Can’t We Find the Good in Slavery?
I’m not saying that any of you didn’t already understand the deep-seated racism in Tea Party members. But if you needed any additional evidence, please see the legislative goals of the Tennessee Tea Party, which includes outrage over history classes teaching that the Founding Fathers owned slaves and that slavery was bad.
We talked to Tea Party leader Hal Rounds Wednesday. He described the way slavery is taught now as race-baiting. When asked if kids are walking out of school thinking our founding fathers were evil, he said “(The kids) are being taught (the Founding Fathers) were hypocrites and slave owners and part of the teachings about slavery was that it was inherently cruel.”
Rounds first petitioned the state for the changes last year and is continuing the fight now.
We asked if you can seperate slavery in our country from the centuries old struggle for racial equality, Rounds believes you can adding “White people were whipped to.”
Cue Manju to remind us of Robert Byrd in 5..4..3..
And all those Southern Senators who voted against the CRA (including all Southern Republicans and some Southern Democrats).
I’m so curious about the “actually occurred” language in here from the second source linked above:
So if fire up iBooks Author and write a history textbook that obscures the the contribution of Founding Fathers with fictional minority experience, would they be cool with that? Like maybe I could drop any mention of George Washington, and instead include a chapter on Nat Turner winning, burning Richmond to the ground, and then being elected president in 1860.
Oh. My. God.
I’d criticize, but all I can really say is I feel sad for those people. I really do.
I think there are two parts to this problem. The first is universal. Nationalists do not like admitting anything negative about the founders and important figures in the development of their state. Witness the new textbooks in Russia praising Stalin for his role in WWII and greatly downplaying his regime’s repression. The tendency for some Americans to white wash US sins in a similar manner in the name of patriotism is not at all new.
The second is not addressed here directly, but it is something I have become only acutely aware of since moving to West Africa. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade is treated very badly in most US education. This is because the US role is focused on exclusively to the total exclusion of the fact that the trade was one of several international slave trading routes. The Trans-Atlantic trade was bigger, than the Trans-Saharan trades and Trans-Indian Ocean trades, but I think they need to be addressed to put it in context. The bigger problem is ignoring the international aspect of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.
US secondary and even college education really does treat anything regarding the Trans-Atlantic slave trade not involving Americans as an historical black hole. Hence the crucial role of Europeans including the Dutch, Danish, Portuguese, and British etc. is completely ignored. Without the European and particularly British insurers, bankers, and other financial infrastructure the shipment of so many slaves to the Americas would have been impossible. American takes on slavery tend to completely ignore this factor. It was also Europeans not Americans that purchased the slaves and shipped them out from places like El Mina and Cape Coast.
The international nature of the slave trade and its wider context is of course well studied by African and European scholars. A large amount of work has been done on the role of the Danes for instance. Also the role of slavery within Africa and the selling of captives by empires such as Asante is something that has engaged a number of African scholars. But, none of this seems to have made it across the Atlantic into US high school or even college textbooks. There it is portrayed almost entirely as something done by Americans. That is simply not historically accurate. In Ghana the study of slavery is generally focused on what happened before the Middle Passage. That leg of slavery had a lot of different European and African nationalities involved. But, the American role is pretty minimal at that stage.
History curricula are lacking — Point taken — but you’re seriously missing the point where Mr. Rounds suggests there was any postive aspect of slavery in America. This is separate from the point about the founding fathers being hypocrites.
If the first half of the film Mandingo is to be believed, slavery was a rollick of bedhopping and kinky behavior. [The second half, not so much]
Of course there is also Goodbye Uncle Tom for those who think big studios are too squeamish about how slavery should be portrayed
Wow. You seem to think that the slave trade is talked about at all. I believe the key term is ‘Golden Triangle’ and it comprises about one paragraph of text. Now onto the American Revolution.
This isn’t true in my experience. The entire history of slavery is absolutely central to any halfway decent textbook in 2012. That includes the slave trade.
I think there’s a lot of stereotypes on the left about how history is taught and while it may be somewhat true in high school, it is not at the college level.
I assumed from the use of the word “kids” in the quote that we were not discussing college-level history.
“Triangle Trade.” And Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth and Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Then on to the battles of the Civil War.
I don’t mind anyone teaching the truth….and the truth is slavery was legal and slavery was acceptable in that society and many, including some of the founding fathers owned slaves.
End of story.
What is objectionable is using this to try to demonize historical figures for what was acceptable.
What if, in the future, our culture decides that you’re an evil asshole for eating animals and wearing leather.
Are you evil? Really?
Just teach the facts and leave the rest alone.
Have you been to a factory farm lately, “Honorable” Bob?
Just because you’ve got your eyes closed doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
Every child I have ever spoken to understands that slavery is a bad thing. It’s not really a debatable issue.
Acknowledging that the Founders and Framers lived in a time and place when chattel slavery was legal, and that many of them owned other human beings, is telling the truth. The truth is not “objectionable”.
That isn’t the same as “demonizing” people who owned slaves, including Washington and Jefferson and whoever else your favorite slaveowners might be. Pretending that slavery isn’t a bad thing, or that none of our national heroes and idols owned slaves–now that shit is objectionable as fuck.
“Just teach the facts and leave the rest alone.”
Sounds good to me. I can teach facts like planters raped their slaves, killed their slaves, beat their slaves, tortured their slaves, and things like that. Looks like we agree!
But they were good people.
And future generations will look back at Mr. Loomis, apply their contemporary standards of the time, and understand what I already know.
You know something? Besides how to masturbate in public?
He knows that the rapes, beatings, torture and sale of human beings weren’t such a big deal because those human beings weren’t white.
“Just teach the facts”
The facts are that Honorable Norman is exceedingly tedious, inane, and content free, and should at least stop changing his name even if he doesn’t do the right thing and stop posting.
Wrong again, Bob. Codified into law is not the same as “acceptable”. Unless, of course, your version of history requires us to disregard the fact that there was conflict over slavery for well over a hundred years, which would require that you admit that it was unacceptable to a significant segment of the population. Which would contradict your assertion that it was acceptable, eh?
Being understood in the context of your time doesn’t remove culpability…particularly when the times provided an outspoken dissent. People of all stripes make questionable decisions, sometimes unquestioned but often questioned and overpowered by selfish interests, regardless of how good they may be otherwise.
At best, I understand you to be arguing that we should teach that such a dichotomy is possible and even common. A valuable lesson indeed. What Mr. Rounds is advocating is teaching that such dochotomy is impossible for a certain group of people (and stop asking questions).
What if, in the present, our culture decides that apologists for slavery are dicks?
And what if it turns out that murder is viewed as a good and valuable thing? If that’s the route you want to go, I suggest you never condemn anything.
Damn liberal text books are harshing on my founder buzz.
Shorter Tennessee Tea Partier: ‘I hate that facts are taught as part of history class. Also please describe the US as a Republic not a Democracy because I have a whole list of people I don’t want voting next election.’
+1. I think I’m going to have to borrow your final sentence at some point.
Also please describe the US as a Republic not a Democracy because I have a whole list of people I don’t want voting next election.
That’s unfair. Those of us who have studied Civilisation know that the US is, as a matter of fact, clearly a Republic, not a Democracy. If it were a Democracy, the Senate would prevent it waging aggressive wars, more of its citizens would be Unhappy when military units were deployed overseas, levels of corruption would be lower, and it would have discovered Recycling.
So how do people see the rise of tablets in schools with respect to these issues? On the one hand you may have the potential to end the hostage crisis that the rest of the country is in with respect to the whackaloon Texas School Board and textbook writing, but on the other you open the door to individual districts or even teachers crafting courses that are basically fictional hagiographies to the founders and the glory of some never-has-done-wrong America.
The problem is that authoritarians have the same approach towards history as they do with religion.
They were “The Founding Fathers,” and very, very human – not pure-as-the-driven-snow saints.
Maybe in some earlier version of the New Testament, Jesus was having sex with Mary Magdalene, and one of the Apostles wrote, “And so, that, too, was good.”
The authoritarians would, of course, have edited that out.
Jesus HAD to be pure. Or else, how can you punish others around you, if they don’t meet your standards of perfection and purity?
Like the guy who goes to church twice a week, then cheats in business, fucks around on his wife, and beats his kids, and kicks the dog.
And then tell you that YOU’RE the one who doesn’t follow Jesus!
Just ’cause Newt was catting around with his staff didn’t prevent him from attacking Clinton for doing the same. But, they’re authoritarians, and if they don’t meet their own standards of purity, that’s ok – but don’t let you be the one caught getting a hummer!
There’s something deeply wrong with these people.
And always has been.
Like the guy who goes to church twice a week, then cheats in business, fucks around on his wife, and beats his kids, and kicks the dog.
That’s not fair. We don’t know if Mittens ever cheated on his wife or beat his kids, and, while we know he scared his dog literally shitless, we cannot know if he ever kicked it.
Actually, for some authoritarian figures the fact that Jesus is presented as an unmarried, virgin man, is a real problem. For example, the Islamic escatology includes the second return of Jesus. One of the most important things He’s supposed to do is to marry. A good muslim man needs to be married.
So, while Christian authoritarianism may have had issues with Mary Magdalene, there are many colours of authoritarianism out there.
Springtime for Stonewall and Bobby Lee
Winter for Sherman and Grant
Tomorrow is another day
Look out, here comes the KKK
i’m not that shocked. many years ago, i was on a teaching assignment in nashville. the hermitage, andrew jackson’s home, is located there. being an inveterate history buff/museum geek, i went to visit it, with an associate, a nashville native. around the grounds were reconstructed wooden shacks, identified as “servant’s quarters”.
to my knowledge, jackson had no “servants”. he did own slaves, who acted the part. when i inquired, of the nice, blue haired docent ladies, where the slave quarters were located, you’d have thought i just pissed in the corner of the room, such was their (and my associate’s) reaction.
apparently, the use of the word “slave”, to describe persons of african descent held in bondage, in pre-civil war nashville, is considered quite gauche, and not spoken in polite society. probably explains my failure to receive an invitation to the city’s annual debutante ball.
oh well, i can live with that.
I have been on a plantation tour, in Louisiana, which suffered from a rose-tinted view of history to some extent but was really not that bad on slavery, including museum displays of rusting chains and the like. The only remaining buildings were the fancy ones, of course, and most of the tour was about the exquisite moldings and the like, but the people running the site didn’t try to bullshit us on the whole exploitation of human bondage angle.
Honestly, I’d say that if a historical display is obviously trying to ignore slavery, especially when it refers directly to to the slaves themselves but by euphemism, it becomes the duty of the visitor to politely rub the nice blue-haired docent’s nose in the truth.
The LA plantation tours I’ve done have varying degrees of realism w/r/t slavery, but the Laura one is pretty damn clear about the whole system: http://www.lauraplantation.com/sugar.asp. They’re quite good on the skill of the slave architects and builders, and they’ve got some slave quarters still there, IIRC. I can recommend it. They tell the story behind the term “whistle walk,” which is quite revelatory.
Also pretty good is the municipal park in Baton Rouge, Magnolia Mound, which has the slave run kitchen still standing: http://www.brec.org/index.cfm/park/detail/112
I think the meme that indentured servitude and chattel slavery were the exact same thing is super-toxic.
Also, free people of color were indentured servants, but no white people were chattel slaves.
In the US no white people were slaves, but I am quite sure that does not hold universally. Ancient Greece and Rome had slavery and I am quite sure some of the slaves were white. Also while there are important differences between chattel slavery and other forms of bondage, there are of slavery other than the model that existed in the US. Forced labor by prisoners such as occurred in Nazi occupied Europe or the USSR under Stalin qualifies as slavery in my mind even though there was no private ownership of individuals involved. Under US racial laws a significant majority of forced laborers both under Nazi and Soviet rule would be considered white.
Now if only you could tell us what any of this has to do with the history of slavery in the US, and the teaching of same.
The above poster did not specify the US. He said, “no white people were chattel slaves.”
1. Its not relevant to the discussion since the comment was talking about slaves in the US
2. You are wrong as well about WWII era slavery. Slave labor was chattel slavery in addition to being an excuse for genocide. German companies like IG Farben frequently purchased slave labor from the government. Oskar Schindler got his start by purchasing the Jews he would later save.
IG Farben leased slave labor. Individual Germans did not actually own slaves in occupied Poland as personal property. It is still slavery, but the Nazi system was a state system run by the SS even if it did contract out with various non-state corporations.
The Soviet GULag also leased prisoners and other forced laborers to civilian commissariats. But, the individuals administering those factories did not own the forced laborers either. So while it is definitely slavery the ownership pattern is considerably different than what existed in the US prior to the Civil War.