I have done a great deal of reading in the past couple of years on The Civil War, slavery, Reconstruction, the Jim Crow laws that followed it, Black Codes, and the mythology of The Lost Cause. An obvious and irrefutable conclusion to be drawn is that America is a racist country with a racist history, a history that many American states (most egregiously Florida) would deny both white and Black citizens access to.
Of course, not everyone has either the time or the inclination to study the atrocities that were the foundation of the American economy, atrocities that served well both the plantation owners and the industries in the North that utilized their chief crop, cotton. But as the saying goes, one picture is worth a thousand words, and a brief video many times that. The following offers an effective and moving depiction of the ugliness of racism.
If you would like to see an extended version of this report, please click here.
Slavery is not racism. Slavery was the result of winning in a conflict. Every color took slaves. Most slaves that came to the americas were purchased from others of the same race and then shipped.
ReplyDeleteThey wern't bought out of benevolence to be set free or sold for that really
It was straight up capitalism business deals.
And now it is nature getting raped and enslaved and killed.
Horrible yes. To be acknowledged yes. But it is in the nature of being human ; whether it is sexual slavery by bad marriage, wage slavery by captive resources of the rich, land slavery for single crops. Everyone susceptible, everyone complicit. Embrace your history yes but be sure include the poor, the disenfranchised, everyone who has been forced into something they didn't agree to by circumstance. Include military conscription for a bunch of people who really didn't care if some foreign country couldn't sort themselves out. Add in all the extinctions. (If the racist/slavery/abuse was as complete as reparations seem to think ... they would all have died)
Everyone is racist if you ask a serious question .
That other person of any color or any tribe or your son or daughter.
Choose one to live and one to die.
And if you actually think about it you do that everyday while the world begs for help you nurture your own .
History is horrendous and history will repeat itself. History is interchangeable with human behavior.
History is indeed horrendous, lungta, but the slavery that allowed the U.S. to become what it is is an especially egregious crime against humanity. There is no equivalence with most other atrocities and excesses, in my view.
DeleteHistory is interchangeable with human behavior.
ReplyDeleteHuman behaviour is survival of the fittest!
It's true our ancestors methods are, today, abhorrent , but its a long road for 'humanity' to make permanent change., if at all!
The current , in vogue, issues with slavery are generally finger pointing to historical mass movement of slaves by europeans to the Americas.
We cannot change that but must acknowledge it .
We still do sweet fuck all about present day slavery in fact we brace in its cheap products every day!
I see no point in self flagellation for the past sins whilst ignoring the present ones.
TB
I agree that self-flagellation is pointless, TB. However, when so many things are done institutionally that seek to perpetuate the oppression of a race of people, atonement and correction are necessary. Yet all we see are things like nullification of the the franchise through voter suppression. Clearly, there are many elements within American society that have no interest in Black equality.
DeleteHaving spent days on end devouring US Grant's memoirs I have been delighted to watch the first 3 episodes of "Manhunt" on Apple + TV. My kids have provided me with most of the streaming services since I ditched cable TV.
ReplyDeleteManhunt explores the days and weeks after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Grant writes of the perfidy of Lincoln's Veep, Johnson, in granting what amounted to nothing short of absolution to the south, thereby setting back emancipation for generations.
What surprised me was the degree of collaboration the Confederates received from Quebec, primarily the merchants and banks of Montreal. This spanned both the war years and the years following.
A book I highly recommend, Mound, is The North Star, by Canadian author Julian Sher. I was astounded to learn, in reading the book, how active the confederates were in Canada, and the support they received from many quarters here. Another book, if you are interested in Johnson's perfidy, is The Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, by Robert S. Levine. What he did in readmitting the southern states to the Union is known as Restoration, Johnson's premise being that the states never had the constitutional authority to secede, and hence were simply 'restored'. Consequently, all manner of racists got control of their governments.
DeleteI know a B C country musician who has , in Vancouver, performed for a group of Canadian pro Trump supporters.
ReplyDeleteThat pro Trump fundraising was being done in BC surprised me.
politics and money knows no borders.
"politics and money knows no borders." Nor does stupidity and gullibility, it would seem, Anon
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