BTRTN: Our Current Crisis... Lessons Unlearned
Born To Run The Numbers features a guest post authored by Williams College History Professor Charles B. Dew, author of “The Making of A Racist: A Southerner Reflects on Family, History, and the Slave Trade.” This piece originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle and is reprinted here with the permission of Professor Dew.
http://www.borntorunthenumbers.com/2020/04/btrtn-our-current-crisis-lessons.html#more
Excerpts: "Abraham Lincoln’s steady hand on the tiller had restored the union, but he was struck down in 1865 by a Southern assassin’s bullet at the very moment of victory; he was replaced by Andrew Johnson, a Tennessean who had stuck with the Union but who was an out-and-out racist, a stubborn, bungling, graceless leader convinced of his own self-worth and possessed of an insatiable political appetite. Leaders make a profound difference: a president of peerless worth was replaced by an egotistical hack who was supremely unqualified to steer the South, and our country, toward a just peace...
"But there is another gene in our DNA, a gene shared by all of us, North and South, white, black, Native American, those of us of recent immigrant ancestry and those of us whose ancestry dates back to the Mayflower: a 'resilience' gene, a 'persistence' gene, that has allowed us to surmount stupendous obstacles that have arisen over the centuries. This gene has helped all of us through multiple crises--world wars, recessions and depressions, epidemic diseases like polio that turned summers into seasons of dread...
"But that 'persistence' gene is still in place. If we act wisely now—social distancing to the fullest extent possible, helping our neighbors and front-line personnel in any way we can, following the guidance of our state and local leaders, even something as seemingly trivial as washing our hands for 20 plus seconds--we will overcome again. To quote an old American expression, you can bet the ranch on it."
