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It's a part of OUR history!! I haven't owned any slaves and the African American's of today haven't been slaves. They can have all their affiliations why can't we?
Who is stopping you?
Do you suppose there are any Federal grants going to support this cultural/historical function??
Does it REALLY need a month dedicated to it? He sounds like a crap starter to me.
For that matter, how about we just study and discuss history. What is this need to have a freakin' month-long dedication or holiday for everything? Once there are a gazillion on the books, none of them mean anything anyway, just get lost in the mix.
For that matter, how about we just study and discuss history. What is this need to have a freakin' month-long dedication or holiday for everything? Once there are a gazillion on the books, none of them mean anything anyway, just get lost in the mix.
Yes it really needs observation. There is much more good about confederate history than bad. Why do some many people get bashed for enjoying one's own history? I don't know anyone who is happy about slavery. I do know people who are proud to be from the south. Its called heritage.
I'm certainly proud to be from the south. But it has nothing to do with a horrible brother-on-brother war started primarily over the concept of considering human beings as property 145 years ago. I can thing of many better things to be proud of.
Here we go!!!
***sitting in a corner eating popcorn***
***sitting in a corner eating popcorn***
Exactly, flo. That's why I think McDonnell is a crap starter. He knew it was controversial.
It is not necessary to have a month dedicated to various pieces of history. SOMEbody SOMEwhere will not be represented. Your heritage is your heritage. That doesn't change with a holiday or a month dedicated to it.
JMHO
It is not necessary to have a month dedicated to various pieces of history. SOMEbody SOMEwhere will not be represented. Your heritage is your heritage. That doesn't change with a holiday or a month dedicated to it.
JMHO
The War of Northern Aggression was actually about STATES RIGHTS and several other issues that included slavery. I don't agree with the concept of slavery, the only people who should not be free are those guilty of criminal activity, duly convicted and sentenced, and those who are mentally incapable of sustaining themselves within the definition of freedom. I do believe in STATES RIGHTS and presently our most basic freedoms are under assault by over powering Federal government.
I wonder what Jefferson Davis would have to say about the state of the union today how many would agree. He seen it coming and WE DID NOT LISTEN!
quote:Originally posted by _Joy_:
Does it REALLY need a month dedicated to it? He sounds like a crap starter to me.
Why do we 'need' a 'Black History' month?
Read every state's Secession Ordinance and see what they without fail mention: it is the preservation of slavery, by the way.
But why bother going to the primary sources when you can have a polemicist speak for you, or even better, a revisionist outside the mainstream or even the margins of academic history?
Studying the US Civil War is a lifetime's work and not many conclusions will be made, save that it was fratricide and had multiple causes, but the extension and/or preservation of slavery were at the roots.
The nation had already split in a civic sense: the Methodists, Baptists, the Presbyterians, etc. all had split, over slavery. The Democratic Party split three ways in the election of 1860. The Whigs had already dissolved over slavery in 1854 over the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The Republican Party was new and made up of former Whigs and Democrats who followed the "Free Soil" doctrine, "free labor for free men," whatever that meant.
Fire eaters like Ruffin and Yancey inflamed the South with fears of slave rebellions and massacres, of the loss of their livelihoods, and a dictatorship of "freedom," i.e., black soldiers.
"States Rights" always rears its head when a vocal group do not like a federal decision, from Jefferson and Madison opposing Adams' Alien and Sedition Acts to the Civil War to Integration. That is to say, neither the "left" nor the "right" have a monopoly on claiming it as "root."
I recommend that those interested in Civil War history and not just a laundry list of battles and tactics, read James Oakes. He points the huge number of "bi-vocational" slave owners who were "middle class" but owned one or two slaves as a symbol of social mobility as well as an income generator beyond his own efforts.
Chattel slavery was foreign to the English Common Law, where everyone was presumed to be free and anyone claiming otherwise had to prove such a claim in court. But the Spanish and Portuguese had taken the Turks and Arabs for their example and justified it. The Americans then followed suit. Refer to George M. Fredrickson's Black Image in the White Mind which goes from the Portuguese trips down the west coast of Africa to the Haykluyts to Jamestown to the United States.
Of course, you might just fall back on the League of the South and "Why the South Was Right." Just do not expect to be taken seriously if you do.
But why bother going to the primary sources when you can have a polemicist speak for you, or even better, a revisionist outside the mainstream or even the margins of academic history?
Studying the US Civil War is a lifetime's work and not many conclusions will be made, save that it was fratricide and had multiple causes, but the extension and/or preservation of slavery were at the roots.
The nation had already split in a civic sense: the Methodists, Baptists, the Presbyterians, etc. all had split, over slavery. The Democratic Party split three ways in the election of 1860. The Whigs had already dissolved over slavery in 1854 over the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The Republican Party was new and made up of former Whigs and Democrats who followed the "Free Soil" doctrine, "free labor for free men," whatever that meant.
Fire eaters like Ruffin and Yancey inflamed the South with fears of slave rebellions and massacres, of the loss of their livelihoods, and a dictatorship of "freedom," i.e., black soldiers.
"States Rights" always rears its head when a vocal group do not like a federal decision, from Jefferson and Madison opposing Adams' Alien and Sedition Acts to the Civil War to Integration. That is to say, neither the "left" nor the "right" have a monopoly on claiming it as "root."
I recommend that those interested in Civil War history and not just a laundry list of battles and tactics, read James Oakes. He points the huge number of "bi-vocational" slave owners who were "middle class" but owned one or two slaves as a symbol of social mobility as well as an income generator beyond his own efforts.
Chattel slavery was foreign to the English Common Law, where everyone was presumed to be free and anyone claiming otherwise had to prove such a claim in court. But the Spanish and Portuguese had taken the Turks and Arabs for their example and justified it. The Americans then followed suit. Refer to George M. Fredrickson's Black Image in the White Mind which goes from the Portuguese trips down the west coast of Africa to the Haykluyts to Jamestown to the United States.
Of course, you might just fall back on the League of the South and "Why the South Was Right." Just do not expect to be taken seriously if you do.
what was it that Lincoln said about slavery? Now speak!
while understand the idea... if black people get a black history month, why is it wrong for white people to want the same thing?
but.. at the same time, i can't really pretend to care. if soem folks want to celebrate national cracker week, the more power to em.
i'm white. i feel no remorse in it, nor do i feel any particular pride in being white. it just is. i don't see haveing pride in soemthing that i had no control over.
i have kids. 2. they are pretty darn good kids. they're smart, kind, helpful and generous. they mind, and relatively good with manners and such. they are independant and like me, they are stong on thinking for themselves instead of just accepting what is told to them as fact.
THAT is something i'm proud of, because i had a hand in it.
but proud of what color you are? that's just as silly as hating someone because they are a different color.
or being proud of where you were born, as if it were a choice you made.
American by birth, southern because this is where my parents lived
but.. at the same time, i can't really pretend to care. if soem folks want to celebrate national cracker week, the more power to em.
i'm white. i feel no remorse in it, nor do i feel any particular pride in being white. it just is. i don't see haveing pride in soemthing that i had no control over.
i have kids. 2. they are pretty darn good kids. they're smart, kind, helpful and generous. they mind, and relatively good with manners and such. they are independant and like me, they are stong on thinking for themselves instead of just accepting what is told to them as fact.
THAT is something i'm proud of, because i had a hand in it.
but proud of what color you are? that's just as silly as hating someone because they are a different color.
or being proud of where you were born, as if it were a choice you made.
American by birth, southern because this is where my parents lived
celebrate whatever you want to celebrate just do it in a manner that is respectable to yourself and others. I just wish every person would respect themselves and by that they would respect others.
Read my friend Dr. Joseph W. Danielson's new book when it comes out next year. It is about Union occupations of the Tennessee Valley during the Civil War. I edited a large portion of the manuscript and you ardent CSA defenders may be surprised at what warfare did to the people here: abject poverty, roving bands of bandits, CSA and USA agents alike rounding up every spare chicken and cow and ham in the smoke house. One telling observation from a diarist in Courtland was "So much for our Revolution!" once she saw Yankee gunboats coming up the River. The people of Florence heard the cannons from Shiloh and first thought a great storm was brewing to the NW. But it never came. What did come were the dead and wounded and then Yankee gunboats and the US Cavalry. Slaves were called "contraband of war" by the US troops and barely fed as they marched alongside them, and many were abandoned to fend for themselves on barrier islands off Savannah. So much for our revolution, indeed.
The task for the South is to recover from our poverty and our history of slavery and work for a biracial prosperous society where Martin King's words may be true as are Jefferson's.
The task for the South is to recover from our poverty and our history of slavery and work for a biracial prosperous society where Martin King's words may be true as are Jefferson's.
A "quote" to ponder...
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause." Abraham Lincoln Source: August 22, 1862 - Letter to Horace Greeley
Kinda throws a "turd in the punchbowl" don't it?
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause." Abraham Lincoln Source: August 22, 1862 - Letter to Horace Greeley
Kinda throws a "turd in the punchbowl" don't it?
Lincoln as well as the other Free Soilers were no "great friend" of the black man, free or enslaved by law and custom. But then again, until the second half of the 20th century, was any US president? Well, Harry Truman did integrate the armed forces in 48, but that was all. LBJ probably did more than any other president, with Bobby Kennedy and Nicholas Katzenbaum prodding the Justice dept and its marshalls into action. Theodore Roosevelt did dine with Booker T. Washington, but he, too, did nothing more than a few token post master appoints. It is really a shame that over one-third of our country have had to wait so long to become officially visible and full citizens, not that has diddly to do with the Civil War, as the governor of Miss. would say, of course. It has to do with hereditary attitudes of xenophobia and irrational fear of "the other."
quote:Originally posted by Aude Sapere:
Read my friend Dr. Joseph W. Danielson's new book when it comes out next year.
no