RACISM SOLVED on IIDB! "This whole business about whether someone had ancestors who were a slave or slaveholder is just ridiculous. It means nothing."

[Gospel]

Wealthy Southerners were the driving force behind slavery, using the labor of enslaved people to fund their luxurious lifestyles. They enjoyed showing off items like fine wine, automobiles, jewelry, fancy cigars and their oversized for the time houses. They also used the money for political clout. When tariffs impacted their wallets—filled with money made off the backs of slaves—they became outraged because they were not willing to give up indulging in British and French luxuries, like kittens feeding off their mother's milk refusing to let go.

 

[Patooka]

Spoiler: Unimportant aside joke on confederate monuments..

View attachment 46998

Also, if they are so worried about 'erasing history', fine, we can replace every statue of Lee with one of Grant, and do the same with other generals. Replace statues, schools named for Davis with Lincoln, and put up a few memorials to Union soldiers lost. Then we won't be erasing history right?

They are proud of their military history and they should be. The south probably had the best soldiers but they lost the civil war due technology and lack of weapons. Even today, many of our best military warriors (those willing to die for their country) come from the US south.

I'm gonna let you in on a little secret - better generals doesn't mean better soldiers overall. Also, seeing as you get your facts from youtube -

 

[Toni]

while social control is part of that ideology and the religion has been used to justify atrocities, religion goes beyond that

Southern "culture", while subscribing to an ideology that justified slavery, goes beyond that, bring us priceless benefits like cornbread and barbeque.
Sheesh.
Let me excuse religion (while recognizing the robust collectors' market for Templar artifacts) for a moment, since you seem to be an apologist for it.

The act of creating, commemorating and idolizing confederate traitors should not be forgotten. Let's put a stop to it, and not forget what a robust effort that has been since the slave states lost their war. Take all those statues out of public view, and place them where documentation of their evil can be placed beside them. Or even just document the history of those monuments - who made them, who commissioned them, where they stood and why - with photos, models, whatever, and THEN destroy them if you must.
@Gospel is afaik the only black person participating in this discussion, and I gotta defer to his inclinations. But it seems to me that documentation would be most powerful using the actual artifacts.

The American South is much more than a region that practiced the enslavement of black people. Just as Germany and Austria are more than their Nazi past. Surely we do not want the US to be remembered for Trumpism, McCarthyism, segregation, red-lining or the genocide against Natuce Americans.

There is a very very human trait that wants to cast ‘others’ as having all of the faults and weaknesses that we despise in our selves, in our darkest corners of our hearts.

When Obama was elected, I knew a small number of people who focused on his white mother and grandparents as if to excuse his blackness and his Muslim father. It made them feel safer.

I am a fairly nondescript woman of a certain age, pretty innocuous looking. For a couple of decades in my current t town, I very much felt ‘other’ because my great grandparents were not born here. Several years ago, I had taken my car into the dealership for some work. They have a driver/van on site that will take customers home and pick them up again when their vehicle is ready. You might be sharing with other customers. So on this day, it was me and another woman, some years older than I was, needing rides home to opposite sides of town. I lived much closer to the dealership than she did but she insisted her house was closer and she needed to be dropped off first. The driver tried to contradict her but I simply said he should take her home first: I didn’t need to be home immediately. So that’s what we did and the driver and I chatted on the way to my house. And then he says something, a version of which I’d heard before: “Say, don’t I know you? Are t you related to ( local name”) ? I chuckled said no, I was actually from out of state. He mentioned how nice it was to let the other lady who was crabby go first. You see, because I did something he thought nice, I must be from around here.

Just as we tend to think the perpetrators of things we don’t like are ‘not from around here.’

We identify or want to identify with what we think is good. The more bad something is, the more we see that as other.

It is.easiest to use determine other by how they look and how they speak and what culture/religion they have. Everyone wants to be associated with good. Everyone wants as much distance as possible from being associated with bad.

It’s human.

Sometimes we need reminders of evil that has been done. We have war memorials, the 9/11memorial, memorials commemorating heroes. The Holocaust Museum, the Whitney Museum. Yes, the Smithsonian which is several museums celebrating human achievement and teaching us about our past. And they update their exhibits as understanding grows.

Most —maybe all statues of the Confederate heroes are poor quality art, and many were mass produced and look it. They do not belong in town squares but perhaps some should be kept in a history museum, as a visual of ordinary people who committed treason to maintain the enslavement of black people.

Because they were ordinary humans, not much different than any of us posting here. I think we need to keep that in mind as a cautionary tale. How many of us would have felt differently if we lived In Mississippi or Alabama or Georgia in the first half of the 19th century or before? People absorb the culture they live in. which is why it is so important to move our culture to be as inclusive, diverse and honest as possible

 

[Gospel]

It’s also important to note that if those states hadn’t left, their senators would have had a decent chance of blocking those tariffs.

This is true.

 

[Toni]

But the Confederacy was inherently created to and was almost entirely about preserving slavery and killing US soldiers to do so.

I don't agree. In the first place, the civil war was not really a civil war it was a war against succession from the union for economic tariff reasons. Lincoln was ambivalent about slavery other than the sympathy that it helped his cause. If George Bush would have been president at that time, he would have told us "we were spreading democracy!" But Lincoln used the slavery card instead to spread his cause. Since he knew black slavery was going out of style anyway. This is more than obvious when you consider every other country (at the time) having slavery got rid of the practice even though they had no war of succession like the US did. Furthermore Lincoln wanted to ship all the black southern slaves back to Africa after the civil war and would have done so had he not been assassinated. That does not sound like someone coddling black people to me. Should we tear down or put Lincolns statue in a museum as well?

There were a lot of Americans killed during this conflict. It just was not really about slavery. It was about money.

Southern "culture", while subscribing to an ideology that justified slavery, goes beyond that, bring us priceless benefits like cornbread and barbeque.

I wager that both cornbread and barbecue originated from Native Americans who were tragically genocided. Southern culture does not solely belong to ignorant individuals stuck in a 19th-century time capsule.

I think that barbecue came from Africa.

 

[Gospel]

they were ordinary humans

Yeah, ordinary humans that did some fucked up shit.

 

[Elixir]

I think that barbecue came from Africa.

The word, or the practice of throwing meat into a fire before eating it?
The point of my first sarcastic remark about Suth’ners “inventing” stuff, is that beyond improved frog-gigging sticks, they have little to brag about but much they want credit for.

 

[Gospel]

What's the difference between ordinary people who committed wrongs because it was culturally accepted at the time, and those who continued to do wrongs despite knowing it was illegal and morally wrong, persisting for an additional two and a half years? Shitty ordinary people that is.

 

[Elixir]

Shitty ordinary people that is

Redundancy.

 

[Toni]

But the Confederacy was inherently created to and was almost entirely about preserving slavery and killing US soldiers to do so.

I don't agree. In the first place, the civil war was not really a civil war it was a war against succession from the union for economic tariff reasons. Lincoln was ambivalent about slavery other than the sympathy that it helped his cause. If George Bush would have been president at that time, he would have told us "we were spreading democracy!" But Lincoln used the slavery card instead to spread his cause. Since he knew black slavery was going out of style anyway. This is more than obvious when you consider every other country (at the time) having slavery got rid of the practice even though they had no war of succession like the US did. Furthermore Lincoln wanted to ship all the black southern slaves back to Africa after the civil war and would have done so had he not been assassinated. That does not sound like someone coddling black people to me. Should we tear down or put Lincolns statue in a museum as well?

There were a lot of Americans killed during this conflict. It just was not really about slavery. It was about money.

Wrong. According to the founders of the succession themselves:

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-state

This part is copied from the State of Texas:


“Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister slaveholding States.

By the disloyalty of the Northern States and their citizens and the imbecility of the Federal Government, infamous combinations of incendiaries and outlaws have been permitted in those States and the common territory of Kansas to trample upon the federal laws, to war upon the lives and property of Southern citizens in that territory, and finally, by violence and mob law, to usurp the possession of the same as exclusively the property of the Northern States.

The Federal Government, while but partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refuse reimbursement therefor, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas.

These and other wrongs we have patiently borne in the vain hope that a returning sense of justice and humanity would induce a different course of administration.”

The South attempted succession because they wanted to keep slaves.

 

[Toni]

I think that barbecue came from Africa.

The word, or the practice of throwing meat into a fire before eating it?

View attachment 47007

No, I mean the specific technique of barbeque

I think that barbecue came from Africa.

The word, or the practice of throwing meat into a fire before eating it?
The point of my first sarcastic remark about Suth’ners “inventing” stuff, is that beyond improved frog-gigging sticks, they have little to brag about.


View attachment 47007

not the word itself which may have partially derived from Spanish but the cooking process itself:

Barbecue is an American tradition – of enslaved Africans and Native Americans | Barbecue | The Guardian

The traditional holiday cookout has its roots in the cooperation between black and indigenous peoples struggling to get or keep their freedom from colonialists

amp.theguardian.com

 

[Toni]

they were ordinary humans

Yeah, ordinary humans that did some fucked up shit.

We sure do. It is a good reason to recognize and remember the evil done as well as the good.

 

[southernhybrid]

The Civil War was all about slavery. In fact, the Southern leaders wanted to spread slavery to other near by countries. Let's get that straight. The evidence, if you bother to read actual history is there. And Lincoln did despise slavery. He did have some racist tendencies, but he hated slavery and he wanted it to end. It was one of his primary goals as president. There is an excellent book about Lincoln, by Jon Meacham, I read earlier this year. He did so much research about Lincoln that at times I felt as if I was in the room with him. He backed up his claims with extensive research. However, Lincoln did seem to think the former slaves should be sent back to Africa until the great, intellectual, escaped slave, Frederick Douglas told him that the released slaves were part of the US and had no intention of leaving. Lincoln gave in and agreed with Douglas. Like many people, Lincoln was capable of growing when he had positive influences.

And, btw, just to add some weird controversy to this thread. Do any of you know there was also a small percentage of Black people in the US who owned slaves? I learned that recently. A lot of what happened was as much due to class as it was to race. Poor white people may have been racist, but they didn't own slaves. If you want to learn more about that, read the book, "Poor White Trash, the 400 year history of Classism in America. ( I might not have the title exact, but you can find it on Amazon ) it's another good book about how the British treated poor white people and sent them to this country where they were often involuntary indentured servants. In fact, one part of the book discusses how some Black folks, thought these poor white people were being treated worse then they were. Humans are tribal and they often treat those outside their groups poorly, assuming they have the wealth and power to do so.

And enough of the stereotypes about the South. I grew up in the Northeast, one of the most racist places in the US. To put it the way a former Black coworker once did, "I'lll take a Southern racist over a Northern racist any day because at least I know where I stand with the Southern racist." I've heard this from many Black folks who have lived in both places. My small city is extremely diverse, and racially integrated. Sure, there are racists here. They are everywhere. They come in all shades too, according to a lovely Black healthcare worker who treated me once. The Northeast is very segregated compared to most of the South. I hope that changes because sharing and appreciating different cultures makes life more interesting.

And yes. I'd be in favor of tearing down every one of those racist statues. I don't see them as art. I only recently discovered t hat there is one in my town, but at least it's in a cemetery and most people rarely notice it. it's back is to me when I drive down the road and I have no idea who it's supposed to be. I read that some cities have huge confederate statues in the heart of the city and they make Black residents feel very uncomfortable, being constantly reminded of our dark history. Those should certainly be torn down, but it will take money and convincing people who like to cling to the Confederacy crap. I've known a few like that but as time goes on, they seem to be more rare.

I'm done. Carry on....

 

[Politesse]

The Civil War was all about slavery. In fact, the Southern leaders wanted to spread slavery to other near by countries. Let's get that straight. The evidence, if you bother to read actual history is there. And Lincoln did despise slavery. He did have some racist tendencies, but he hated slavery and he wanted it to end. It was one of his primary goals as president. There is an excellent book about Lincoln, by Jon Meacham, I read earlier this year. He did so much research about Lincoln that at times I felt as if I was in the room with him. He backed up his claims with extensive research. However, Lincoln did seem to think the former slaves should be sent back to Africa until the great, intellectual, escaped slave, Frederick Douglas told him that the released slaves were part of the US and had no intention of leaving. Lincoln gave in and agreed with Douglas. Like many people, Lincoln was capable of growing when he had positive influences.

And, btw, just to add some weird controversy to this thread. Do any of you know there was also a small percentage of Black people in the US who owned slaves? I learned that recently. A lot of what happened was as much due to class as it was to race. Poor white people may have been racist, but they didn't own slaves. If you want to learn more about that, read the book, "Poor White Trash, the 400 year history of Classism in America. ( I might not have the title exact, but you can find it on Amazon ) it's another good book about how the British treated poor white people and sent them to this country where they were often involuntary indentured servants. In fact, one part of the book discusses how some Black folks, thought these poor white people were being treated worse then they were. Humans are tribal and they often treat those outside their groups poorly, assuming they have the wealth and power to do so.

And enough of the stereotypes about the South. I grew up in the Northeast, one of the most racist places in the US. To put it the way a former Black coworker once did, "I'lll take a Southern racist over a Northern racist any day because at least I know where I stand with the Southern racist." I've heard this from many Black folks who have lived in both places. My small city is extremely diverse, and racially integrated. Sure, there are racists here. They are everywhere. They come in all shades too, according to a lovely Black healthcare worker who treated me once. The Northeast is very segregated compared to most of the South. I hope that changes because sharing and appreciating different cultures makes life more interesting.

And yes. I'd be in favor of tearing down every one of those racist statues. I don't see them as art. I only recently discovered t hat there is one in my town, but at least it's in a cemetery and most people rarely notice it. it's back is to me when I drive down the road and I have no idea who it's supposed to be. I read that some cities have huge confederate statues in the heart of the city and they make Black residents feel very uncomfortable, being constantly reminded of our dark history. Those should certainly be torn down, but it will take money and convincing people who like to cling to the Confederacy crap. I've known a few like that but as time goes on, they seem to be more rare.

I'm done. Carry on....

What "stereotypes about the South" do you mean? The main criticisms I've seen in this thread are that confederacy of southern states attempted to destroy the country, and racist parties had statues installed to commemorate them during Jim Crow, more so in the South than in historically Union-oriented states. Neither of those are stereotypes, they are just statements of fact. No one who has ever met a suburbanite white Michigander would claim that racism does not exist in "The North", but that it was the Southern States that seceded is a matter of fact. Even those who defend Confederate flags and statues do so on the grounds of Southern Pride, not (at least in public) white pride.

The modern white nationalist phenomenon is obviously not an exclusive Southern phenomenon, some of their most important electoral votes come from northern and western states, and these conversations about statues and flags being removed are being held in all states, not just those in the South. I don't think anyone who cares about systematic racism thinks in only occurs in 12 states.

The book you are referencing is, I think, Nancy Isenberg's "White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America".

 

[Gospel]

they were ordinary humans

Yeah, ordinary humans that did some fucked up shit.

We sure do. It is a good reason to recognize and remember the evil done as well as the good.

So, according to your logic, rape victims should find something positive about their trauma, slaves should find something good about their enslavement, and people who lived through the Jim Crow era should find something beneficial about that oppressive period. Now, in our post-Jim Crow era, where white people still tell us to "get over it" despite the fact that civil rights activists who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. are still alive, we're supposed to find something positive about the ignorant, ordinary people who continue to make life difficult for us today. Maybe Sonya Massey can send an angel from heaven to tell us something good she learned from the officer who shot her in the face.

 

[Politesse]

Now, in our post-Jim Crow era, where white people still tell us to "get over it" despite the fact that civil rights activists who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. are still alive, we're supposed to find something positive about the ignorant, ordinary people who continue to make life difficult for us today.

Not only are a precious number of those giants of democracy still alive, many of those who marched against them are as well, and it's an ill kept secret that many those hateful old monsters have found a new political home in a regime that is once again rising to rattle the walls of Washington.

I was fortunate enough to attend a talk by Julian Bond not long before his passing. A more mild-mannered, even-handed, tirelessly rational politician you will never meet. There is no one he would not sit at a table with. His ability to do so at unlikely tables and come away with a new covenant was his specific gift to the movement. But, he knew. In his conclusion, he urged us, in the strongest language he was willing to use, of his fears for nation and the threat that it faces. That the unfinished work of the Civil Rights movement needed to fall to younger hands,lest we be overcome by a growing noise of anti-Black, anti-worker, and anti-Hispanic sentiment.

Thus is not yet the time to lay down arms and paint pretty pageants of "how bad things used to be".

 

[southernhybrid]

The Civil War was all about slavery. In fact, the Southern leaders wanted to spread slavery to other near by countries. Let's get that straight. The evidence, if you bother to read actual history is there. And Lincoln did despise slavery. He did have some racist tendencies, but he hated slavery and he wanted it to end. It was one of his primary goals as president. There is an excellent book about Lincoln, by Jon Meacham, I read earlier this year. He did so much research about Lincoln that at times I felt as if I was in the room with him. He backed up his claims with extensive research. However, Lincoln did seem to think the former slaves should be sent back to Africa until the great, intellectual, escaped slave, Frederick Douglas told him that the released slaves were part of the US and had no intention of leaving. Lincoln gave in and agreed with Douglas. Like many people, Lincoln was capable of growing when he had positive influences.

And, btw, just to add some weird controversy to this thread. Do any of you know there was also a small percentage of Black people in the US who owned slaves? I learned that recently. A lot of what happened was as much due to class as it was to race. Poor white people may have been racist, but they didn't own slaves. If you want to learn more about that, read the book, "Poor White Trash, the 400 year history of Classism in America. ( I might not have the title exact, but you can find it on Amazon ) it's another good book about how the British treated poor white people and sent them to this country where they were often involuntary indentured servants. In fact, one part of the book discusses how some Black folks, thought these poor white people were being treated worse then they were. Humans are tribal and they often treat those outside their groups poorly, assuming they have the wealth and power to do so.

And enough of the stereotypes about the South. I grew up in the Northeast, one of the most racist places in the US. To put it the way a former Black coworker once did, "I'lll take a Southern racist over a Northern racist any day because at least I know where I stand with the Southern racist." I've heard this from many Black folks who have lived in both places. My small city is extremely diverse, and racially integrated. Sure, there are racists here. They are everywhere. They come in all shades too, according to a lovely Black healthcare worker who treated me once. The Northeast is very segregated compared to most of the South. I hope that changes because sharing and appreciating different cultures makes life more interesting.

And yes. I'd be in favor of tearing down every one of those racist statues. I don't see them as art. I only recently discovered t hat there is one in my town, but at least it's in a cemetery and most people rarely notice it. it's back is to me when I drive down the road and I have no idea who it's supposed to be. I read that some cities have huge confederate statues in the heart of the city and they make Black residents feel very uncomfortable, being constantly reminded of our dark history. Those should certainly be torn down, but it will take money and convincing people who like to cling to the Confederacy crap. I've known a few like that but as time goes on, they seem to be more rare.

I'm done. Carry on....

What "stereotypes about the South" do you mean? The main criticisms I've seen in this thread are that confederacy of southern states attempted to destroy the country, and racist parties had statues installed to commemorate them during Jim Crow, more so in the South than in historically Union-oriented states. Neither of those are stereotypes, they are just statements of fact. No one who has ever met a suburbanite white Michigander would claim that racism does not exist in "The North", but that it was the Southern States that seceded is a matter of fact. Even those who defend Confederate flags and statues do so on the grounds of Southern Pride, not (at least in public) white pride.

The modern white nationalist phenomenon is obviously not an exclusive Southern phenomenon, some of their most important electoral votes come from northern and western states, and these conversations about statues and flags being removed are being held in all states, not just those in the South. I don't think anyone who cares about systematic racism thinks in only occurs in 12 states.

The book you are referencing is, I think, Nancy Isenberg's "White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America".

Thanks for reminding me of the author of the book and exact title. I was too lazy to look it up, as my kindle is in the other room. Sorry.

I'm talking about people in general making assumptions that the South is full of racists, while in my own experience it's more integrated and less racist compared to many other parts of the country. The racists in the south tend to be more obvious about their racism. I've seen lots of progress made during the 50 plus years I've lived in 6 different Southern states. NJ remains very segregated, despite not having any confederate monuments there.

I understand the monument issue. I used to have a friend from NC, who used to march in some dumbass Confederate celebration in her home state every year. She never made a racist comment to me and we mostly bonded over our love of dogs and other animals. I don't understand it, but some native Southerners don't seem to understand that the Civil War was all about slavery and the desire of the South to keep slavery intact. Most of them are Republicans. It's complicated for sure.

I have no idea if anyone has tried to have the one monument that I mentioned removed. It's in a cemetery and not very obvious. Perhaps it's where the person was buried and someone in created a monument when he died. I'm sure there are lots of confederate racists buried in my town, as we have a couple of very old cemeteries. I just think the south has made more progress in this area compared to many parts of the country. I guess I was responding to one poster who kept making assumptions about the South, that I don't think are true. Btu yeah. Racists are all over the place and the former guy has made it acceptable. One of my close Black friends who I discuss politics with at least weekly agrees with me that Trump has made it okay to be hateful and openly racist, while at least in the past, most kept their prejudice to themselves. I've said enough.....

 

[Toni]

they were ordinary humans

Yeah, ordinary humans that did some fucked up shit.

We sure do. It is a good reason to recognize and remember the evil done as well as the good.

So, according to your logic, rape victims should find something positive about their trauma, slaves should find something good about their enslavement, and people who lived through the Jim Crow era should find something beneficial about that oppressive period. Now, in our post-Jim Crow era, where white people still tell us to "get over it" despite the fact that civil rights activists who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. are still alive, we're supposed to find something positive about the ignorant, ordinary people who continue to make life difficult for us today. Maybe Sonya Massey can send an angel from heaven to tell us something good she learned from the officer who shot her in the face.

FFS: Not at all what I meant!
Slavery and genocide practiced in the US was an abomination and worse. There are not enough words to express just how horrific that was and it is foolish to not call out those horrors, that shame —even if the US did good things as well, including much that was in fact done by enslaved and oppressed peoples—often acknowledged by white people and ‘history.’

Murder, rape, abuses of power and many other heinous crimes are no less horrific because the perpetrators have to the poor or wrote good music or discovered something or wrote a good book or were kind to animals or whatever.

On a personal level, I knew that my stepgrandfather was a particularly nasty racist before I knew what that word was or how much it harmed people. At the same time, I also knew that he donated apples to local elementary schools, including one with black students—even though he had little money and for many of those years, did not have indoor plumbing. I was horrified at things he said and drew away from him because of things I heard him say. He died when I was still a kid so I actual opportunity to confront —or even real ability to process that the same man who was kind and affectionate to me also was a member of the Klan. I loved him but I put as much distance between myself and him as I could as a child. I cannot think of him without feeling e raged and disgusted and ashamed—which I felt at 6 years old. But as a 6 year old, I was powerless to do anything other than put distance between us so would not have to hear the disgusting things he said, even when I did not understand them. Likewise, I still lived the member of my extended family who at various times, sexually assaulted me and once tried to kill me—because the human mind has a great ability to compartmentalize, to sequester strong feelings in order to survive. I am want able to fully comprehend the gravity or the nature of those attacks until years had added and I was safe from him. Yeah, I can remember some good things about him and no, they don’t come close to wiping out the abuses he committed against me and others.

I am not grateful for slavery became sachet brought us jazz or soul or Jane’s Baldwin or Maya Angelou or Beyoncé or the many many brilliant black Americans whose keen intellect and drive, despite terrible oppression and even enslavement propelled forward our understanding of math and science and medicine and more.

But if we want change—real and lasting change—we need to look for and acknowledge and nurture what good does exist. Even if we cannot allow some people into polite society and we sure as hell cannot elect them to office.

 

[stanley]

But the Confederacy was inherently created to and was almost entirely about preserving slavery and killing US soldiers to do so.

I don't agree. In the first place, the civil war was not really a civil war it was a war against succession from the union for economic tariff reasons. Lincoln was ambivalent about slavery other than the sympathy that it helped his cause. If George Bush would have been president at that time, he would have told us "we were spreading democracy!" But Lincoln used the slavery card instead to spread his cause. Since he knew black slavery was going out of style anyway. This is more than obvious when you consider every other country (at the time) having slavery got rid of the practice even though they had no war of succession like the US did. Furthermore Lincoln wanted to ship all the black southern slaves back to Africa after the civil war and would have done so had he not been assassinated. That does not sound like someone coddling black people to me. Should we tear down or put Lincolns statue in a museum as well?

There were a lot of Americans killed during this conflict. It just was not really about slavery. It was about money.

Wrong. According to the founders of the succession themselves:

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-state

This part is copied from the State of Texas:


“Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister slaveholding States.

By the disloyalty of the Northern States and their citizens and the imbecility of the Federal Government, infamous combinations of incendiaries and outlaws have been permitted in those States and the common territory of Kansas to trample upon the federal laws, to war upon the lives and property of Southern citizens in that territory, and finally, by violence and mob law, to usurp the possession of the same as exclusively the property of the Northern States.

The Federal Government, while but partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refuse reimbursement therefor, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas.

These and other wrongs we have patiently borne in the vain hope that a returning sense of justice and humanity would induce a different course of administration.”

The South attempted succession because they wanted to keep slaves.

Correct. The Constitution of the Confederacy mentions slavery several times including the requirement that every state in the confederacy and any newly acquired territories or states by the Confederacy must always keep slavery legal and protected, which completely undermines the States Rights bullshit since they took away state's rights to not have slavery.

"In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected"

Also note the clear specification that it isn't just "slavery" but "negro slavery", because it was a particular sort of slavery deeply rooted in white supremacy and belief that negros were inherently made to be slaves of whites.

Also, while Lincoln was not himself morally committed to ending slavery, he had politically committed himself and the nation to do so. It was the centerpiece of his campaign. All other supposed "causes" of the war had been around for a long time and preceded Lincoln. Slavery was THE issue that the south had with Lincoln, and THE reason they published the Constitution of the Confederacy just 1 week after Lincoln's inauguration.

Claims that the preservation of slavery was not THE primary reason for the Confederacy are nothing but racism based denial of fact.

 

[stanley]

Getting back to the OP of this thread, let's examine the self-contradiction in thebeaves arguments.

The OP quote has him stating that any interest in knowing the historical facts about which people were enslaved is "ridiculous. It means NOTHING".

Yet, in the discussion of the past two days he claims that it is essential to preserve Confed monuments in order to know the history, including the history of slavery behind it, and he even pretends to agree that they should be preserved in a holocaust style museum where not only the facts of slavery and the Confed are detailed, but the white supremacy that motivated the creation of the monuments.

So, either he is now being dishonest about acknowledging the realities of the monuments, or he is undermining his own initial claim that history of who was a slave is meaningless nothing and ridiculous to even talk about. Slavery is recent, not ancient history. There are people alive today whose basic human rights were not acknowledged by US law until 1964, and even then and since denied by the Confed States who voted against those rights. Those living people's parents and grandparents were around when most of these monuments were built as part a general white supremacist effort exemplified by rise and influence of the KKK, the total lack of enforcement against their violence by southern law, and the enactment of Jim Crow laws. And all of these things were voted for and endorsed by the vast majority of whites in the South. In turn, those people were raised with grandparents who were themselves enslaved.

IOW, not only is it just two grandparent generation to get to slaves, there has been a continuous unbroken chain of pro slavery white supremacy that has dominated and been the majority white culture of the south throughout the 20th century. In fact, directly appealing to that white supremacy immediately after the passage of the Civil Rights Act is how the GOP went from never winning the South in a century, to never losing it since, except to Carter, and only b/c Ford (who the south never voted for) was a northern yankee with a longer track record of sincere civil rights than Carter.

So, how could it possibly be that a current person being a former slave is so meaningless that it's ridiculous to bring up?