- Jan 2024
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www.jstor.org www.jstor.org
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d. Even Pocahontas herself is but a bit player in thi
It's hard to find a narrative about Pocahontas that doesn't involve John Smith as a main character, but apparently John Smith's story doesn't need Pocahontas's connections.
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s Pocahantas as part of a triumvirate that includes her father,Powhatan, and her uncle, Opechancanough (the leader of the 1622 warthat Rountree aptly terms the Great Assault). By casting her net morewidely, Rountree offers a more substantial and far-reaching study thanwould have been possible had she focused on Pocahontas
This is the exact opposite of a synecdoche. Instead of using Pocahontas to represent the Powhatan tribe, Rountree is using other tribe leaders to describe her. I never thought of this approach to understand specific people in history.
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sakai.unc.edu sakai.unc.edu
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catastrophic hurricane that killed as many as 12,000 people and is still considered the worst natural disasterin the history of the United States.
Another point about memory! In my mind, Hurricane Katrina was the worst natural disaster in the United States, but it's deathtoll was 1400 people, which is a stark contrast to 12,000 people.
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Language about equality echoed
t's ironic because neither the declaration of independence or the General Order No. 3 actually acted on the ides of freedom for everyone. The Declaration of Independence stated that all men are created equal while humans were owning other humans as slaves. Similarly. the General Order No. 3 said that there would be absolute equality between former masters and slaves and that took years to achieve.
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sakai.unc.edu sakai.unc.edu
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then culminated in “Solidarity Day” onJuneteenth
Generalizing Juneteenth as "Solidarity Day" reminds me of people trying to turn MLK day into "Civil Rights Day."
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nd the absence of ex-slaves, who had almost all died by the late 60s, led to a loss ofcelebrations in urban areas.
This is a critical note on memory. Once we lose the people who actually experienced the event being remembered, it fades away from memory and loses meaningful connections.
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baseball,
This is a smaller note but it's fascinating to be that Blanck mentioned baseball. One reason is because baseball is often considered "America's sport." Another reason is because there are only a handful of black people who play in the MLB while the NBA is composed of majority black people.
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As of2020, only four states had not recognized it.
The four states were Hawaii, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana. In 2021, President Biden made Juneteenth a federal holiday so now all states have the day off. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/09/more-than-half-of-states-now-recognize-juneteenth-as-an-official-holiday/
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sakai.unc.edu sakai.unc.edu
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and honored as a fully human, flawed champion:
This connects to my point above about acknowledging our role model's flaws as it relates to their contirbutions.
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Most devastating was the National Football League's disqual-ification of Phoenix as a site for the 1993 Super Bowl, denying the city an esti-mated $200 million in revenue.
It's interesting that here the NFL was used as an instrument of change but when Kaepernick took a knee, their moral qualms were no where to be found.
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King's contributions were obliterated byhis alleged shortcomings-particularly the charges of plagiarism and philan-dering-which rendered him an inappropriate idol
I think in this class especially, as we reflect on the memory of some of America's heros, we have to decide how important these claims are. I think that in this specific case, the charges of plagiarism and philandering are justification for not supporting the holiday. Its the same question we face today - are all our role models perfect? If no, then should we be celebrating anyone? Columbus was not a universally fantastic human yet he still had a holiday.
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