aka Ken Smith: Cartoon American history won't do

There are practices in the brain, on the page or screen, in the workings of a community, that decenter power. That shift the weight given to established authorities. That give other people a chance to speak.#

I can't recall these practices being discussed much in civics class.#

But you have to think that these practices are knowable. And if we can tell the country's best stories of activism well, we might bring those practices into view. Ordinarily the practices are clouded in rote, sentimental, cartoonish tellings of the best stories.#

For example, everyone knows that a little hero named Rosa Parks just refused the indignity of segregation on the city bus one day.#

Except that's a poor telling of the story that obscures how active citizenship works when it has a decent chance. The story of a brave underdog can be rousingly told, but that kind of telling reveals little of how the civil rights movement slowly achieved its victories.#