A Brief History of “The Wrong Side of History”
This isn’t the first, or last, battle for a better world
The year was 1776…
Progressive-minded colonial leadership observed the opportunities around them and studied the #trendlines of history and set about forming a new, free nation with its own constitution and spiritual destiny.
They had reached their limits with the abuses of a spoiled monarch who had never even set foot on the bustling coastlines of this bountiful “New World,” a king who had no context or appreciation for their lives, and took America as merely another source of income with which to feed his personal empire.
There was no guarantee of a positive outcome, to be sure, but given all of their knowledge and resources and bravery, these leaders saw what was possible — what was necessary — to secure a better future for themselves and their communities. They would fight bravely, and die willingly, to establish a free society! 🇺🇸 🎉
MEANWHILE…conservative-minded men and established merchants around the colonies could only understand themselves as British “Loyalists,” now and forever, an extension of a timeless and all-powerful kingdom, which to them had no beginning and would have no end. There was no obvious benefit to breaking that cycle, especially for those who had no motives or imagination to visualize anything better than what they had always known.
In fact, they campaigned against this “scheme of independence” as ruinous and impractical — claiming that “permanent liberty and true happiness can only be obtained through reconciliation” with the king and the traditional systems which kept them all in power, and everyone else exactly where they had always been.
To those ends, “prominent Loyalists repeatedly assured the British government that many thousands of them would spring to arms and fight for the crown,” giving old King George further confidence to taunt and torment those involved in the resistance. He thought nothing would ever change.
IN THE END, however, more than 20,000 newly baptized Americans gave their lives in the struggle to break free of the old world and change history forever. A new reality was established.
Cut to: one century later…
It was 1862, and a new progressive-minded leader saw the opportunity presented by history and demanded the end of human slavery within these United States of America — once and for all — as a continuation of the “self evident” truths declared by the sacred and profound documents at the core of this increasingly-successful former British Colony.
If freedom for some men had taken us this far, imagine how glorious and powerful and righteous and true a society would be that empowered the freedom of ALL men!
(Editor’s note: observant female readers, please stand down and stand by!)
While a great idea in theory, at the time, Slavery was more popular than any Etsy store or Netflix mini-series than you could ever imagine. Few people could be convinced to #unsubscribe from something so pervasive and profitable.
Abe Lincoln was a great talker, and a truly stable genius, but even he lost a lot of followers once he insisted this was the only way forward: “This government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.” But he also knew there would be a real fight required to keep America moving forward:
“The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present.”
Lincoln was prepared to fight — as were his generals and those deeply concerned about the moral cost of a slave society — because they recognized that the long arc of history and morality were on their side. Not both sides.
MEANWHILE… conservative-minded men and established merchants who benefited directly from Slavery and who could not conceive of ANY other way of being in this world were 😫🤬😡, to say the least. They threw up every roadblock imaginable against Abolition, including the Good Book itself: “The triumphs of Christianity rest this very hour upon slavery!” (G. T. Yelverton)
In truth, they were scared men. Scared of losing position and power and the privileges built up over such long stretches of time as to make them seem permanent and righteous and ordained to only them: “We are sent to protect, not so much property, as white supremacy!” (Jefferson Buford).
As you can imagine, such deep fears translated into anger and aggression, and eventually into action. These men could not be stopped, they would not listen to reason. Soon they were all headed to The Home Depot to buy tiki torches. The war had begun.
IN THE END, more than 1,030,000 soldiers and civilians died in the fight to keep this nation of slow-learners united, and extend our basic freedoms to people whose skin color was “weird” or birthplace hard to pronounce. (Those against this radical change quickly realized it was not as bad as they afeared because they were still allowed to treat black and brown people like shit in other ways. But, progress is progress, and time marches on…)
Women want to WHAT??
Not long after the War of the Tiki Torches, progressive-minded women in America stood up and insisted that #TheFutureIsFemale, or at least that they should have the same One Vote 🗳️ as every other pair of dick and balls in this great land of ours.
They observed, rightly, that besides major difference in our fuzzy little genitals and sense of fashion, both kinds of human beings were basically the same and should be granted the same rights in a society based on universal human principles.
Resistant to all the mansplaining in the world, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (and many other names etched in blue in the halls of Wikipedia) fought, and marched, and debated, and petitioned, and devoted their entire lives to a vision of a better world with more opportunities for more people.
“Men and women are like right and left hands; it doesn’t make sense not to use both.” — Jeannette Rankin
MEANWHILE… conservative-minded men and religious leaders saw this particular social evolution as a bridge-too-far into a secular and devilish world without families and without God, and wanted to keep things the way they believed they had always been everywhere and at all times.
Also, and perhaps more importantly, who would ‘darn’ their socks 🧦 and cook these men a good breakfast 🍳 if the women were always out there, every day, somewhere, voting!?
Yes — rather than imagining a future filled with better quality socks and microwave breakfast burritos of every conceivable flavor combination, their only solution was to keep half of the human race in servitude. (These were not our best people.)
IN THE END, it took more than 40 effing years! to get the 19th Amendment passed in 1919 and give women equal voting rights. Female contributions to American culture over the next century were beyond measure — world changing — in what seems like an obvious win/win for society as a whole, looking back.
Those men who cried about it were clearly on the wrong side of history.
Silly men.
And then along comes Hitler…
You remember Hitler, right? That loud, bullying, and illegitimately installed dictator so terrible and destructive to the world that we had to stop naming babies Adolph, change the way we all salute the flag, cover up our well-meaning tramp stamp of the Hindu sign for “good luck,” take away Germany’s entire military for a long long long time, create the United Nations, redraw all the maps, and cancel that little narrow-ass mustache forever… You know? Hitler! A real jerk.
In the lead up to his attempt to take over the western world, Hitler used dramatic language and over-the-top theatrics at his rallies. He is remembered for the way he spoke, the image of power he projected to those seeking leadership in turbulent times, and h̶i̶s̶ ̶h̶y̶p̶n̶o̶t̶i̶c̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶m̶y̶s̶t̶e̶r̶i̶o̶u̶s̶ ̶h̶a̶i̶r̶c̶u̶t̶.̶
In his rise to power, Hitler did everything he could to romanticize how great the people’s homeland once was, stirring up nostalgia among his followers, a longing to turn back the clock to a better, more-greater time when things seemed simpler and more prosperous for those who had recently lost so much: as a quickly evolving technological world had destabilized their culture and created a gap where such a toxic, viral, contagious cult-like mentality could take hold of millions of angry and paranoid citizens. It’s hard to even imagine what it must have been like for those #NeverNazis who felt like they were watching their society drift into such a state of delusion!
MEANWHILE… as much as we all pretty much agree he is The Worst nowadays — you guessed it! — many conservative-minded and well established merchants in an era before HBO’s Band of Brothers was readily available in a blu-ray box set, or streaming free on Hulu, they thought Hitler’s plans were actually GOOD for America.
They were so worried about communist ideology in Russia and China that they were willing to tolerate Adolph’s expansionist policies. As the old saying goes: the enemy of my enemy is my friend (unless one of them is Hitler).
At the very least they thought Hitler was really good for business and they were willing to look the other way about the rest of his “troubling rhetoric” in order to play both sides of the situation and make their fortunes.
IN THE END, even millionaire corporate CEOs realized they had backed the wrong horse in this race and might actually be on the wrong side of history.
After 70,000,000 humans died in the bloodiest conflict of all time, most of those corporations went on to be just fine actually and totally not dead from the Holocaust, but they were definitely all, like, my bad! #sorry
And you could tell they really meant it. And they made significant changes. And they never collaborated with a horrible populist dictator for money again. (And, maybe let’s just move on…)
I’m sure Civil Rights is something we can all agree on!
A generation later, from the ashes of two world wars arose new ways of living and new insights into the pointlessness of violent dogma and division. ✌️☮️
Ancient traditions were buried under atomic rubble and new horizons became visible to all those who had the eyes to see (aka, people of color and young white people whose parents could afford a television set) and for them it seemed obvious that the point of humanity was to go boldly forward, together.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a vital progressive voice during this time — against racial injustice, and against the war in Vietnam—pushing the American People and the American Dialogue toward a vision of unity through the respect of our differences.
“We must learn to live together as brothers, or we will perish together as fools.” —MLK Jr.
He said America must bring its spiritual advances up to meet its material advances. Our technological progress had outpaced our evolving empathy and understanding what it means to be human. We were at a crossroads, and visionaries like Martin were pointing the way forward.
MEANWHILE… millions of conservative-minded Americans and established power figures were never going to let these changes happen. They had their reasons, but they were mostly Real Dumb, and this is/was supposed to be a ‘brief’ history.
#ReclaimingMyTime
Many of the people against civil rights imagined themselves as part of a special (manufactured) heritage that connected them deeper to the founders of America than those fighting in the streets to actually uphold its ideals. They used fire hoses, nooses, dogs—and even worse, politicians—to fight against the amber waves of change rising all across the land. It was an ugly and beautiful time in America. One side ugly, the other beautiful.
IN THE END, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. The man who said these words, and shared his dream with the entire world, was killed by some fool who thought bullets could stop the tides of history. They never have; they never will. His actions only accelerated changes in the hearts of people everywhere to embrace the reality of our shared future, and turn away from the abyss of looking backwards.
They say hindsight is 2020…
Foresight isn’t always hard. You don’t always need a crystal ball to see centuries into the future. Sometimes it is right there over the next hill, the next crossroads, the next choice: drift backward or drive forward.
We find ourselves in one of those special moments in history again, where there are two sides. There is the side of Good People working hard towards a Better Future, and there is the side of weaponized ignorance and fear.
In reality, the answer is always Forward. The choice is always Better. The only question is: will you be charging joyfully at the front of the line with Amazing Grace in your heart with the rest of us, or trolling in back of the line just to play a futile tug-o-war with Human Destiny? We will always wait for the slackers to catch up, but we will never stop the march.
(Editor’s note: I really don’t know who to credit for this last image, besides good parenting, but if you tell me I’ll be happy to credit it. Also, please vote!)
