"BOTH-ISM'S"

"Both-ism" Since the 2013 federal government shutdown began, I have noticed that a number of FACE BOOK posts have condemned both political parties, as though they were equally culpable for this treasonous act, this embarrassment for democracy, and international disgrace. In fact, as President Obama has correctly stated, it is but one rabid "faction" of the Republican Party -- some 40 intransigent "Tea Party" conservatives--who hold the sway with Speaker Boehner--that are responsible for this fiscal crisis. Yet, "both-ism" prevails among those who would throw a rock and hide their hands. "Both-ism" lurks among Republican sympathizers seeking to deflect away the blame, the consternation and ennui away from their invidious ideologues! "Both-ism" also pertains to the 150 year anniversary of the Civil War, which the slaves called "The Freedom War," consistently. From the perspective of the slave, whose bold and ever-increasing, "self-liberating" flights to the North, especially to Canada, greatly precipitated that apocalyptic conflict, the Confederate enslavers were wholly at fault! Those non-abolitionists Union-types that enforced the federal Fugitive Slave laws, even after the war began, were only tangentially so. "Both-ism" again asserts itself in the internecine struggle among blacks themselves relative to the practices of Booker T. Washington and the theories of W.E.B. DuBois, whom Washington had offered a job at Tuskegee Institute, which Dubois turned down, preferring disputation. "Both-ism" asserts that both men contributed good and bad to the struggle for black advancement, that neither was right or wrong. I read such comments frequently which says more about the commenter's historical knowledge, or lack thereof, than it does about the actual deeds. Persons say "Well, Dr. DuBois wrote books." So, did Dr. Washington, including one these "bothies" should read, UP FROM SLAVERY. Or, they say DuBois left an institution, the NAACP. Of course, Washington left Tuskegee University, which he had founded, in the midst of Alabama during the early 1880's. DuBois was simply the first "colored" employee of the white-founded NAACP, that was organized to oppose the practices of Washington, specifically. In the current climate of blame assessment, the fallacy of "both-ism" may be more discernible than at other times; hence, this essay.