> John C. Calhoun is a person without mention of whom any history of early 19th century America would be incomplete.
No one's stripping him out of the history books. Why does he deserve the honor of having a college named for him?
> Or for that matter, much insight into or sympathy for, the differing views of others, let alone others from different times or places.
I guess I can't pass up the irony of this statement. I grew up in the South. I'm old enough to remember a time when Confederates were seen as noble. Old enough to have people tell me quite sincerely that "those people had it good as slaves."
Attitudes have changed since then and in part because enough white people attempted to learn about and gained sympathy for a group of people very different than themselves: the enslaved black Americans of the 19th Century. Without the understanding and empathy which crossed cultural and racial boundaries, there would never have come a time when Calhoun's name was considered a negative by the majority.
No one's stripping him out of the history books. Why does he deserve the honor of having a college named for him?
> Or for that matter, much insight into or sympathy for, the differing views of others, let alone others from different times or places.
I guess I can't pass up the irony of this statement. I grew up in the South. I'm old enough to remember a time when Confederates were seen as noble. Old enough to have people tell me quite sincerely that "those people had it good as slaves."
Attitudes have changed since then and in part because enough white people attempted to learn about and gained sympathy for a group of people very different than themselves: the enslaved black Americans of the 19th Century. Without the understanding and empathy which crossed cultural and racial boundaries, there would never have come a time when Calhoun's name was considered a negative by the majority.