See American Culture Is Being Slowly Erased and Replaced over at Saberpoint. A thought-provoking essay.
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See American Culture Is Being Slowly Erased and Replaced over at Saberpoint. A thought-provoking essay.
I left a lengthy comment at Saberpoint. Thanks for the link.
ReplyDeleteIs that Nathan Bedford Forrest on his banner?
ReplyDeleteWhat's his idea of celebrating the culture, showing "Birth of a Nation" at school assembly?
Sorry AOW, but when someone is has a link up to an article on "Why the Civil War Wasn't About Slavery" then you have a pretty good idea of what his cultural beef is all about.
ReplyDeleteCall it what you like but this idea that we should retain southern culture is what these arguments about culture often embody.
For many southerners, it appears to be more than "part" of our history. Rather, the south is it's core.
Rather than being grateful that you were pulled, kicking and screaming as it were, from the doomed economy of plantation agriculture you want to relive the glory years for some reason.
Duck, how does this relate to the linked artical? red herring fallacy.
ReplyDeleteand wow, students get in trouble for not celabrating a mexican holiday? what gives? are all the school directors hispanic, or do they just hate america?
acually, that goes for everything. Why do soo many americans hate america? how are we ANY worse than all teh other countries on earth?
-Wildstar
How does it relate? American culture = white southern culture. It's written all over that site and that's the foundation of his complaint.
ReplyDeletePretty obvious.
Duck,
ReplyDeleteThe essay to which you're referring has a conclusion that begins as follows:
There was certainly a lot of anti-slavery talk in the antebellum period, but it did not have the moral content the official story implies. We have examined the major anti-slavery episodes from the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Not a single one was motivated by a moral intention to do something about freeing the African population or attending to its welfare. In every case the motive was the economic and political interests of white people in the North and West against those of the South. The African population was viewed from New England, throughout the North, and across the West as a pariah people to be removed from one’s presence as far as possible.
The essay also includes this statement by Abraham Lincoln:
Consider Lincoln’s remarks in a debate with Stephen Douglas, September 18, 1858:
“I will say then that I am not, nor have ever been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races … there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other men am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”
Consider that statement by Lincoln. Does it not imply that American culture = white culture? I think so. Certainly, Lincoln believed that "white pride" was fine and dandy.
The history of race relations in the United States and all the causes of the American Civil War are not as simplistic as 21st Century Americans would like to believe.
Duck, I suggest that you carefully read the essay to which you so object.
Duck,
ReplyDeleteWildstar is correct to point out that you're wallowing in a "red herring," as well as a few other logic fallacies.
And, for the record, "Southern heritage" involves a lot more than the issue of race relations. I will also point out that the New England merchant ships played a large part in the slave trade. So, is it racist for you in the North to celebrate your heritage of the New England shipping industry?
FYI: None of my ancestors ever held slaves. My mother's side of the family couldn't afford to do so, my father's side had religious objections to slavery. So, I don't "have a horse" in this race. Nor do I have white guilt.
ReplyDeleteWildstar,
ReplyDeleteI am of the view that racial pride in and of itself is not evil. My definition of "racial pride" does not entail "racial superiority," particularly in the sense that one race should "keep down" any other race. IMO, we should judge others by their character and their actions -- not by the color of their skin.
As a culture and as a nation today, advocate various types of ethnic pride and even sexual-orientation pride; in the process, however, we so often exclude the acceptability of "white pride." Frankly, I'm sick of the constant drumbeat of white guilt and the need for reparations for evils of the past.
Obama could have done much to unify America and could have been the post-racial-America President. Instead, almost as soon as he took office, he created more racial division with his taking sides with a black professor arrested by a white police officer instead of looking at the facts of what happened.
Furthermore, this trend in hyphenation (German-American, Arab-American, African-American, etc.) is promoting division. I am an American. Period.
We no longer require our students to read the source documents because it is easier to manipulate their thinking.
ReplyDeleteIf you want a real education read
"Diary of Tar Heel Confederate" by (Private) L. Leon and
"A Captain's War" by (Captain) William Burgwyn
Each gives a slightly different perspective of the War but in neither of their journals and letters will you find any suggestion they went to war to defend the institution of Slavery. The only reference at all is in the early pages of Burgywn where he states in a letter dated 1862 that there is growing agreement in the region that the "barbarous practice" will surely come to an end (there are several references indicating his family owned many slaves).
Ok so let me get this straight the North went to War with the South over Slavery. Despite what Lincoln actually said and odd we find no reference to defending slavery in the NC Declaration to join the Confederacy but rather the stated reason is Lincoln's goal of raising 75,000 men to prementitvely strike the South. I could go on but let's skip to the end and looks at the results.
ReplyDeleteAfter bravely going to War because of love for their fellow man the North A) immediately grants equal rights to blacks and welcomes them into society as partners or B) continues to keep blacks at a less than equal footing politically, economically, and socially until about the 1970s when the North is "pulled, kicking and screaming as it were" to accept blacks as equals.
SO yes the War was fought over the unfair treatment of blacks and the North after destroying the South rushed over the next hundred years to granted blacks equality....
Blogginator,
ReplyDeleteExcellent comments.
As one who has lived in Virginia all her life, I have watched the revisionist history regarding the Civil War take shape in nearly all history texts.
I think that the Politically Incorrect series has a guide to the American Civil War. Might be worth checking out.
In 1984 by George Orwell
ReplyDeleteThe Ministry of Education
In 2011 in the USA
The Department of Education
I fail to grasp the difference.....