Tag: liberal narratives

912 words

Nanny of the Maroons

Contemporary academia loudly celebrates the concept of “lived experience” as a legitimate way of knowing. Personal narratives and subjective impressions are often treated as evidence, placed on the same level as empirical data or archival documentation. Yet this principle is applied selectively. When scholars write about slavery, they suddenly abandon the idea of lived experience, not because it loses relevance, but because it becomes politically inconvenient. (more…)

3,438 words

Achilles Dragging the Body of Hector on His Chariot – Giulio Romano, 1538

Thomas D’Arcy McGee was born in Carlingford, Ireland on April 13, 1825. From a young age, he was fascinated with Irish history and folklore. At age 17, he crossed the Atlantic for the first time, settling in Boston, Massachusetts in 1842 where he found a job as an editor of The Boston Pilot, a Catholic newspaper run by the Irish diaspora in New England. (more…)

1,189 words

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. One might assume that, especially for those of us who hail from the United States, this would be an occasion for celebration and pride. The Second World War was the largest military conflagration in the history of mankind (It isn’t called a “world war” for no reason) and our soldiers came out on top. (more…)

Michael Tirrell James

1,905 words

I recently wrote about the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, and his then-mysterious “adopted black son” whose existence Johnson only ever referenced for entirely cynical reasons. In 2019 he claimed before Congress that he had asked his adopted black son what he thought about slavery reparations and that he was against it. This was the first time he had ever mentioned having a black son, nor does it appear in any of his official biographies. (more…)