{"id":1044,"date":"2017-09-18T10:42:39","date_gmt":"2017-09-18T14:42:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/?p=1044"},"modified":"2017-09-27T10:27:02","modified_gmt":"2017-09-27T14:27:02","slug":"the-importance-of-perspective-and-learning-the-history-we-dont-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/2017\/09\/18\/the-importance-of-perspective-and-learning-the-history-we-dont-know\/","title":{"rendered":"The Importance of Perspective and Learning the History We Don\u2019t Know"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Dr. Beverly Tatum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Williston Northampton Convocation Speech
\nDr. Beverly Daniel Tatum
\nSeptember 15, 2017<\/p>\n

A long time ago I read a disturbing story that had a powerful effect on me and I want to begin my talk today by telling it to all of you.\u00a0 Unfortunately I no longer remember where I first read it, but I believe it comes from the Buddhist tradition.\u00a0 It is a story about a king who wanted to create a large bell that could be heard across the country side, one that would be astonishingly beautiful in tone.\u00a0 He commissioned the most highly skilled bell maker he could find, and the bell maker worked diligently to produce a wonderful bell.\u00a0 The first bell he made was good, but not great.\u00a0 The sound quality just wasn\u2019t what the king was looking for.\u00a0 A second bell was cast, and still despite the bell maker\u2019s best efforts, it wasn\u2019t good enough for the king.\u00a0 Finally in frustration, the bell maker told the king that the only way to get the beautiful tone he was looking for would be to sacrifice a young maiden in the casting of the bell.\u00a0 And so the king ordered his soldiers to find a suitable candidate.\u00a0 In a nearby village they found a poor woman with a young daughter, and snatched her away from her pleading mother.\u00a0 She was sacrificed for the bell, and indeed the bell that resulted was both beautiful to see and had an astonishingly pure and lovely tone.\u00a0 All who heard it marveled at the sound, but the poor mother who knew firsthand its terrible history cried with grief each time the bell rang. There was injustice literally baked into that bell, but those who did not know that history never had to think about that injustice.\u00a0 They simply enjoyed its sound.<\/p>\n

When I first encountered that story, it caused me to think about what metaphorical bells are ringing today whose sound I enjoy, but whose continued ringing is, for someone else, a reminder of terrible injustice. \u00a0Your perspective, or point of view<\/em>, about the value of the bell and its sweet sound is certainly going to be shaped by your knowledge (or lack of knowledge) about its history.<\/p>\n

Sometimes we prefer not<\/em> to know such history.\u00a0 If we knew, what would we do?\u00a0 What would be our obligation?\u00a0 Would we stop listening to the bell?\u00a0 Would we condemn the king and try to overthrow his rule?\u00a0 What if the king is long gone? Can we just forget about the price that was paid?\u00a0 Would we demand reparations for the poor mother whose daughter was sacrificed?\u00a0 Or would we shrug our shoulders and say \u201cI didn\u2019t order that bell.\u00a0 It\u2019s not my<\/em> fault.\u00a0 It\u2019s not my<\/em> responsibility.\u201d\u00a0 How you<\/em> respond to that question, your perspective<\/em>, is likely to be rooted in your life experience, and may not reflect the life experiences of others.\u00a0 Whose perspective might be missing?\u00a0 Whose history don\u2019t you know?<\/p>\n

These might seem like theoretical questions, but in fact, they have real implications for what is going on around us today.\u00a0 If we extend the metaphor of the \u201cbeautiful bell\u201d to the United States, we must acknowledge that there is injustice baked into our bell.<\/p>\n

Jim Wallis, a well-known pastor and publisher of Sojourners Magazine<\/em>, writes from his perspective as a white European-American man about this embedded flaw in a book entitled, America\u2019s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America.\u00a0 <\/em>In it he writes,<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States has the most racial diversity of any country in the world.\u00a0 This diversity is essential to our greatness, but it has also given us a history of tension and conflict\u2026Ironically and tragically, American diversity began with acts of violent racial oppression that I am calling America\u2019s \u201coriginal sin\u201d\u2014the theft of land from Indigenous people who were either killed or removed and the enslavement of millions of Africans who became America\u2019s greatest economic resource\u2014in building a new nation.\u00a0 The theft of land and the violent exploitation of labor were embedded in America\u2019s origins.\u201d\u00a0 (Wallis, 2016, p. 9)<\/p>\n

The injustice was baked in, and a racial hierarchy created that we still see evidence of today.\u00a0 \u00a0All of that is part of our American bell.\u00a0 And when we hear the bell\u2019s song (the National Anthem) or recite its pledge, some, particularly those at the top<\/em> of the hierarchy, may hear a beautiful sound while others, particularly those identified with the people at the bottom, feel the pain of past and present<\/em> injustice.<\/p>\n

When I wrote those words originally in the fall of 2016, I was thinking about the controversy surrounding Colin Kaepernick\u2019s decision not to stand for the National Anthem as a silent protest.\u00a0 He was using his sphere of influence as a sports figure to remind us of the injustice baked into the bell, injustice that still has not been completely purged from the bell\u2019s core, and that is still resonating from the bell today.<\/p>\n

A year later, the Kaepernick controversy has not gone away. In fact, it has been added to by the NFL teams refusing to hire him, and others threatening to boycott the NFL because of that.\u00a0 But also, a year later, we could expand our discussion to include other symbols and what they represent \u2013 we could talk about the differing responses to Confederate flags and statues, for example.<\/p>\n

What do you<\/em> hear when you hear the National anthem or recite the pledge of allegiance?\u00a0 What do you <\/em>see when you spot a Confederate flag or a statue of Confederate soldiers?<\/p>\n

Recently I came across an essay by Tom Ziller, a sports writer who captured two different perspectives \u2013 that of Colin Kaepernick and that of another football player, Saints Quarter Back Drew Brees, who criticized Colin for his silent protest.\u00a0 Ziller writes:<\/p>\n

Brees hears the anthem and sees his World War II veteran grandfather and the dozens of soldiers he\u2019s met through his involvement with the USO. Kaepernick hears the anthem and sees Philando Castile, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner. These are not mutually exclusive visions. America can be worthy of pride and worthy of disgust. Even World War II provided lessons to this effect: while American soldiers liberated Europe, 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent were rounded up and incarcerated by our government. America can be worthy of pride and worthy of disgust. The examples, from our slave-owning Founding Fathers to the century of Jim Crow laws that followed emancipation, are endless.\u00a0[1]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Ziller points out, both perspectives are valid but I would argue that the first perspective is based on an incomplete history, even of veterans and their World War II experience.\u00a0 White veterans and veterans of color were not treated the same.\u00a0 After World War II, the veterans of that war received several major benefits under the GI Bill\u2014providing funding for education, job training, and home loan guarantees, a major factor in the growth of the middle class in America in the 1950s.\u00a0 Yet, during the same period, thousands of black veterans in both the North and South were denied housing and business loans, as well as admission to whites-only colleges and universities.\u00a0 To give you a sense of the degree of discrimination, of the 67,000<\/em> mortgages insured by the GI Bill in New York and Northern New Jersey, less than 100<\/em> of them went to support home purchases by veterans of color. (Wallis, 2016).\u00a0 When we don\u2019t acknowledge this aspect of our history, we fail to acknowledge the pain that was and is still <\/em>being baked into the bell.<\/p>\n

Similarly, people with different life experiences hear different meanings when they hear protestors chant the phrase, \u201cBlack Lives Matter\u201d \u2013 a rallying cry that began as a hashtag on Twitter in response to the police shootings of unarmed Black men and women.\u00a0\u00a0 I gave a talk last summer, and an elderly white gentleman told me during the Q&A why he objected to the phrase.\u00a0 He felt excluded by it.\u00a0 When you<\/em> hear the phrase \u201cBlack Lives Matter\u201d does it sound like \u201conly<\/em> Black Lives Matter\u201d or is it \u201cBlack Lives Matter too<\/em>\u201d?<\/p>\n

To me, it is obvious that the phrase highlights the ways that Black lives have been devalued historically and currently, not just because police officers have been able to kill unarmed Black men and women without accountability, but because the health of Black citizens (both children and adults) can be disregarded when water known to be contaminated with lead was allowed to flow from their faucets for months without taking action (meanwhile Flint city offices were being provided bottled water to drink),\u00a0 and predatory lenders can get away with offering subprime loans to Black and Latino borrowers, even when they have credit scores comparable to white borrowers who are being offered more conventional, less risky loans, just to name a few recent examples.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Such discriminatory behavior can happen for months, in some cases years, without public outcry, because those lives, it seems, are considered less valuable.\u00a0 But if you don\u2019t know those stories,<\/em> you don\u2019t understand what those affected are talking about.<\/p>\n

Social scientists know that those at the bottom of any hierarchy usually know more about those at the top than those at the top know about those at the bottom.\u00a0 It\u2019s easy to understand why.\u00a0 The maid that cleans her employer\u2019s house will know a lot more about the employer\u2019s life than the employer is likely to know about hers.\u00a0 She sees the inside of that house and every room in it but it is entirely possible<\/em> that the employer has never been to the maid\u2019s house or visited her neighborhood and may not know much about the maid\u2019s life away from her job.<\/p>\n

When we don\u2019t know the stories of those at the bottom of the hierarchy, our knowledge is incomplete, not just because we don\u2019t know the stories of those at the bottom.\u00a0 It is incomplete because if we don\u2019t know the stories at the bottom, we can\u2019t truly<\/em> know the stories of those at the top, because<\/em> the stories are linked.<\/em><\/p>\n

Consider for example the story of Georgetown University, a very prestigious college, located in Washington, DC.\u00a0 In a very tangible way, those at the bottom of the hierarchy made it possible for those at the top to be educated at Georgetown. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institution of higher education in the United States. In 1838, facing financial ruin, the priests in charge of Georgetown paid the school\u2019s debts by selling 272 of the slaves they owned, netting $115,000, what would be $3.3 million in today\u2019s dollars.\u00a0 Rachel Swarns of the New York Times vividly described what happened in an article she wrote, saying:<\/p>\n

The human cargo was loaded on ships at a bustling wharf in the nation\u2019s capital, destined for the plantations of the Deep South. Some slaves pleaded for rosaries as they were rounded up, praying for deliverance.<\/p>\n

But on this day, in the fall of 1838, no one was spared: not the 2-month-old baby and her mother, not the field hands, not the shoemaker and not Cornelius Hawkins, who was about 13 years old when he was forced onboard.<\/p>\n

Their panic and desperation would be mostly forgotten for more than a century. But this was no ordinary slave sale. The enslaved African-Americans had belonged to the nation\u2019s most prominent Jesuit priests. And they were sold, along with scores of others, to help secure the future of the premier Catholic institution of higher learning at the time, known today as Georgetown University<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n

More than a dozen universities \u2014 including\u00a0Brown<\/a>,\u00a0Columbia<\/a>,\u00a0Harvard<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0University of Virginia<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 have publicly recognized their ties to slavery and the slave trade. But the 1838 slave sale organized by the Jesuits, who founded and ran Georgetown, stands out for its sheer size, historians say\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cThe university itself owes its existence to this history,\u201d said\u00a0Adam Rothman<\/a>, a historian at Georgetown and a member of a\u00a0university working group<\/a>\u00a0that is studying ways for the institution to acknowledge and try to make amends for its tangled roots in slavery. (NY Times<\/em>, April 27, 2016)\u00a0[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

We could call Georgetown another beautiful bell \u2013 but the injustice of slavery and the sacrifice of 272 pleading human beings is certainly baked in.\u00a0 How can a bell like that be fixed?\u00a0 Last year, on September 1, 2016 the president of Georgetown University, Dr. John DeGoia, formally apologized stating, \u201cThere is a moral, as well as a practical, imperative that defines this moment\u2014that shapes the responsibility we all share: how do we address now, in this moment, the enduring and persistent legacy of slavery?\u00a0 I believe the most appropriate ways for us to redress the participation of our predecessors in the institution of slavery is to address the manifestations of the legacy of slavery in our time.\u00a0 Some of the efforts that we\u00a0began in February 2016\u2014a Department of African American Studies, a new center focused on racial justice, and hiring of new faculty to support this work\u2014are means of engaging this challenge.\u201d [3]<\/a><\/p>\n

Other steps the university is taking include the renaming of buildings \u2013 one to be called Isaac Hall, the first name on the list of those that were sold, as well as giving admissions preference to descendants of the enslaved people the Jesuits owned, as well as build a public memorial to honor their memory. \u00a0\u00a0These actions were among several recommendations made by a Georgetown Committee called the Working Group of Slavery, Memory and Reconciliation.<\/p>\n

How can we fix this American bell we call the United States?\u00a0 Certainly, efforts have been made in my lifetime.\u00a0 I have seen progress.\u00a0 My father was born in 1926.\u00a0 He was 90 when he died last year. \u00a0He was fortunate to have grown up in a family of educators, and was able to attend college in the 1940s (a time when that was uncommon for an African American).\u00a0 He earned his undergraduate degree at Howard University (a historically Black college in Washington DC) and then a Masters degree at the University of Iowa and become a college professor, first teaching at Florida A&M in Tallahassee and Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana (both also historically Black colleges) before moving to Massachusetts in 1958 where he became the first African American professor at Bridgewater State College (now known as Bridgewater State University).<\/p>\n

I was born in 1954 when my father was still teaching art at Florida A&M.\u00a0 As I mentioned, he earned his Masters Degree at the University of Iowa, and he wanted to get his doctorate in Art Education.\u00a0 Florida State University, which is also in Tallahassee, had a graduate program in Art Education, and it would have been very convenient to attend since it was in the same city where we lived.\u00a0 Unfortunately, because of the segregation of universities in Florida in 1954, my father was not allowed to attend Florida State.\u00a0 But because of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling, the state of Florida was legally required to give my father access to graduate education.\u00a0 The state of Florida met their obligation, not by admitting him to the school across town, but by paying his transportation to Pennsylvania where he enrolled in the Art Education program at Penn State and earned his doctorate there.<\/p>\n

Today we see the foolishness of the state of Florida \u2013 instead of trying to keep talented people like my dad in the state, their behavior drove them out.\u00a0 Florida\u2019s loss was Massachusetts\u2019 gain.\u00a0 My dad had a wonderful 30-year teaching career at Bridgewater State, free of many (though not all) of the constraints of racial discrimination.<\/p>\n

Today, I can say that when I applied to graduate school, I did not have the limited choices my father had.\u00a0 I was not prohibited by any segregationist policies or practices from applying to the schools of my choice.\u00a0 Neither were my children.\u00a0 But<\/em> I will tell you that when my sons became old enough to drive in Northampton, Massachusetts, their dad and I both talked to them about the hazards of being stopped by police and the importance of keeping your hands visible at all times.\u00a0 Because even well-behaved, good-looking, articulate and Williston-educated young Black men living in Massachusetts could fall victim to the racist assumptions of others, and unconscious bias is dangerous when someone has a gun in their hands.<\/p>\n

Yes, in my<\/em> lifetime, there has been progress.\u00a0 Martin Luther King Jr. once said, the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice.\u00a0 And in my lifetime, I have seen it bend.\u00a0 But lately it seems that the arc is stuck.<\/em><\/p>\n

Progress of any kind is rarely linear.\u00a0 It is often a matter of two steps forward and one step back.\u00a0 Periods of progressive reform are often met by backlash \u2013 as others, perhaps fearful of what is unfamiliar, try to return to an earlier status quo.\u00a0 There are many examples in history of that pattern.\u00a0 If we are paying attention, we can see that pattern in motion right now.\u00a0 In fact, I sometimes feel like we are living in the 21st<\/sup> century version of Reconstruction!\u00a0 In case you don\u2019t remember, following the end of the Civil War, there was a period of reformation in the South that included the establishment of the Freedmen\u2019s Bureaus to help those newly released from bondage.\u00a0 Blacks were given the right to vote, and some elected to Southern state governments.\u00a0 Many social reforms, including the establishment of public schools, were instituted during that period.\u00a0 However, there was also massive white resistance from the former Confederates, which became violent with the rise of the KKK.\u00a0 As Northern law enforcers eventually withdrew from the South (marking the end of Reconstruction), white supremacists reasserted control and \u201ctook the South back\u201d through the institution of Jim Crow laws, and the disenfranchisement of Black voters.\u00a0 It was during that period that most of today\u2019s Confederate statues were erected, an effort to demonstrate who was in control in the South.<\/p>\n

Though as a nation I believe we have moved far beyond that period in our history, I see the logic of legal expert Michelle Alexander\u2019s argument that mass incarceration is a new way to exert racialized social control (what she calls the New Jim Crow).[4]<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0I watch with alarm the systematic institution of voter ID laws not just in the South, but across the nation, clearly intended to suppress the voting behavior of historically marginalized voters.\u00a0 It is a tactic rooted in our history.\u00a0 We should pay attention to it.<\/p>\n

We are at an important historical moment with regard to our nation\u2019s legacy of dealing with race.\u00a0 It is a moment that contains both dangers and opportunities. We can allow the forces leading to greater segregation to drive us further apart as a nation; or we can use our leadership \u2013 as active citizens \u2013 to make a positive change.\u00a0 We lived through a political season in which we heard politicians saying things like, \u201cWe\u2019re taking America back.\u201d\u00a0 Back to what?\u00a0 Back from whom?\u00a0 What is their definition of a \u201cbetter\u201d America?\u00a0 What is yours?<\/p>\n

As a psychologist, one thing I know for sure is that leadership matters. Fundamentally, we know that human beings are not that different from other social animals.\u00a0 Not unlike wolves, we follow the leader.\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, we have an innate tendency to think in \u201cus\u201d and \u201cthem\u201d categories, but we look to the leader to help us know who the \u201cus\u201d is and who the \u201cthem\u201d is.\u00a0\u00a0 The leader can define who is in and who is out.\u00a0 The leader can draw the circle narrowly, or widely.\u00a0 When the leader draws the circle in an exclusionary way, with the rhetoric of hostility, the sense of threat among the followers is heightened.\u00a0 When the rhetoric is expansive and inclusionary, the threat is reduced.\u00a0 It sounds simple, but we know it is not.\u00a0 It requires courage, and sometimes means we must speak up against strident voices.\u00a0 But that is what leaders do.\u00a0 And everyone here\u2014whether student, faculty or staff\u2014has the capacity to be a leader, to influence others whether they be family members, friends, classmates, or colleagues.<\/p>\n

The leader has to ask the question, how is the circle being drawn?\u00a0 Who is inside it? Who is outside it? What can I do to make the circle bigger? \u00a0We live in a time when anxiety and fear are rising \u2013 and us-them lines are being drawn in a way that does not bode well<\/em> for the health of our society.\u00a0 As Martin Luther King once said, we are caught in a \u201cweb of mutuality,\u201d and that<\/em> means we have to know the stories at the bottom of our society as well as at the top.\u00a0 We need a much wider perspective, seeking out the stories, the histories, we don\u2019t know.\u00a0 Each of us<\/em> \u2013 everyone here – has the opportunity to broaden our perspective and a learning environment like this one is a good place to start.<\/p>\n

Before I became a college president, I taught a course on the psychology of racism for more than 20 years, and as my students learned more about the enduring nature of racism, they often felt overwhelmed and helpless to do anything.\u00a0 I used to say to them, the same thing I will say to you:\u00a0 You have more power than you think.\u00a0 Everyone<\/em> has a sphere of influence\u2014family members, friends, classmates, co-workers, colleagues in your book club, members of your house of worship \u2013 when you think about it, your social network is broad.\u00a0\u00a0 Use it!<\/p>\n

We are all part of a chain of change agents, men and women\u2014white and of color\u2014who in large and small ways have taken action (not unlike Colin Kaepernick), people who asked the difficult question at the meeting, risked some discomfort, and used their social power and privilege to interrupt the status quo \u2013 regardless of its source.\u00a0 We must not break that chain of courage and commitment if we want to see continued progress\u2014if we want to fix our bell.<\/p>\n

Last year while I was working on the new edition of my book, I traveled to Texas, speaking on the campus of Texas A&M.\u00a0 Something happened there that gave me some hope.\u00a0 By coincidence, the week before I arrived there had been a racial incident.\u00a0 A group of Black teenagers from a high school in Houston were touring the campus.\u00a0 During the tour they were approached by a small group of students who yelled racial slurs at them. \u201cWhat\u2019s hopeful about that?\u201d you might be asking yourself.\u00a0 Nothing.\u00a0 What gave me hope is what happened next.\u00a0 The student body president, a young white man named Joseph Benigno \u201916, issued a statement on YouTube (just 3\u00bd\u00a0minutes long), but clear, concise and courageous.[5]<\/a>\u00a0 Acknowledging that he himself had been silent in the face of racist and sexist remarks, often made behind closed doors, he recognized that his and other\u2019s silence gave permission for the hateful remarks to be made publicly.\u00a0 \u201cOur silence fosters hate.\u00a0 Our silence enables the hateful to feel comfortable and welcome\u2026\u201d\u00a0 He urged his fellow students to take responsibility for making a change.\u00a0 I was very impressed with his statement\u2014you can watch it yourself on YouTube<\/a>.\u00a0 Just type in \u201cthe Statement of the Texas A&M Student Body President\u201d and you can find it.\u00a0 His example of leadership was for me a sign of hope.<\/p>\n

Is our society getting better?\u00a0 It could be.\u00a0 It\u2019s up to us to make sure it is.<\/p>\n

I will end with this advice from President Obama to the Howard University graduating Class of 2016:\u00a0 \u201cChange isn\u2019t something that happens every four or eight years; change is not placing your faith in any particular politician and then just putting your feet up and saying, okay, go.\u00a0 Change is the effort of committed citizens who hitch their wagons to something bigger than themselves and fight for it every single day.\u201d[6]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

And, that is what each of us has to do every single day for lasting<\/em> change to occur\u2014and for ALL of us to hear the sound of a beautiful bell in which we can all take pride.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> http:\/\/www.sbnation.com\/2016\/8\/30\/12708298\/colin-kaepernick-protest-drew-brees-reaction<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/04\/17\/us\/georgetown-university-search-for-slave-descendants.html<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> https:\/\/president.georgetown.edu\/slavery-memory-reconciliation-september-2016<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Alexander, M. (2010). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.\u00a0 NY: The New Press.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Yo9sZlmdzBU<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the-press-office\/2016\/05\/07\/remarks-president-howard-university-commencement-ceremony<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Williston Northampton Convocation Speech Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum September 15, 2017 A long time ago I read a disturbing story that had a powerful effect on me and I want to begin my talk today by telling it to all of you.\u00a0 Unfortunately I no longer remember where I first read it, but I believe … Continue reading The Importance of Perspective and Learning the History We Don\u2019t Know<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,231],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-convocation-address","category-diversity"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1044"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1044"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1050,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1044\/revisions\/1050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/speeches\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}