Word: handlins
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Juffure never existed says Handlin. Especially the references to the way those Africans behaved: all available evidence proves Africans had no concept of Africa, nor did they regard all Africans as brothers. Also, according to Handlin, Haley's Kunta Kinte is not a man of the 18th-century West African coast, but a 20th-century civil rights activist...
...Handlin insists that he does not want black Americans to feel left out of history, but instead wishes to show them myths are not the answer. Myths deny the dignity of those who lived and died unrecognized, he says...
...Handlin misses the point. Just as evidence exists that things happened one way, there are gaps in history where things may have occurred differently. Only where there is evidence is there history, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian tells us. Thus it follows that if there is no evidence, there is no history. How many African tribes kept records at City Hall? Or better yet, how many American Indians kept council meeting notes? Does this mean that black and native Americans have no history? Is that why schoolchildren are repeatedly told Columbus discovered America when native Americans were here first...
Five pages after Handlin's bitter and unsubstantiated critique of Roots, he chooses once again to excuse the writings of John Burgess and of William Dunning that gave credibility to contemporary theories of racial inferiority proposed by social and biological sciences. Sure they were wrong because they allowed their racist attitude to influence their writing of history, Handlin says. Nonetheless, they deserve no more than a slap on the wrist. After all, these works "were products of serious scholarship, had respectable scientific underpinnings, and earned respect as useful contributions to the solution of current problems." Some people found them useful...
...Handlin may remain a disappointed man for some time. Truth from accurate evidence is only one part of the search for real history. The other is selection of evidence from uncertain sources and interpretation; these will always remain judgmental decisions...