Revisiting America Readings in Race Culture and Conflict

¶ … America: Readings in Race, Culture, and Conflict

Susan Wyle's book Revisiting America: Readings in Race, Culture, and Conflict explores the history of the America through the lens of the political, racial, social, and cultural issues that make up the population. The story of American history is retold. Widely known stories about America's past are revisited and additional information about cultural conflict of the period is used to show a new reality to the country's past. Wyle's history also discusses the importance of socially constructed terminology and how the conflicts of America's past continue to shape the United States today.

The textbook includes both primary and secondary sources to explore the truth behind American history. Of particular interest are some of the historical documents, such as the transcripts from the actual Salem Witch Trials. This period of American history is symbolic of all occasions where religious zealotry and fear overtake the ability to form logic and cost people their civil rights. Reading these transcripts today, and coming from the modern perspective where we know that the occurrences of Salem were the result of duplicity on the act of young girls and travesties of justices on the part of judges, we feel anger and disgust that so many people suffered. Wyle's book asks the readers to think critically about what we think we know about American history. The documentation inside the book allows the readers to question what has been interpreted in the past from these papers. Historians have looked at these documents and made determinations about what they believe has happened in the past. The actual process of reading historical documentation allows the readers to understand history from a modern perspective and allows people to think critically about whether or not accepted versions of history are truly viable.

American's history is one of racism, gender oppression, and class stratification. The United States was founded on lands that once belonged to Native Americans, who were then slaughtered and systematically marginalized as their land was taken to encourage American expansion into the frontier. Everyone knows that the United States was a heavy importer of slaves and that the Southern states in particular exploited slave labor and treated Africans as if they were animals, which included rape and forced breeding, not to mention separation and sale of family members. These were, of course, not the only instances of racism influencing policy in the United States. At the turn of the 20th century, the United States enforced laws to limit immigration to the country from various parts of the world. The intent of this was so that the majority of American immigrants would be from Western European nations. There was also the internment of Japanese-American citizens during the Second World War, a policy set up and approved of by the American government. Whole families were sent to camps and made to live in horse stables. Their businesses were overtaken, their property stolen, and no reparations were made after the war was over and the people released from the internment camps. Racist ideas are still a part of American history, as much as we would like to deny it. After September 11, 2001 and the attack on the World Trade Center, Muslims and Americans of Middle Eastern descent were all looked at suspiciously. Still accusations are levied at airports and at police departments that racial profiling, not suspicious activity, leads to detainment and further questioning of the person.

The book also discusses the rhetoric of certain speeches and other visual media that was used to convey messages of propaganda during eras of American history. In the chapter, "The Depression and the Two World Wars on the Home Front," Wyle discusses the uses of propaganda during the war years. Posters from the era are examined to show both overt and subliminal messages being relayed. During the Second World War in particular, the United States was encouraged to have a united attitude towards the effort both at home and abroad. Part of that unification was in getting the majority of the population to view the Germans, Japanese, and Italians as enemies not only of the United States, but as the enemies of freedom as well. Consequently many of the war posters, not to mention war cartoons, films, and political speeches used language and imagery designed to cement these ideas.

This is also true for the other speeches that Wyle includes in the text. A political speech is designed to convince the listeners that the person speaking is honest and that their perspective is the correct one. For example, the speeches of the civil rights leaders in the chapter "Civil Rights, Protest, and Foreign Wars" were each designed to convince the reader that the speaker had a viable point and that some sort of change needed to be enacted, not only to aid the speaker's cause but supposedly to help the listener as well.