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Comment by dmarusic16 | Hacker News Reader

America is a country, not a project of universal human redemption. Countries do horrible things at times, yes. And these things should be studied. But it’s high time we abandon the gauzy religious rhetoric (“original sin”) when we talk about the United States. It’s a hangover from Lincoln’s rhetoric, and in many ways it’s not healthy, as it prevents us from taking concrete steps to fix concrete problems.

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America has always billed itself as more than a nation ("shining city on a hill", etc.), it's up to it's citizens to hold ourselves to account. Without looking at the past there is no way to fix our concrete problems going forward.

For instance, look at the Supreme Court case Holder v. Alabama and how it changed the Voting Rights Act, there is a direct line to slavery and the racism that fueled it. At this very moment States are using this ruling to reinstate laws that disenfranchise black voters who suffered after the fall of Reconstruction.

I’m certainly neither arguing for not looking at the past, nor for doing nothing. I’m suggesting that the universalist language of the founding, and then subsequently the brilliant rhetoric of Lincoln trying to knit together a country wrecked by Civil War, is not helpful. Elevating actual monstrosities to a religious plane leads to lots of handwringing about “atonement” and “repentance”, a lot of which ends up easy to dismiss by those less sold on the metaphor. Instead, sober discussion about the realities of race today, and even more importantly how those play out along class—an underdeveloped subject among most Americans—would be welcome.

In my opinion, religion is such a powerful force because it allows us to view human behavior through spiritual metaphors. We can agree to disagree but I believe the original sin framing is apt, particularly when discussing slavery with those who rightfully argue that they had nothing to do with the actions of their ancestors.

Atonement and repentance are also accurate, because too many of us believe that once the Civil War was over all Americans were equal, this is just not the case. Discrimination on the level of American slavery compounds and effects us to this day. Most black Americans still live in the South, Southern schools are more integrated than Norther n schools because Brown v. BoE was more heavily enforced there. Certain counties in the South needed to get sign off from the Department of Justice to change their voting laws because they were found to be continuing their long history of discrimination against black people, a white nationalist shot up a Walmart partly because despite the fact that racially infused murder has been a Hallmark of our nation for hundreds of years -- we still don't take it seriously enough to fund counter efforts.

Perhaps I'm blinded, but almost every social story in America today is connected back to the effects of slavery and racism.

This goes even beyond "those who rightfully argue that they had nothing to do with the actions of their ancestors."

Whose original sin? I moved to the United States in 1986 from another continent. Not one of my ancestors was in any way involved with US chattel slavery. Because I have fair skin, do I bear this original sin? Does every person in America with fair skin whose ancestors moved to the US after the US Civil War also bear this original sin?

I'm not saying that something wrong didn't happen, but it's not useful or productive to state that there is an "original sin" that all people living in the US with fair skin are responsible for when the overwhelming majority of those with fair skin moved to this country from the very end of the 19th century onwards.

Why did you move to the United States? Did you throw a dart at a map and come to the US because it occupies a big chunk of North America? Or are there reasons that do involve the country's history?

No one who eats meat can hold a moral position higher than the butcher, even if they don't work in the slaughterhouse.

>Why did you move to the United States?

Good place to be able to get a small farm and run it with a middle class background and means.

>Perhaps I'm blinded, but almost every social story in America today is connected back to the effects of slavery and racism.

What does climate change denialism have to do with slavery? How about gay marriage activists? Gender fluidity?

It sounds like you're spending too much time in an echo chamber. I suggest you step outside for a bit to see other burning social issues.

Reference: John Winthrop's City Upon a Hill sermon (https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/colliding-cultures/john-...).

The weird thing about the Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_upon_a_Hill#Use_in_United...) is that the "use in United States politics" section only lists sources from 1961. I can remember the sermon showing up in my history books in the '70s; it surely didn't disappear for 300 years.

I disagree strongly (and I did not grow up in a religious context). I feel that pointing out the flaws in basic assumptions allows the to be identified and (one hopes) addressed; the use of religious metaphor can help some people frame it properly.

My point is that it’s precisely the wrong frame. And indeed, you make my point for me: we can do better than “hope”.

> frame it properly.

define this. Those metaphors certainly do "frame" things, but what criteria is being used to make determination if that framing is "proper"? My view is that it frames thing in a loaded biased way that presupposes the solution, which is atonement. There is a clear and unambiguous bias towards the solution you've already decided upon by using that framing. Basically, you've worked from the solution backwards towards the framing that will convince others to arrive at your chosen solution.

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