Spectrum of Racism

Our class and blog discussions about Lincoln's possible racism have been very interesting to me. It seems like not all of us are working with the same definition of racism. I think that if a person in power (in this example, a white person) upholds or reinforces unequal power dynamics between the races, then they did something that was racist. It doesn't mean that the person, at their core, is "a racist". We have defended Lincoln by essentially saying "it's not as if he was as bad as a lyncher", but not being a lyncher doesn't mean you are not racist. If we view racism as a spectrum, lyncher would probably be all the way on one end. But there are a lot of points between "lyncher" and "100% not racist". Lincoln did say some racist things. He isn't as bad as a lyncher, or someone who never thought to oppose slavery. But that doesn't mean he wasn't racist at all, it just means he wasn't as racist as he possibly could have been. I'm not really invested in proving Lincoln was racist (most white people are at some point), but I just wanted to explain my view of racism as a spectrum and see what you all thought.

Mary Todd's Portrayal in Gore Vidal's "Lincoln"

I may be alone in this, but I actually thought Mary Todd's portrayal in Gore Vidal's "Lincoln" was much more sympathetic than in the last two films. This seems to be the first film to acknowledge that she most likely suffered from a mental illness. The others just portrayed her as having all of these personality flaws without any explanation. Also, there was one bit of dialogue that really stuck out to me. Mary Todd is with the handmiaden who says something to the effect of, "The newspapers don't portray you accurately at all", and Mary responds "Nobody does" (this is all paraphrased). I thought that maybe this was an acknowledgement of how Mary Todd has been seen as unlikeable and mean, and viewed unsympathetically throughout history. Did anybody else think this? In any case, I found that dialogue to be very sad, and I felt sympathetic toward Mary Todd.

Racism

Miller seems overly defensive of Lincoln, especially related to matters of racism. He keeps pointing out that the term "racism" had not yet been coined in Lincoln's time, but does that really matter? Racism did exist, it just didn't have a name. I don't see the harm in pointing out possible racism of Lincoln using our modern language. A lot of people excuse prejudice by saying that the person was "a product of their time". Racism was widespread during Lincoln's life (and still is), but if there were people questioning it then, then why didn't he? I don't think the time period is a very good excuse (I know there have been discussions in class and on the blogs about this topic but I am just forming my opinion now so that's why I haven't responded to anyone in particular).

Is Lincoln a Radical?

To quote Angela Davis, "radical simply means 'grasping things at the root'". If we use this definition of radical, was Lincoln a radical? In a way, he was. Lincoln did abolish slavery-it can be argued that slavery is the root of racial oppression in America. Some would have simply advocated for reforming slavery so that slaves would be treated more ethically and given some rights as slaves, rather than wanting to abolish slavery as an institution. However, in most other ways, Lincoln was not a radical. He didn't seem particularly interested in ending prejudiced thinking against Black people (no, racism was not a term used back then, but it doesn't mean racism didn't exist and couldn't be identified). It makes me wonder why Lincoln was so opposed to slavery, yet he did not view Black people as equal and the Emancipation Proclamation did not grant citizenship to slaves.