving back.
On Thursday, Nicole Cole of the Spotsylvania County School Board will be in-studio at Curitiba. It’s a show you won’t want to miss.
Juneteenth in Spotsylvania
Over the past decade, Juneteenth has grown in the public imagination. What was an unknown event even to many Black people 10 years ago, is now growing into a celebration that is rightfully taking its place along July 4 in the pantheon of American celebrations of freedom.
Learn more about Juneteenth and its history from this National Geographic story.
This year, one of the region’s largest celebrations will be held at the John J. Wright Educational and Cultural Center Museum in Spotsylvania County. Scan the QR code in the image above, or visit the website, to learn more and to join in the activities.
Invite People to Join F2S
Big things are afoot with F2S, with details coming in the next month.
Invite your friends to join our rapidly growing audience. It’s as simple as passing along this link (https://thelocalburg.substack.com/p/welcome-to-f2s), or the following QR code, and asking folks to sign up.
M:
Keep up the great work. Give Shaun my best regards. Have worked with him for a couple decades.
My wife and I will be off the grid in July but will return at month’s end.
PS. In case you missed it other years, August 19th is Fredericksburg “Porch Fest” — 12 local musical groups on the porches (this year) of Hanson Avenue in Normandy Village. Check out “Rapp-arts.ORG”
Best regards
Scott Walker