Pentimento

History Against the Grain

Once again bigotry is in vogue, and red state minions without shame are tripping all over one another to pass shamefaced voter suppression laws. Even Major League Baseball, no slouch itself in the annals of Jim Crow, has taken action in protest of Georgia’s recent effort to disenfranchise Black voters. Un-ironically, all of this plays out as the George Floyd murder trial is held in Minnesota, which has us thinking once again just how poorly suited are the standard version histories for explaining the enduring traditions of racial segregation, voter suppression, and police violence against Black bodies. You just can’t get here via the Mt. Rushmore express. So with Episode 41, Pentimento, we again look at the truer and more honest histories that lie underneath the superimposed and mythic images of the standard version history, to surface narratives that can actually explain how we got here and why we need truer and better histories to get us out of this god awful mess.