This changes what we have heard...
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As far as I know It’s not all white supremacist, and the elk of KKK wanting to keep the statues up. In fact you would be surprised some blacks are fighting to keep confederate statues up.
Unless something has changed. The constitution protects the right of Americans to assemble and march for their cause. Whether you agree with them or not. Maybe I’m wrong yet every thing I heard and read they had did every thing by the book. They had their permits and so on. It was the altleft that showed up looking for a fight and to shut them up.
I would agree they expected the altleft to show and were ready for a fight.
I think Trump nailed it by taking neither side and condemning both sides for their actions.
Yet you know and I know that Trump won’t get credit for really just defending the right of Americans to march. No matter what they believe.
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Also being friendly here why do you always assume someone that may disagree with you is misinformed? Do you ever consider that maybe you might be misinformed?
Life is filled with many flavors and Ideas. Not to be able to sit down and talk about said issues without labeling someone is? is? Well un-American.
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@DoubleDD Please reread my “If…then…” statement. That was the basis for the misinformed possibility.
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@DoubleDD And, incidentally, there are a number of relatives of Lee, Jackson, and Davis who think the statues should come down.
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Taking down the statues seems to the be a hot button issue these days. Right?
What’s you’re take on it? Do feel those that want to keep the statues up are racist?
Me I get it. Yet then I’m like what does it really change? What would we really accomplish? Slavery happened we can’t take that away. Also in this path to erase or not glorify this past history. Do we wipe out the memories of those that showed courage? That stood against the popular belief of that era. That sacrificed so much to do what was right. We will wipe away their acts of courage and unselfishness in the process of trying to remove this stain on American history? Will we forget their names and their stories?
We can’t even watch reruns of the Dukes of Hazards anymore. I kind of think that is a shame.
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What about statues that honor confederate soldiers that fought in the civil war? I am not talking about the leaders like Lee or Jackson but just plain soldiers, marines and sailors.
Instead of taking down the statues, wouldn’t it be better, like others, have suggested, to add another monument next to it explaining the difference? History cleansing has been tried many times but has it ever worked anywhere? Even Germany has saved the concentration camps and now they are museums used to educate people.
Is this what we have to look forward?
Where does it stop? There are already calls to take down a George Washington statue in Chicago and a few other places. However, I have not heard any calls to take down the Lenin statue in Seattle…go figure.
We are starting a dangerous slippery slope that might result in unanticipated consequences.
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If the statues are a problem, why NOT take them down? That is the real question. Why leave up a controversial statue when you can erect a new statue that doesn’t? And might even have a deeper meaning…
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The short answer is I quit reading and relying on Snopes to any significant degree many years ago, well before it acquired much notoriety, so I am not qualified to comment on what its like today.
About all I can say is: I am increasingly wondering about the fiscal independence and content objectivity of organizations showcasing the term “fact checking”. Investigators showcasing the term “urban legends” and organizations showcasing the term “myth busting” also make me wonder about the origins of their funding and about whether they have connections to the military-intelligence complex’s processes of manufacturing consent in public opinion during an era when the military-intelligence complex has reputedly expressed a goal of full spectrum dominance. I, for one, take them at their reputed word that they want full spectrum dominance, and such dominance would likely involve manufacturing consent in public opinion.
Finally, I hope someone investigates the recent proliferation of the term “fact checking” to see if it is a product of memetic engineering by those tasked with clandestinely manufacturing consent in public opinion in some way similar to the way “conspiracy” was reputedly weaponized and reputedly used for so many decades, according to reputed FOIA document releases. It may not be. But after learning of the reputed weaponization of “conspiracy” to discredit skeptics of the apparently implausible Warren Commission Report, and then afterward reputedly to discourage much reputedly reasonable skepticism on a variety of subjects, well, I like to know more, rather than less, about such things before attaining a comfort level of trust.
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@Kcmatt7 exactly. What’s so wrong with having empathy and loving thy neighbor?
For most Americans, the question isn’t whether you’re racist because you don’t want them taken down, it’s whether you’re not being respectful of what these statues represent to people other than yourself.
@DoubleDD @JayHawkFanToo let me try to give some perspective here on the statues. This isn’t equivalent to whether the Japanese concentration camps remain as museums. What you are arguing is the equivalent of debating whether Germany should take statues of just Hitler or also the Nazi soldiers wearing swastikas down. The ones they erected 50 years after the war. I do not think that ever happened in Germany. But it happened here. The fact that some people derive some vague sense of connection with their southern heritage from these statues is a non starter. My grandfather was a Nazi soldier who died in Russia. I do not want a statue of him in Nazi gear in a public park.
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@approxinfinity also, the fact that statues seem to be a bridge between white nationalists and Trump sympathizers is a scary, dangerous, slippery slope. I think we need to a double take as @Kcmatt7 suggested and ask why not take them down .
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There is an interesting article on the fake news site (CNN) about how Robert E. Lee opposed Confederate statues and memorials because he feared they would result in keeping the wounds of the war open. He favored obliterating all signs of the conflict.
When you live in a state like SC, as I do, where in front of the statehouse there is a statue honoring Pitchfork Ben Tillman, who as a Congressman stood in the House of Representatives and advocated lynching blacks to keep them from voting, it is hard not to see these memorials as racist symbols. Especially after it took the murders of 9 churchgoers in Charleston by a flag-draped white supremecist before the state took the Confederate flag down. And then it coupled that with a law preventing any locality from removing or altering any statue or memorial in the state without legislative permission–even ones originally erected by localities themselves. That prevents the addition of any historical plaques, and the author of that legislation chairs the committee that would consider those. He has stated again that no requests will be considered. Thus, you still have black students being stuck going to school in buildings named for Tillman and the KKK founder, Nathan Bedford Forrest, or having to enter state buildings with the name of those abject die-hard racists.
SC, where the Civil War began, had the highest ratio of slaves to whites in the country in the antebellum years, and had the most brutal slave codes. After Reconstruction, it had the strictest and most energetically enforced Jim Crow laws. 63 years after Brown v. Topeka Bd of Education, you still see the horrifying effects of the de facto segregation that has existed throughout and since the civil rights movement, including more than half the rural school districts–all just happening to be overwhelmingly black–still fighting a court battle for adequate funding that the legislature refuses to fix despite three state Supreme Court rulings. The major newspapers still print the debutante and cotillion notices for private clubs and in 11 years here I have yet to see even one black face. The major in-town country club is still whites-only, and the governor is able to remain a member with little or no criticism from his party. I live in a highly racially divided state, so that colors my thinking. Especially after the several times people (total strangers) have assumed that since I am white I agreed with them about (insert n----- or j-- word, take your pick).
Many Confederate monuments were erected in the Civil Rights era. They were a reaction to blacks finally having enough power to achieve some legal protection as they sought equality. The Confederate flag was pulled out of mothballs to make a statement to blacks: this is what we believe in, this is what we want, this is how we will keep reminding you that you will never get full equality.
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approxinfinity said:
@approxinfinity also, the fact that statues seem to be a bridge between white nationalists and Trump sympathizers is a scary, dangerous, slippery slope.
Bridge? LOL. I think a lot are already on that side of the ravine, and the rest just conditioned to reflexively be FOR anything that the “Left” is against. The Nazis and KKK easily duped them into cheering for their side.
Hard to imagine why Kansas fans would give a
about confederate statues. Let the loser slavers keep their participation trophies.@DoubleDD Another protester who didn’t need a stinkin’ permit was this guy:
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@approxinfinity Only one statue in Germany that I believe has a swastika and it was a monument built by the Soviets in honor of their soldiers. It is beautiful, as is the surrounding area around the statue. It is called the Soviet War Memorial at Treptower Park. Only reason they allow the swastika is that it isn’t a celebration of it. It is actually a condemnation of it. When I was there, the Owner of my Hostel told me to go. But he wouldn’t even say the word swastika out loud. That is how condemned it is there.
I also went to a Concentration Camp while I was in Berlin. It was an eerie place. Surreal to believe I was standing in a spot where tens of thousands died. To see the living conditions they dealt with. To hear about the experiments done to men. These are again, set up in a way to 10000% condemn Hitler and the Nazi movement.
Our statues are there to celebrate men who enslaved, or fought to enslave, millions of people. To rape, murder and abuse them. Not to condemn. Not to educate. To f-ing celebrate all that is wrong with the early history of America… It shouldn’t even be a debate.
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You’re link didn’t come through?
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We should always have the discussion/debate. Always.
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@DanR 10 bucks trumps never heard of him!
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@DanR Actually, the antiNazi protesters did have permits. Theirs were for two nearby parks. We cannot deny that the police did a poor job of separating the groups.
Now, that might have been because the main march and rally was allowed, by court order, to take place in Emancipation Park (where the Lee statue was). It was a smaller park, and the police did not prepare there properly to anticipate and prevent the disaster we all knew was coming.
Contrary to popular belief, the city did not deny the Supremacists their permit initially; the city wanted the march and rally to be held in a large park where the city argued it could more easily prevent violence. The organizers went to court with the ACLU’s help and convinced the judge that the city had not demonstrated that it was impossible to prevent problems at Emancipation Park.
I am somewhat conflicted about the ACLU’s argument here, but it probably did the correct thing: There was no flat denial by the city of a permit altogether (as occurred in Skokie), but instead a denial of a particular location, with an alternate provided. Thus, free assembly was theoretically allowed. On the other hand, the Supremacists wanted to protest a particular issue that was itself centered in Emancipation Park (removal of the Lee statue there). The government is not allowed to choose among groups exercising guaranteed rights, or to render an exercise of the right meaningless, which arguably would have occurred if the rally and march were forced far from their focus.
Still, I think the city made its biggest mistake in not deploying adequately to keep the groups separate. Perhaps coordination was impossible in the short time after the court ruling, Both sides probably were perfectly happy to have it devolve into a fracas, and when that happens it is the police responsibility to anticipate and respond with adequate resources rather than to wait for all hell to break loose as seems to have occurred. The governor could easily have called out the National Guard who could have lined the roads 6 deep if necessary.
(Sorry, Dan, I got involved in writing this and it isn’t all relevant directly to your post. It is related, though, and I am too lazy to try to separate it cleanly.)
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@DoubleDD On Dan’s link, you might have to wait a half-minute for it to load.
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So then are you ok with removing Mount Rushmore? As some of those presidents were indeed slave owners? Should we stop there? Should we remove all presidents that had slaves from the history books, Libraries and museums? Should we take Washington’s face off the our American dollar? Should we remove America’s involvement in slavery from the history books? Shall we get rid of the constitution as some of the signers where indeed slave owners. Should we demand that Italy tear down the Roman coliseum. How far should we go to right this wrong?
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@DoubleDD Have I said we should remove statues of slave owners?
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No I guess you haven’t.
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@mayjay save your breath
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Well that’s kind of rude.
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I guess my thought is where does it end? I mean Slavery has been apart of humanity since the beginning of time. It’s not like America created it.
Not to mention American had one of the bloodiest wars to end it’s practice.
I’m talking to you as it seems others have their minds made up and don’t care for the discussion.
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@DoubleDD depends on what you call rude? Standing up for?
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Why is it wrong to have a discussion about the hot topic in the last few days? It may seem a no brainer. Yet is it?
I don’t know. As I said before I get it. I just wander what does it really solve and where does it end.
Will the next generation of Americans that come, be pissed that we tried to cover up our tainted past. To erase it and act like it didn’t happen. Don’t think that won’t happen? OK
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@DoubleDD I have noticed a tendency you have to attribute all the arguments anyone nationwide has made on an issue to anyone here who is trying to take a position relating to that issue. I pointed that out in the CK debate, asking you not to put words in my mouth. It is something we all have to be careful of. I am just mentioning you in this regard because it is so stark.
Here is why: Unlike some, I see the founders as flawed men. As a history major (concentration in the Civil War) I absolutely believe that the founders flaws should be noted and highlighted for they illustrate the deep-seated roots of so many problems existing today. I believe every student should be required to personally examine how the founders’ lives influenced their political stances, how their beliefs intersected with their achievements,and how they kicked the fruits of their hypocrisy down the road.
It is a study in how a necessary compromise nevertheless had almost fatal results for the nation they were creating.
Incidentally, I use “hypocrisy” well aware of the fact that morality regarding, and understanding of, race was vastly different back then and that otherwise great men have held beliefs we now (most of us at least–I hope) hold abhorrent. Even so, there were many people advocating the elimination of slavery even in the colonial era, so the founders were not unexposed to more enlightened thinking. That a few freed their slaves upon their deaths (like TJ) shows their own discomfort with the institution, but that they waited until they died to do so was a reflection, I believe, of a compromise they made with their own souls to ensure personal economic stability.
Learning the entire history of race relations in the New World is something I recommend heartily. One of the best treatises I have ever read is called White Over Black, by Winthrop Jordan. It will amaze you with the cultural and social details of colonial race issues, and will probably cause you to think really deeply about how those origins still permeate all our thinking today.
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@DoubleDD To clarify: That was written after your answer to me where you admitted I hadn’t advocated removing founders statues.
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@DoubleDD That’s the one takeaway you get from my post…
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@DoubleDD hopefully there is less hate!
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@DoubleDD Will the next generation of America be pissed that we condemned racism and white supremacy?
No.
And if we do our jobs well, they won’t even understand or see racism. So no, they won’t be pissed about it.
Should we debate this topic? Sure. One side is supporting of racism or the freedom to be racist. If you feel like supporting those go ahead. The other side is against racism and denounces it. Choose your side…
And finally, tearing down Mount Rushmore is not the same thing. George Washington is not being celebrated for being a part of the South or being a Slave owner. He is being celebrated as the First President of the United States who initially helped free our entire country from the British. He also released his slaves upon his death. I’d say all in all, George gets a pass being as how if he didn’t slaves would have probably stayed slaves for a whole lot longer and the entire continent of North America would basically all be Canada. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, and yet he also played a major role in ending slavery. You also have Lincoln, and we all know what he did… But more than anything, Mt. Rushmore is a feat of human excellence in a time where you would have never thought something so amazing could have been done. So comparing Mt. Rushmore to a statue of Robert E. Lee is really apples and oranges.
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Actually the City of Chicago did not initially deny the permit but requested a huge public peace insurance bond that was prohibitive and for all purposes amounted to a ban and then banned all demonstration on Marquette part where the original Rally was scheduled. That was the origin of the litigation and why the ACLU sided with the Nazis.
Now that we are in this age of tearing down racist symbols, has anyone called about taking down the memorials and renaming all the buildings, schools and roads named after former Ku Klux Klan Exalted Cyclops Robert Byrd who was head of the Senate?
How about William Fulbright who along with 99 democrat (and 2 republicans) signed “Southern Manifesto” in 1956. which declared their opposition to the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education and lead the 83 days filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
This is what Bill Clinto had to say when he eulogized his mentor and Arkansas senator:
We come to celebrate and give thanks for the remarkable life of J. William Fulbright, a life that changed our country and our world forever and for the better. . . . In the work he did, the words he spoke and the life he lived, Bill Fulbright stood against the 20th century’s most destructive forces and fought to advance its brightest hopes.
I don’t recall any liberal calling him a racist or asking him to resign.
How about Andrew Johnson who was Lincoln’s vice president and selected uniquely to get votes in the South to win re-election and instituted a number of discriminatory codes at the constitutional convention and made the post-war South exactly like it was before the Civil war and created a war aftyre the the civil war in which a large number of black people lost their lives resisting his racist policies, He is universally considered the most racist president.
Or James Monroe that created the racist Monroe doctrine that was used to meddle into the affairs of other countries. Remember that during his term the US seized a strip of West Africa and established the firt American Colony there that was later called Liberia.
Or FDR who interned 100,000 Japanese in prisons during WWII but not Italians or Germans. After the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, he invited American athletes to the White House but not 4 gold medal winner Jesse Owens who wast the star of the games because he was also black. He started the New Deal but purposefully left out farmers and domestic which were overwhelmingly black at that time.
Or maybe Woodrow Wilson that re-segregated the federal government. Black Federal workers were fired and the ones left were forced to use separate facilities. He unapologeticly backed what he called the “great Ku Klux Klan,” and championed the Klan’s violent disenfranchisement of southern African Americans in the late 19th century. He oversaw the brutal 2 decade occupation of Haiti and prevented the country from self-governing. Some people at Princeton, where he was political scientist, have now called for review of his record.
Or Lyndon Johnson who routinely used the N-word when talking about black people…
What do these ubber racist politician have in common? You tell me.
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DoubleDD said:
I guess my thought is where does it end? I mean Slavery has been apart of humanity since the beginning of time. It’s not like America created it.
Not to mention American had one of the bloodiest wars to end it’s practice.
I’m talking to you as it seems others have their minds made up and don’t care for the discussion.
Here is the problem with that approach, and if you read the book I mentioned you will see: American slavery was racial in origin and legally perpetuated for 3 centuries. Almost every other country with slavery did it through conquest. Slavery was an economic status for many slaves. Many countries with slaves had major legal protections regarding their treatment. Slaves in Greece and Rome became teachers and tradesmen. Many could and did eventually buy their freedom. If any escaped, absent branding the slaves were not that different from other parts of society. Many slaves in Indian tribes became members of their captors’ families and were adopted into the new tribe. Slaves’ children might be born free. In many societies, slaves had an actual chance to improve their lives. Not all of these things were always true, and most slaves no doubt lived lives of pure hell, but there were many variations.
In contrast, rigid separation of blacks from whites and brutal treatment of slaves were used to implement slavery in the US from the beginning. Slaves were forbidden to learn writing and reading, and whites teaching them were punished harshly. Slave families were broken up wantonly, and children were sold with no regard for anything except what price they could bring. Blacks in the colonial era had no society they could fit into even if freed, for 99% of black were slaves. Nowhere to escape to, their race keeping them easily identifiable. While the rest of the world acted to eradicate slavery by the early to mid 19th century, American slavery continued with even harsher slave codes after the prohibition against importing slaves took effect in 1808.
Other differences aside, it is the racial component that most definitively sets American slavery apart. Some eleven million people were uprooted from their homes and shipped in sardine-like cinditions to a new world. Millions died. ( Only about 500,000 were brought to N America; the remainder, African slaves in Caribbean and S American sugar plantatons, had even more brutal lives, living on average 7 years after arrival.) No other race has ever seen such a forced mass migration or the disintegration of so much of its culture and heritage. No other race has ever done to another what European and colonial whites (including the Spanish and Portuguese) did to African blacks. Ironically, the closest is probably the Nazis treatment of Jews.
Yes, it took a war to stop slavery. A war fought mostly by whites against whites. Over 600,000 soldiers dies, and scores of thousans of civilians. Just as it took nuclear bombs to force the Japanese to abandon their society and mores, the Civil War forced the South to abandon slavery. But it did not abandon white supremacy, and the South has successfully perpetuated the Noble Cause victimization myth to keep it going today.
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That’s kind of my point. I’m not for worshiping anybody I don’t care who they are. Every man and woman has flaws. Some rise to greatness most do not. Yet they still have flaws, and I believe that it should be studied and learned. However I do create concerns in my mind when we as a nation try to erase history. I think this might be a very bad thing. Maybe not to day but down the road.
No qualms with that post.
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No not all. Just was interested in your link. That’s all. Hey I don’t blame you or condemn you for what you feel and believe to be the truth.
Lets be honest this is a very touchy subject. A lot of emotion involved. Last thing I want to do his hurt or ruin any might be friendships over this issue. It’s not worth it.
As I said before I get it why some would advocate for bringing down the statues. Yet I just wander is the right thing to do, and where does it stop?
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I’m afraid when emotion is involved on a subject like this there will be hate. I agree though.
I’m just afraid that we are reaching a point in this country that we can’t just talk about the issues. Somebody always has to be wrong, or somebody has to be a racist.
It kind of breaks my heart to be honest. As I believe that is the best thing about America, or used to be. The ability to voice and talk about the issues. It just doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.
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It’s not about picking sides for me. As I get your passion on taking down the statues. Yet I’m skeptical that is where it ends. You this is a movement. Movements don’t end until they are impede. If you think this movement stops with statues then I’m not sure you’re seeing the same picture I’m seeing.
It’s a fine thing the GW released his slaves upon death and you feel he should get a free pass. Yet you don’t control this movement. Movements are funning like that.
Somebody mentioned/compared this issue to Nazi Germany. Some seem to forget that Hitler didn’t just take control of Germany. It was started with a movement. The citizens of Germany were poor and in some cases starving to death. Hitler blamed the Jews as they held all the wealth. It’s was a no-brainer for the citizens of Germany. Yet the movement didn’t stop and went further and further. I went farther than I would believe most German citizens wanted it to go.
This movement is receiving a well earned victory. The statues are indeed coming down. However will it stop there? Will the leaders of this movement and it’s people be satisfied.
That’s the million dollar question. Many of our founder fathers were indeed slave owners. Will it appease the movement that some of these founding fathers release their slaves at their demise? Or will the movement say not good enough? Lets not for get our constitution was signed by slave owners. Will this one day try to take down the constitution because it was signed by slave owners?
Your guess is as good as mine.
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@JayHawkFanToo I think you have Andrew Jackson and Andrew Johnson confused. Andrew Johnson was Lincoln’s Vice President, was from Tennessee, and ineffectively attempted to battle the Radical Republicans who did not want to pursue Lincoln’s plan of moderation in Reconstruction. The Republicans are considered to have abandoned any concern with southern blacks in the Compromise of 1877 to ensure election of Rutherford Hayes.
Andrew Jackson was a despicable person but he was president decades before the Civil War. I have no clue what Constitutional Convention you are referring to. He was not involved in the US one in 1787, but he did attend as a delegate to Tennessee’s in 1797. I know nothing about what he did there. That he was an iconoclastic president (who, among other things, defied Supreme Court rulings) has endeared him to our current President, who has chosen his portrait to hang in, I believe, the Oval Office.
As to the others you list, what is your point? Yes, they were Democrats, but with the shift in political ideologies during 1948 through Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” of 1968, the parties have traded places on civil rights and racial sensitivity. Big deal.
You left out Hugo Black–oh, my grandfather, too. Both overcame the prejudices of their early years yo advocate for equality and justice. It would be nice if POTUS could do that, too.
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I don’t know about that. I mean I get what your saying. Yet it’s not like Americans went to Africa and raided tribes for slaves. Most blacks were sold into slavery by their own people.
I’ve also read that in the south the Blacks were able to really have their own communities as long as they worked the farms. Now I’m not saying this a righteous thing by no means or the norm by any means. Don’t get any crazy ideas like I’m glossing up a pile of crap. Slavery is wrong…
However in early America Slavery was kind of the norm for the world. Look at South America. It was basically one big slave farm, that was run by the Spanish/Portuguese.
Just want to say thanks for being fair and bantering with my on the issue. In the end we may disagree or even agree. Yet at least we had the conversation.
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@DoubleDD “Most blacks were sold into slavery by their own people.”
Careful with this one. This alleged “fact” is often urged by people who think it somehow implicates blacks in the depopulation of Africa. Blacks participating in enslaving other blacks were paid to do so, and captured blacks of competing tribes. It stands to reason that if they couldn’t find anyone, they themselves would have been taken. Or do you think the slavers would have bid them a “Cheerio!” and sailed away peacefully?There was not some type of African Slave Mall where blacks sold other blacks to whites who wandered in not knowing what they were after. Slavers were fully in charge. They built it, they ran it, and any blacks trying to survive by working in it were just puppets. Repeating this canard is no more probative of black complicity in white racism than citing Jewish trustees in a concentration camp is of alleged Jewish “cooperation” in their own proposed extermination.
And yes, North American and European shipping ran the slave trade in the 1700’s and 1800’s. The New England shipping industry is infamous for having become wealthy in the slave/sugar/rum trade triangle. There were really two: It started involving European ports but as the American colonies became a producer of more goods, the ships went from the Caribbean to New England to Africa. After England abolished slavery in 1807, many ships just went between Africa and the Caribbean. Spain abolished slavery in 1811, but Cuba kept it, so that route stayed.
If you haven’t seen the movie 1776, you might find it enlightening (despite it being a musical). Many facts are distorted, but not the general themes. There is a song about the trade triangle and how the north had its own interest in slavery. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IeuaTpH6Ck0
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@JayHawkFanToo There’s nothing wrong with holding everyone accountable. But you act like wrongdoings by Democrats somehow justify bad things that Republicans do. Can’t we disapprove of all wrong doing without sorting it into two partisan buckets first? Do you assume that all people who agree with some liberal idealogy condone all actions by all Democratic politicians?
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No, I do not. Here is an article from the Huffington Post, a source that is high in the list of approved liberal sources, and it lists Andrew Johnson as the most racist president.
Here is another list that has him at #3
Here is another that has him at #1
This one form the African Globe has him as #1 as well.
Andre Jackson was also a racist according to the lists above.
I enjoy history and I was familiar most of the names on the various lists although some of the details were foggy. At my age, I don’t remember details as well as I used to; thank God for the Internet.
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@DoubleDD “I’ve also read that in the south the Blacks were able to really have their own communities as long as they worked the farms.”
There were very few universal truths about slavery, that is for sure.
Interesting aside: My wife and I bought a house way out in Virginia’s Stafford County. On the 3.5 acres, there was a .5 acre set aside for a private cemetery and an easement on the edge so it could be accessed.
When we explored the overgrown cemetery, we discovered several brown flagstones upright. Most had no legible markings or only a year on them (all between 1780 and 1802). One, however, had two sets of dates, something like “1794-1806” and “1809”.
I was interested in finding out more about the cemetery, including what our responsibilities were (if any) for maintaining it.I contacted the Virginia State Historical Preservation department. They had no record of a cemetery there, so they recorded it. They told me we had no special obligations, but legally we could not build in that set aside unless we went through a full published notice process to allow survivors of the buried to come forward, and then hired a funeral home to disinter and rebury in another cemetery (again, with published notice). They also said we would need to contact them so they could monitor the excavation because it was probably a slave cemetery.
We had no interest in moving it, but I did more research. It turns out that one of the major sources of information about African culture brought by African slaves to the US has been found in slave cemeteries. Slaves were not allowed to keep many of their African rituals (enforced conversion), but in Virginia it was common for slaveowners to allow slaves to continue their burial practices. Among the slaves’ customs were two practices that have proven to be a boon to students of this subject. First, it was common for a decedent who had come from Africa to be buried with their dearest personal possesions, which for slaves brought here included objects brought with them from Africa–there were not many, and they were cherished. Including these in the grave was likely seen as a talisman that could guide them back to Africa. These objects have included cloth, leather objects, small artworks, and the like.
The second practice Africans were allowed to keep was likely simply to keep slave cemeteries from eating up too much land–slaves from Africa kept the African custom of burying more than one person in a single grave, often stacking them several layers high. This has resulted in, among other things, being able to study how slaves’ perceptions and choices of the talismanic objects changed over time, and how much culture was passed down to offspring as they continued or discontinued the practice.
The two sets of dates on that one flagstone was probably one of these graves.
When we sold the house, our realtor wanted us to keep the cemetery a secret until closing. I disagreed, and gave the history and preservation information to the prospective buyers when they visited. The 2 teenage girls thought it was really cool, and they were hoping it was haunted.
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No, this is not at all what I am saying. What I am saying is that if we are going to remove statues/monuments/memorials of high profile racist people, we should be consistent and consider all the high profile racist people, regardless of affiliation, and not just the ones that fit the agenda.
I just saw that the Reverend Al Sharpton now wants to remove the Jefferson Memorial, one of the landmarks of our country; do you think we should do it?
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@JayHawkFanToo But what Constitutional Convention are you referring to? There hasn’t been one in the US since 1787. That is why I thought there was a mixup. In any event, yes, they were both racist. So was Teddy, incidentally (Republican!). Eisenhower was, too, and probably Truman, but both used the Presidency to make some major strides in racial progress. Truman: integrating the armed forces; Ike: Little Rock.
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@JayHawkFanToo If millions of people felt that way? Maybe. But there’s a difference. The Civil War was in large part about the institution of slavery. Jefferson represents the founding of this country, first and foremost. I don’t really care what Al Sharpton says.
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@JayHawkFanToo @approxinfinity
Ditto to approx in regards to the last sentence, but I am more hesitant to bow to popular sentiment on removing history. Some of it is too based on momentary passions. I believe in learning history, not erasing it. The Confederate statues are different than statues of people who owned slaves such as the founders. The founders statues are there for historical, revolutionary accomplishments. The Confederates are being honored with statues for rebelling against the United States. I have problems with lauding treason against my country. Go figure.
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@DoubleDD I just reread your comments in the Colin K thread where you talked about the importance not only of respecting the American flag itself but also the importance of respecting what it has meant to millions of Americans.
Please for a moment put the Charlottesville events in the context of what seeing Nazi banners and KKK flags paraded in the city must mean to Americans who know very well how those symbolize threats to their very right to existence if the people carrying them were to achieve power.
Now, think about why – in the context of knowing how scary it is to imagine the paraders getting power – people might feel dismay when the paraders celebrate excitedly because they believe the President is legitimizing their cause. Even if they are wrong, isn’t it up to the President to forcibly clarify that he does not stand for them, that this is libel of the worst kind, and that he hates everything they stand for?
That would uplift the value of the American flag far above the symbols of hate and extermination.
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Is this random or something bigger?
This is the kind of thing that I was speaking of. This person or persons probably don’t even know that Lincoln fought to end slavery. Yet to them their lack of knowledge is no matter. Just being apart of the movement is all that matters.
If they can do this to Honest Abe, you think GW is safe?
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@DoubleDD Some people, of all persuasions, are just idiots and enjoy destroying things.
