Xennial Memes
A text quote with a large yellow quotation mark on the left. It reads: "History is not inert but contains within it a story that implicates or justifies political order... A political order is premised not just on who can vote but on what they can vote for, which is to say on what can be imagined. And our political imagination is rooted in our history, our culture, and our myths. [...] Politics is the art of the…

Ta-Nehisi Coates on History, Politics, and Imagination

A Ta-Nehisi Coates quote on how history, art, and media shape political imagination. A civics and history class flashback for Xennials now watching culture shape politics.

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A text quote with a large yellow quotation mark on the left. It reads: "History is not inert but contains within it a story that implicates or justifies political order... A political order is premised not just on who can vote but on what they can vote for, which is to say on what can be imagined. And our political imagination is rooted in our history, our culture, and our myths. [...] Politics is the art of the…

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Illustration of Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Caption at top: "The problem of US politics, as Plato's Allegory of the Cave". Shackled figures labeled "Voters" watch shadows on the wall as people carry figures past a fire labeled "Media". Below, two text columns about Democrats and Republicans. Two US election maps. Top: a county map mostly red with blue clusters along coasts and cities. Red caption text: "When you're not coloring all the places where no-one lives red, suddenly the map doesn't look quite the same, does it?" Bottom: a map of red and blue bubbles sized by population, with large blue bubbles. Two side-by-side photos under the heading "NOTICE THE DIFFERENCE". Left: a man in a dark suit places a blue-ribboned medal on a short-haired woman in a red jacket, captioned "TALK SHOW HOST". Right: a man places a medal on a gray-haired older man in a dark jacket, captioned "VIETNAM WAR HERO". Below, typewriter-style text reads: "You know what? I do see the difference! The guy on the left is awarding Ellen with the… Cartoon by Tom Gauld of two mirrored hilly coastlines facing each other across water, each with a tower, a spire, a domed hut and a sailing ship. Left side labels: OUR BLESSED PIG FARMS, OUR GLORIOUS LEADER, OUR GREAT RELIGION, OUR NOBLE POPULACE, OUR HEROIC ADVENTURERS. Right side: THEIR HOG STREWN WASTES, THEIR WICKED DESPOT, THEIR PRIMITIVE SUPERSTITION, THEIR BACKWARD SAVAGES, THEIR BRUTISH INVADERS. Signed TOM… Scanned newspaper op-ed with the headline "2nd Amendment has been distorted". A pull quote says the Second Amendment does not guarantee every person the unfettered constitutional right to have a machine gun, by Warren E. Burger for The Associated Press. A photo of an older white-haired man in a suit is captioned "Warren Burger", beside a "Bill of Rights 1791-1991" logo. Three columns of article text follow. Scan of a textbook page. Caption: "Basic high school civics lessons we knew in 1948. From Magruder's classic American Government textbook. page 1." A two-column chart, "Without Government" and "With Government". Direct Protection: no protection of life, family, property or country vs. police, laws, courts; Army, Navy, and Air Force. Sanitation and Health: polluted water, filth and waste everywhere, tubercular milk,…

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