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A little dose of what passes for “critical thinking” in our universities courtesy of Professor Horne of the University of Houston. Yes, it is true that he contends the Founding Fathers are no better (and perhaps worse) than Joseph Stalin. Citizens of Texas, I present . . . your tax dollars at work:
The Chronicle of Higher Education
In all fairness the comments are pretty brutal.
To the Editor:
Jonathan Brent expresses surprise—if not shock and disgust—at what he sees as the rehabilitation of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in contemporary Russia ("Postmodern Stalinism," The Chronicle Review, September 25).
Pray tell: Is there an analytical difference between the phenomenon he perceives and the glorification and hagiography that bedeck the slaveholding "founding fathers" of his own United States (not to mention those that founded the settler colonies upon which this slaveholding republic was based)? Or is the difference that in this latter case, after all, we are discussing the brutalization of only Africans, and in the former case, non-Africans—and we all know that the lives of one are worth more than the lives of the other? Or is the difference that Stalin's rule lasted 30-odd years while North American enslavement was a process that stretched over centuries?
Gerald Horne
Professor of History and African-American Studies
University of Houston
Houston
Jonathan Brent expresses surprise—if not shock and disgust—at what he sees as the rehabilitation of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in contemporary Russia ("Postmodern Stalinism," The Chronicle Review, September 25).
Pray tell: Is there an analytical difference between the phenomenon he perceives and the glorification and hagiography that bedeck the slaveholding "founding fathers" of his own United States (not to mention those that founded the settler colonies upon which this slaveholding republic was based)? Or is the difference that in this latter case, after all, we are discussing the brutalization of only Africans, and in the former case, non-Africans—and we all know that the lives of one are worth more than the lives of the other? Or is the difference that Stalin's rule lasted 30-odd years while North American enslavement was a process that stretched over centuries?
Gerald Horne
Professor of History and African-American Studies
University of Houston
Houston
The Chronicle of Higher Education
In all fairness the comments are pretty brutal.
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