Tag: black-history

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The continuing debate regarding slavery and the Civil war is baffling to me. There is this faux confusion about why slavery is such a big deal. A good example of this odious opinion can be found in Jason L. Riley’s post in the City Journal. He makes two contentions regarding slavery in USA.

The first is that slavery was pervasive all over the world so why should the American version be seen as evil while every other country gets off the hook. Riley ignores the racist defense of slavery which justified the enslavement of Blacks but also persisted long after the Civil War ended. There was big difference between Roman slavery and American slavery. For most other countries who engaged in slavery, the slaves came from the defeated population after the end of wars. It was just bad luck that the losing side became slaves to the winning side.

Americans, on the other hand, and probably because it was a glaring contradiction with American values, justified slavery with the pernicious view that Blacks were racially inferior to Whites and thus their subordination was justified. It is the only way someone can understand why the subordination of Black people continued after the Civil War. White Discrimination, then, limited Black progress for, at least, 100 years following the Civil War and, sadly, even today, some Whites cling to this racist ideology.

Furthermore, particularly for conservatives who liked to sing the praises of American Exceptionalism, saying that everyone is doing it has all the moral weight of a teenager caught with a can of beer. So what if everyone was doing it? The question pertinent to American History is why did some of our forefathers have slaves. It doesn’t really matter that some African Blacks sold other African Blacks into slavery. Yes, it was wrong of them but their history isn’t what we are looking at. We are looking at American History. It was Americans who thought that these African Blacks were the equivalent of cattle and hogs and so there was nothing wrong with making them slaves.

Then there is Riley’s contention that slavery did very little to the advancement of American Capitalism which, OK, maybe but it hardly matters when Southerners, both slave owner and non-slave owner, believed that the continuation of slavery was vital to the economy of the South. They believed it so strongly that they were willing to defend slavery with their lives. They were willing to break the country in two to defend it. They thought their way of life was under attack. The percentage of GNP that slavery brought to pre-Civil War America seems a irrelevant to understanding the actual conflict.

The reason that Riley is confused about American Slavery being such a big deal is that he overlooks racism. The reason that Conservatives won’t look at racism is that it would involve some uncomfortable discoveries. The painful truth is that White people, either actively or passively, treated Black people badly for quite a long period in American History. It is painful to think that great Grandfather and Grandmother weren’t such good people. They had flaws. They really didn’t represent American ideals. On the other hand, it would certainly make such landmark events like the Civil War much more comprehensible to people like Riley if he introduced racism to the conversation. and, after all, isn’t understanding our history what learning is all about.

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Florida continues to rewrite the history of the Civil War. The governor and his cronies want a much more palatable history so that white children don’t have to learn that their ancestors behaved like assholes. As Chauncey DeVega, in the above linked Salon article, noted: “The discomfort of Black and brown children — who watch their communities’ histories, experiences and reality being systematically erased and distorted — was apparently of little concern.”

But never mind, the fragile minds of white children are the concern here. They need to know that their country is great. Period. Any information that might suggest otherwise has to be massaged so that these delicate darlings don’t get the wrong idea about the country.

So the Civil War becomes a little kerfuffle about State’s Rights. The North wanted to force its ways on the South and the South wasn’t having it. Making State’s Rights the issue, as opposed to slavery, drains the Civil War of any meaning.

Florida education wants white children to think that slavery wasn’t so bad. The plantation owners gave the slaves a good profession, and kept them well fed, and housed. The plantation owners and the slaves, in fact, got along fabulously. Besides, slavery was a dying institution and wouldn’t have lasted much longer any way. Got it.

Leaving white children with the mistaken idea that the founding fathers were perfect and the nation was perfect from the beginning with no need to change. But the nation did change — a bloody civil war was fought, the slaves were freed, and the South began a hundred year resistance campaign against blacks which included lynching and legal discrimination.

How does one explain American History without touching on the Civil War and race? More importantly, how does this silence about what happened help anyone – Black, Brown, Red, Yellow or White? The fact is race is an ongoing concern for the American people. The American people’s approach to race has changed over time and this change is important both to note, to discuss and to understand.

How does a student understand Reconstruction without first learning about the Civil War? How does a student understand the Civil Rights Movement without understanding legal discrimination? Yes, these are unpleasant topics because a lot of people behaved badly and their behavior is difficult to understand. But it did happen. It is a part of history.

Children, contrary to popular belief, live in the real world not an imaginary world of lollipops and gum drops. They see confusing and terrible things every day. This is part of their transition to becoming adults. Not all truths are pleasant. Children need to know that. The country started with some grand ideas but some pretty awful ones too. It is important to learn from the awful ones in order to change our present to an even better future.

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Sophia Tesfaye, in Salon, reports that conservatives are trying to recast the Rosa Parks story. In 1956, Parks famously refused to go to the back of the bus which set into motion the Birmingham Bus Boycott. Matt Walsh, conservative podcaster, made a documentary trying to show how this was not just a story about a tired seamstress breaking after a hard day of work when asked to move. No, it is worse, so much worse — Parks was a member of the NAACP and was looking for a way to challenge segregation. The bus incident provided her with an opportunity to do so.

Amazingly, Walsh isn’t giving us any new information. He just seems a little surprised that Parks was a member of the NAACP and how it might have affected her refusal to move. Well, yes, so what? This is stunningly meaningless presentation of the facts. The law was wrong and she was right to refuse. NAACP needed a case to highlight this indignity, Parks provided it.

The problem wasn’t that Parks was an activist, the problem was there was a back of the bus laws in the first place. There would be no need for activists opposing unjust laws if the laws did not exist in the first place. If Parks, based on her experience and the experience of other Blacks, saw a situation and was prepared to act in no way diminishes what she accomplished.

And, if Parks and the NAACP set a trap, then who is to blame for the cops falling into it? The cops had other choices here too. They exacerbated an already tense situation with Parks’ arrest. Who better to act when an opportunity presents itself — an ordinary seamstress after a long day of work or an ordinary seamstress after a long day of work who is also a member of the NAACP. What am I missing here? Is Walsh saying that Blacks should remain disorganized and leaderless?

It is painful to listen to this crap because they are trying to turn history upside down. Walsh is all about undermining Rosa Parks? Who backed the NAACP? Who paid for their resistance? Could there have been Communists involved and, if so, doesn’t that make the fight against segregation wrong? Well, the USA fought along side the Communists in World War II, does this some how diminish the Allies’ victory. Walsh misses the whole point — the segregation laws were unfair and needed to be resisted. Parks admirably used the opportunities and resources available to her. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

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Donald Trump was upset about the Smithsonian’s failure to talk about the good parts of slavery. There are good parts of slavery? Who knew. I am greatly interested in hearing more. I am sure he will be forthcoming with more details sometime in the future.

Trump may have had a point about the information in Smithsonian displays but it was lost when he started to talk about the good parts of slavery. Because Trump has a reputation of never apologizing and never backing down, there will be no apology which puts his supporters in the awkward position of defending Trump’s ridiculous statement when the only sane response is Trump is wrong and he never should have said something so stupid.

A good portion of the Conservative side has taken the best option available to them — they are ignoring the statement completely. Anyone who tries to defend him looks like an idiot and no one dares contradict the notoriously vengeful Trump so silence is about the best option a sane person would have.

Why Trump and Conservatives feel that American History has to always paint the country in a positive light is baffling. History is about human beings doing things. Human beings, some of the time, are going to do the wrong thing. It is inevitable. And it is a good lesson for children. Even people who do good things can sometimes believe and do terrible things. Children need to know this. How do you expect them to navigate life in this rough and tumble world if they believe Americans only do good?

Facts are facts. Slavery existed in the United States at one time. How do you explain American History without talking about it? The Civil War was all about slavery no matter how hard people try to make it about State’s Rights. This fails when looking at what people living at the time say. All the historical evidence points to slavery as the cause of the war. It wasn’t tariffs, agricultural policy, industrial policy, or any one of a million different issues that states might disagree about — it was about slavery.

Well, then, a lot of Southerners opposed slavery but they felt compelled to support their state, friends and family who did. So where exactly do you stop supporting your friends and family when they have bad ideas? I don’t really want slaves but all my friends and family have slaves so, in order that they don’t feel awkward, I am going to fight a bloody civil war so they know I really like them. These people are actually worse than the people who believed slavery was acceptable. It is the old mother’s adage if everyone was jumping off the Empire State Building, would you? Give me a break.

The Civil War is over with. It is no longer relevant to a modern discussion of civil rights. Now, I happen to disagree with this but say I give it to Trump’s defenders in this debate. The Smithsonian’s displays are about the Civil War. They are trying to explain what happened in 1860 and not how we live now. In order to understand America in the 1860’s, slavery has to be discussed and, if it is discussed honestly, the evils of slavery come up from time to time — it is unavoidable.

Some slave owners were nice to their slaves. Oh come on, really. They may have been nice people but they still believed it was OK to own people, to sell people, and to retrieve people if they ran away. That is your definition of nice? There is little evidence that this niceness was apparent to the slaves. If the slave owners were so nice why did they have to have laws returning runaway slaves? Why would anyone want to leave paradise on the plantation?

The slaves were fed and housed. Big Whoop. Prisoners are fed and housed. Hostages are fed and housed. This is basic human behavior. Nothing particularly special or nice about. If you are going to buy someone, force them to live somewhere and tell them they can’t leave — you better damn well feed and house them.

Why people try to make the South out to be the good guys in this scenario is beyond me. They were wrong about everything and I mean everything. There is nothing redeeming about the South’s position on slavery. It was wrong for them to have slaves and it was wrong for them to start a war about it. Trying to make lemonade out of this tainted basket of lemons is impossible. So, for God’s sakes, stop it.

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Heather MacDonald writes that Donald Trump took “the most important step it can to restore meritocracy. to American society” by eliminating disparate-impact. When exactly was there a meritocracy in the United States? Certainly no time before 1964 when discrimination against people of color and women was legal. Not directly after the passage of Civil Rights laws in 1964 when White resistance to the new laws was so fierce it required the implementation of Affirmative Action in order to ensure that Whites complied with the new law. Since MacDonald finds any tool that aids people of color a boost is an affront to meritocracy, it certainly isn’t the recent past So MacDonald needs to identify the golden age of meritocracy in USA because from the evidence I can see, there never has been a meritocracy.

MacDonald glosses over 200 years of American History. She assumes that the 1964 Civil Rights ended discrimination and nothing more needed to be done. For her racial prejudice is obvious, racists are obnoxious assholes in a Ku Klux Klan robe screaming the N word. It certainly couldn’t be nice middle class whites who hire employees or admit students to Ivy League colleges. They wouldn’t be caught dead in a Ku Klux Klan robe, so how could they be prejudiced.

The advantage of the public bigots is that they are easy to identify. The problem is the more prevalent form of racism that Blacks encounter is from polite and powerful White who, just the same, might be disinclined to hire someone different from them. They don’t say we are picking a White over a Black. They know the game. They say that the White guy is just more qualified for the job than the Black guy. For this reason, discrimination is difficult to prove. This is the barrier that Blacks face. MacDonald doesn’t appear to be bothered much by this more subtle form of racism or even acknowledge that it might exist.

Disparate-impact was one of the tools that the government used to show discrimination. If an employer has never hired Blacks, year after year, in a community where the population is 25% Black, then the government can see that there might be a problem with discrimination in hiring. Without disparate impact, how does MacDonald propose to identify non-compliant businesses and schools?

She doesn’t. She views discrimination as a phantom problem that doesn’t occur any more so there is no reason to investigate. People are only looking for the best – Black, White, Man, Woman. Race and Gender don’t matter only quality. Well, maybe, but how do we know this is happening unless we evaluate?

Finally, for the record, there will never be a meritocracy as long as rich families hand over their businesses to their children. It is never going to happen as long as some people have connections and others don’t. It never is going to happen as long as people with money can buy their children’s ways into universities. It never is going to happen when White middle class people can avoid “bad” school districts. It never is going to happen as long as poor Black children are given a second rate educations while White middle class children are given a first rate one.

How does MacDonald feel about those problems? Until she addresses them, I don’t believe that she gives a damn about meritocracy.