Mr. ADAM GOODHEART (Author, "1861: The Civil War Awakening")
Mr. GOODHEART: Well, the radicals on the Southern side stood for a free, independent, Southern republic. A republic that would be founded on slavery, with slavery as its cornerstone, as Alexander Stephens, the vice president of the Confederacy, famously said in a speech known as "The Cornerstone Speech."
He explicitly repudiated Thomas Jefferson's doctrine that all men are created equal, and he said: We in our new republic have a new dogma, that we are a republic whose cornerstone is slavery.
In the North, there were a lot of people who, in the 1850s, were increasingly unwilling to tolerate the expansion of slavery. And in some cases, of course, they were abolitionists. But in many cases, they were not abolitionists but simply felt that slavery was an evil system that should not be allowed to gain any more ground.
And a lot of people were tired of compromising. They were tired of a generation of what were seen as weak politicians, known as the dough faces, and they were simply ready to draw a line and say no more.
Mr. GOODHEART: Well, you know, when you go back, and you look at the actual documents and debates from the time, of course, many people have said since then that it was about states' rights. But really the only significant state right that people were arguing about in 1860 was the right to own what was known as slave property - property and slaves - unimpeded and to be able to travel with that property anywhere that you wanted to, to be able to spread slavery across the United States.
So it's clear that this was really about slavery in almost every significant way. But, you know, we've sort of pushed that to the side because, of course, we want to believe that our country is a country that's always stood for freedom. And I think it can be difficult for Americans to accept.
Hey Rock, I know no one on here has tried to defend slavery, the confederate flag, etc. I was just pointing out that some southerners definitely do. Furthermore, there are definitely many of them who long for the good ole days even they were never around to experience. What many of them are saying (knowingly or not) is that they are longing for the days when people of color were definitely below them. For many of them they tire of seeing uppity negroes, latinos, asians, etc taking "their jobs and destroying their southern way of life." My mom is from a super rural area in SC and let me you that some of the white southerners of my moms age (81) and younger poorer white southerners vulnerable to misinformation of the south shall rise again are fueling the debate now.
This discussion quickly evolved from events of 150 years ago to a stereotype that the South is filled with racists in 2011.
The only difference I see betwen a Southern racist and one from Boston is the southern dude has a flag to wave as a warning signal.
I dare anyone to find a more openly racist, and verbally venomous place that rural mass.
How about Mississippi, where a new poll shows that 46% of Republicans think interracial marriage should be illegal?
And another 16% aren't sure.
That's 60% who basically agree with Alexander Stephens.
BobDesperado said:
Rockadelic said:
This discussion quickly evolved from events of 150 years ago to a stereotype that the South is filled with racists in 2011.
That would be true if anyone had said anything of the sort in this thread, but it didn't happen. Not even close.
What no one has done in this thread is defend racism, slavery or the Confederate flag.
I've lived in the North for almost half my life and in the South for the other half...there are racist fucks in both places and stereotyping the South as primarily racist in 2011 is as offensive as any other stereotype....I've never met a person who owned slaves nor have I ever met anyone who longs for the 'good ol days" of slavery, that they couldn't have possibly experienced in the first place.
Re-enacting any war is bizarre to my way of thinking but it's done all over the world and must have a meaning or attraction I can't comprehend.
Seven states attempted to secede from the Union........this secession attempt, took place during the transition of the Buchanan to Lincoln presidency......the ruling Republicans claimed the act of secession itself was treason, even before a single shot was fired..........it was deemed illegal by the Lincoln administration which led to the attack on Ft. Sumter in S.C. the very heart of the secession.......these states had many things in common, including slavery....not all the "slave states" were part of the original secession. The war started because of secession, secession was driven by many things with the most obvious being slavery. Ironically, Lincoln had stated he had no intent to end slavery where it already existed.
I posted that Mississippi poll tidbit AFTER you claimed people were stereotyping the South. I'd still like to see where anyone did anything of the sort before you made that comment, because I looked over the thread again and it just isn't there.
What people have done in this thread is present the cuddly Southern alternative view of the War as only tangentially related to slavery. To which I can only give a big har-dee-har-har.
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour recently opened his ignorant mouth and talked about how in his youth in the early 60s things just weren't so darn bad for black people in his neck of the woods. You can claim all day long that there's no difference in extant racism between the North and the South, but a reptile like Barbour doesn't get elected Governor up here. Doesn't happen. But Barbour's considered a presidential contender in 2012 because he's supposedly got a strong regional appeal.
The region isn't the Pacific Northwest.
It's not a "stereotype" to say college football is a bigger deal in Texas than it is in Massachusetts, and it's not a "stereotype" to say the South still has a bigger percentage of die-hard still-fighting-the-Civil-War racists than other areas of the country do. That doesn't mean "the South is filled with racists." It means there's a reason why GOP chairmen (3 of them so far) feel compelled to apologize for the Southern Strategy. They haven't done that because the strategy didn't work, they've done that because it worked very well.
Here's a direct quote from the Vice President of the Confederacy Alexander Stephens from his Cornerstone Speech in March 1861.
"The new constitution [of the Confederacy] has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right."
That's the Vice President of the South saying that the Civil War was about slavery at the beginning of the Civil War. Drop the bullshit and recognize.
Here's some more from the speech.
"They [the principles of the Constitution] rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. "
Hey Rock, I know no one on here has tried to defend slavery, the confederate flag, etc. I was just pointing out that some southerners definitely do. Furthermore, there are definitely many of them who long for the good ole days even they were never around to experience. What many of them are saying (knowingly or not) is that they are longing for the days when people of color were definitely below them. For many of them they tire of seeing uppity negroes, latinos, asians, etc taking "their jobs and destroying their southern way of life." My mom is from a super rural area in SC and let me you that some of the white southerners of my moms age (81) and younger poorer white southerners vulnerable to misinformation of the south shall rise again are fueling the debate now.
amir
Amir.....I understand what you're saying.....and you are right as far as groups of old and young white poor Southerners still holding on to past ignorance.......but these are insignificant, disenfranchised people with no power beyond hate speech......these are the people who think the Black Panthers are going to come to their homes and rape and pillage their families....giving them any credence whatsoever is falling for the same absurd Black Panther fear that they harbor. They are the vocal minority that make for good news stories and building the self esteem of those above them.
I've heard your stories of growing up in New England....what you experienced was just as bad as what your southern counterparts experienced during the same time period, and I'm willing to say that in some cases your experience was worse.
In 2011 let's judge ALL people by their individual actions and not by their color, location or what their ancestors might have done.
I posted that Mississippi poll tidbit AFTER you claimed people were stereotyping the South. I'd still like to see where anyone did anything of the sort before you made that comment, because I looked over the thread again and it just isn't there.
Your early comment of "I'm not sure the war ever ended. " certainly suggests you think that the South is still the racist place it was 150 years ago.
That's the Vice President of the South saying that the Civil War was about slavery at the beginning of the Civil War. Drop the bullshit and recognize.
I'm no History scholar, and I agree and have stated, that slavery was the most obvious driver of the Civil War.
But in Lincoln's inaugural address a month before Ft. Sumter he stated....
I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.
Doesn't this mean that those seceding states, who all already had slavery, could have continued owning slaves within the Union?
And if that's correct, didn't they go to war for more than just the right to own slaves?
I'm looking at this logically rather than from a deep understanding of the Civil War so please educate me if I'm missing some obvious point.
I posted that Mississippi poll tidbit AFTER you claimed people were stereotyping the South. I'd still like to see where anyone did anything of the sort before you made that comment, because I looked over the thread again and it just isn't there.
Your early comment of "I'm not sure the war ever ended. " certainly suggests you think that the South is still the racist place it was 150 years ago.
That's all you've got? That's one huge stretch and you know it.
The Southern/Northern divide in US politics is as big now as the Southern/Northern divide in Ireland. That shocks me, all things considered.
I posted that Mississippi poll tidbit AFTER you claimed people were stereotyping the South. I'd still like to see where anyone did anything of the sort before you made that comment, because I looked over the thread again and it just isn't there.
Your early comment of "I'm not sure the war ever ended. " certainly suggests you think that the South is still the racist place it was 150 years ago.
That's all you've got? That's one huge stretch and you know it.
The Southern/Northern divide in US politics is as big now as the Southern/Northern divide in Ireland. That shocks me, all things considered.
How can it be a stretch when just hours later you proved me right.
Lincoln's main concern was preserving the Union. Of course, he didn't start the civil war, the south did, and the south wanted to preserve slavery and felt that was at threat so they broke away.
When Lincoln said he had no problem with slavery existing in the states where it already existed was his concession to the South. However he was against slavery spreading to the West, and the South wanted slavery there as well.
Plus, the South did not think that they would start a civil war. They believed they could kick out union forces from the south, the north would concede and that would be it. Huge miscalculation on their part.
Lincoln's main concern was preserving the Union. Of course, he didn't start the civil war, the south did, and the south wanted to preserve slavery and felt that was at threat so they broke away.
When Lincoln said he had no problem with slavery existing in the states where it already existed was his concession to the South. However he was against slavery spreading to the West, and the South wanted slavery there as well.
Plus, the South did not think that they would start a civil war. They believed they could kick out union forces from the south, the north would concede and that would be it. Huge miscalculation on their part.
Understood, Rock. However, these same insignificant poor white southerners are the pawns of the intellectually dishonest racists who hold the power. They play on the ignorance of these people and when these people start putting their hate into action they are in NO way harmless or insignificant. For many, the south had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the union. After the civil war, groups like the KKK were created to celebrate and remember the old south. Eventually, we know what this group turned into! In addition, the push back against the civil rights movement in this country has to be viewed thoroughly the lens of the after effects of the civil war and slavery.
I am not trying to label the whole south as all racist but there is definitely a level of wanting the south to return to the good ole days. I truly believe that America has not dealt with the evils of slavery and it's effects in an honest and sincere way. Until we do, this country will always be on edge of another civil war.
I posted that Mississippi poll tidbit AFTER you claimed people were stereotyping the South. I'd still like to see where anyone did anything of the sort before you made that comment, because I looked over the thread again and it just isn't there.
Your early comment of "I'm not sure the war ever ended. " certainly suggests you think that the South is still the racist place it was 150 years ago.
That's all you've got? That's one huge stretch and you know it.
The Southern/Northern divide in US politics is as big now as the Southern/Northern divide in Ireland. That shocks me, all things considered.
How can it be a stretch when just hours later you proved me right.
What, with the Mississippi poll?
Sorry to intrude on your Dixie-as-Gumdrop-Island fantasy with, you know, facts.
You dropped the "past/condemned/repeat" nugget. I think ignoring the present is just as dangerous.
Understood, Rock. However, these same insignificant poor white southerners are the pawns of the intellectually dishonest racists who hold the power. They play on the ignorance of these people and when these people start putting their hate into action they are in NO way harmless or insignificant. For many, the south had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the union. After the civil war, groups like the KKK were created to celebrate and remember the old south. Eventually, we know what this group turned into! In addition, the push back against the civil rights movement in this country has to be viewed thoroughly the lens of the after effects of the civil war and slavery.
I am not trying to label the whole south as all racist but there is definitely a level of wanting the south to return to the good ole days. I truly believe that America has not dealt with the evils of slavery and it's effects in an honest and sincere way. Until we do, this country will always be on edge of another civil war.
How can our country and it's citizens, in 2011, deal honestly and sincerely with the effects of slavery?
Living in one of the original Confederate states for 30 years I can honestly tell you I rarely hear the laments of those yearning for the days of racial inequality......maybe they just don't exhibit these feelings in front of me.
Rock, there is a lot of problems in this country that stem from the days of the civil war and slavery that have never been fully dealt with in an honest and sincere way. For example, I remember when I was watching a black news reporter for NBC (she is well-known but cannot remember her name) was interviewing a southern white family about obama and the south carolina primary, the woman of the family was asked what do you think about the possibility of a Black president. She proceeded to say that blacks are not trust worthy and that they should stick to their place. That she didn't recognize this country anymore and it was soooo different from how she grew up where Black people knew their place. Now you can say or think that is jt one person's opinion out of millions in the south, but ask any Black person from the deep south and they will tell you plenty of the same stories.
Again, I am not saying all people from the south are racist, but there are a number of people that think that the south shall rise again to put blacks back in their place. By the way, many people you may know may never express these ideals or hatred around you but that certainly doesn't mean that they don't harbor these feelings or want to act upon them. Lastly, you're right about my experiences in Massachuestts...they were not fun times to say the least!
Rock, there is a lot of problems in this country that stem from the days of the civil war and slavery that have never been fully dealt with in an honest and sincere way. For example, I remember when I was watching a black news reporter for NBC (she is well-known but cannot remember her name) was interviewing a southern white family about obama and the south carolina primary, the woman of the family was asked what do you think about the possibility of a Black president. She proceeded to say that blacks are not trust worthy and that they should stick to their place. That she didn't recognize this country anymore and it was soooo different from how she grew up where Black people knew their place. Now you can say or think that is jt one person's opinion out of millions in the south, but ask any Black person from the deep south and they will tell you plenty of the same stories.
Again, I am not saying all people from the south are racist, but there are a number of people that think that the south shall rise again to put blacks back in their place. By the way, many people you may know may never express these ideals or hatred around you but that certainly doesn't mean that they don't harbor these feelings or want to act upon them. Lastly, you're right about my experiences in Massachuestts...they were not fun times to say the least!
Amir.....I've seen people like the family you described and putting them on national TV is a lot more sensational than putting a white family from S.C. who supported, worked and voted for our President.
Just like putting out a poll that 60% of Republicans in Mississippi are against interracial marriage when in reality in represented a microscopic % of the state works to support a specific agenda....it's certainly not honest or sincere.
To deal honestly and sincerely I think we have to represent our society as a whole and not focus on ignorance.....the latter is exactly what racists do.
I ask the following question because I, as an individual, want to do my part to help heal this country and have it's people come together....
"How can our country and it's citizens, in 2011, deal honestly and sincerely with the effects of slavery?"
Sorry to intrude on your Dixie-as-Gumdrop-Island fantasy with, you know, facts.
You dropped the "past/condemned/repeat" nugget. I think ignoring the present is just as dangerous.
Dude...there are 2,844,658 people in the state of Mississippi.
The "factual" poll you referenced states that 240 of them oppose interracial marriage.
That's like 0.000118% of the states population.
Those are "facts".
It's this kind of bullshit that keeps our country divided.
Wow. So scientific polling is bullshit?
An awful lot of people are paying an awful lot of money for that kind of bullshit all the time.
And the fact that the state's current Governor thinks Mississippi 1964 was just one great big tub of good times for black folks can't possibly have any significance at all. They were probably too busy singing and dancing to care about a few murders and that pesky not-being-allowed-to-vote stuff. Shucks. Maybe he's right. Maybe if he runs I'll work for his campaign as a tribute to MLK's memory.
I'm imagining this shit. Three recent Republican chairmen are imagining it, too. There are no regional differences at all, ever, and it's unconscionable to even suggest that there are.
After all, the key to uniting this country is to pretend that it's already united.
(And those birthers? Never mind them, they're only a majority of Republicans, but that was just another bullshit poll and they're not racists. They're just sticklers for paperwork.)
Amir.....I've seen people like the family you described and putting them on national TV is a lot more sensational than putting a white family from S.C. who supported, worked and voted for our President.
Which family do you think would be easier to find?
10% of white Alabamans voted for Obama according to exit polls. National polling showed McCain beat Obama by 55-43% among white voters.
I could look and see if there's data for South Carolina, but it's not like it would matter since you dismiss all polls as bullshit.
Is there a secret cabal of Illuminati making all this stuff up? How come it's all so damned consistent? Someone is really pulling some big time strings in the fabric of reality.
This is the kind of discussion where Rich's dissembling can get me a little crazy. I'm still not sure if he stands by his assertion that by the south didn't try to violently overthrow the sovereign government of this nation. This whole thing popped off when I started talking about how the (white) South is not willing to deal with the problems that it's racist policies created. Hence the civil war museum that doesn't really talk about what happened. For me, this is the equivalent of going to a Holocaust museum in Germany and seeing no Stars of David while talking about killing political opponents instead of genocide.
The first thing I thought of when Rich asked what can I do about the injustices of the past (slavery) is "name them for what they are". When you see a rebel flag, tell people that it stands for slavery and is hurtful and deeply unpatriotic. When you go to a civil war museum and it doesn't accurately portray history, complain to the management. People change when they know they are not supported by honest and reasonable people. Most of these people are not even that conscious of the effect their views have on other people. Confronting their reality is a very important step in helping them become aware.
I've had a very powerful experience such as I have been describing this year at my kids' school. Last year, I was appalled when I found out that my daughter's school held its black history celebration on a Saturday. My daughter and I were the only people in attendance who were not directly participating in the program. It dawned on me that my kids might grow up and not have the kinds of experiences I had coming up, where we celebrated the hugely positive changes wrought by the civil rights movement, where we learned about how things changed from people in the struggle. I spent much of the year talking to staff and parents at the school to figure out why we doing things this way. They all said that it was just the way it is. I spent a lot of time working to build support for a black history celebration that every child would be required to attend and would be a great experience for all. All of the dialog and reaching out paid off. A couple of weeks ago we brought in a bunch of blues and jazz musicians along with a noted African drummer to give an interactive concert on the history of black music and its relationship to the struggle for freedom. The response from students,staff and parents was incredible. Next year we are looking to build a course around the subject matter that will culminate in the students putting on our black history assembly themselves with the support and training of the musicians.
For those who say the there is no difference between the south and north I just can't say that has been my experience. On that same trip to the south I took in 1988, I was in a bar drinking. My friend ordered a coke and the bartender replied,
"we don't sell n****r pop here." My friend who grew up in DC and how seen a lot of racial tension in his time had never heard anything like it. My sister, a proud black woman, who lives in Atlanta, tells me horror stories about the south all the time. That's not to say that she doesn't have bad things to say about the North but it ain't even near the level of animosity and fear that we're talking about in the dirty. It's bad enough that I really get sad when my nephew has to go back home after he comes to stay with his grandma and uncles every summer.
One thing that I have learned from my sister is that black people and white people are not experiencing the same America. I think that's what makes effective communication about racism so hard. Most of us have an inner bullshit detector that is a product of our experiences. Unfortunately, when your experiences are totally different your inner BS detector might not be that accurate. This is a big problem because we trust our BE detector more than we trust other people.
There are plenty of scientific polls that are meaningful....a sample of 400 out of 2.8 million is not, no matter how you try to spin it.
Show me the polls you respect that show results contrary to what I'm suggesting.
And all scientific polling is done with relatively small samples. You know that already, so who is actually doing the spinning here?
Most independent polls are designed to attain a specific end point.....the old saying "Statistics never lie, but statisticians do" should be heeded.
As far as what makes up a meaningful poll I know you in particular will enjoy this description taken directly from the Gallup people.....they scoff at a 400 of 2.8 million sampling and see it as pretty meaningless.
The first one thousand people streaming out of a Yankees game in the Bronx clearly aren't representative of all Americans. Now consider a group compiled by selecting 1,000 people coming out of a Major League Baseball game in every state in the continental United States -- 48,000 people! We now have a much larger group -- but we are still no closer to representing the views of all Americans than we were in the Bronx. We have a lot of baseball fans, but, depending on the circumstances, these 48,000 people may not even be a good representative sample of all baseball fans in the country -- much less all Americans, baseball fans or not.
Enjoyed the discussion with all of you, calling it a night.
There are plenty of scientific polls that are meaningful....a sample of 400 out of 2.8 million is not, no matter how you try to spin it.
Show me the polls you respect that show results contrary to what I'm suggesting.
And all scientific polling is done with relatively small samples. You know that already, so who is actually doing the spinning here?
Most independent polls are designed to attain a specific end point.....the old saying "Statistics never lie, but statisticians do" should be heeded.
As far as what makes up a meaningful poll I know you in particular will enjoy this description taken directly from the Gallup people.....they scoff at a 400 of 2.8 million sampling and see it as pretty meaningless.
The first one thousand people streaming out of a Yankees game in the Bronx clearly aren't representative of all Americans. Now consider a group compiled by selecting 1,000 people coming out of a Major League Baseball game in every state in the continental United States -- 48,000 people! We now have a much larger group -- but we are still no closer to representing the views of all Americans than we were in the Bronx. We have a lot of baseball fans, but, depending on the circumstances, these 48,000 people may not even be a good representative sample of all baseball fans in the country -- much less all Americans, baseball fans or not.
Enjoyed the discussion with all of you, calling it a night.
So you flew the flag of surrender.
I hope it was a Rangers pennant and not that BAD, BAD Confederate flag.
BTW polls on elections tend to have very consistent results regardless of the entity doing the polls. Polling organizations that show disparate results don't usually stick around very long. They get stuck with the dreaded "outlier" label and who wants to pay for that kind of crap, etc.
So the "all polls are bullshit" ruse becomes the line of choice for people who can't produce any data, anywhere, to support their spurious conclusions. And no, I'm not impressed by the fact that no Klansmen come up to you shooting the shit on a regular basis. You're a big scary looking hippie and they know you're not one of them because your hair and beard would stick out from under a hood.
Try adding a swastika neck tattoo and you might get very different results.
There are plenty of scientific polls that are meaningful....a sample of 400 out of 2.8 million is not, no matter how you try to spin it.
Show me the polls you respect that show results contrary to what I'm suggesting.
And all scientific polling is done with relatively small samples. You know that already, so who is actually doing the spinning here?
Most independent polls are designed to attain a specific end point.....the old saying "Statistics never lie, but statisticians do" should be heeded.
As far as what makes up a meaningful poll I know you in particular will enjoy this description taken directly from the Gallup people.....they scoff at a 400 of 2.8 million sampling and see it as pretty meaningless.
The first one thousand people streaming out of a Yankees game in the Bronx clearly aren't representative of all Americans. Now consider a group compiled by selecting 1,000 people coming out of a Major League Baseball game in every state in the continental United States -- 48,000 people! We now have a much larger group -- but we are still no closer to representing the views of all Americans than we were in the Bronx. We have a lot of baseball fans, but, depending on the circumstances, these 48,000 people may not even be a good representative sample of all baseball fans in the country -- much less all Americans, baseball fans or not.
Enjoyed the discussion with all of you, calling it a night.
So you flew the flag of surrender.
I hope it was a Rangers pennant and not that BAD, BAD Confederate flag.
BTW polls on elections tend to have very consistent results regardless of the entity doing the polls. Polling organizations that show disparate results don't usually stick around very long. They get stuck with the dreaded "outlier" label and who wants to pay for that kind of crap, etc.
So the "all polls are bullshit" ruse becomes the line of choice for people who can't produce any data, anywhere, to support their spurious conclusions. And no, I'm not impressed by the fact that no Klansmen come up to you shooting the shit on a regular basis. You're a big scary looking hippie and they know you're not one of them because your hair and beard would stick out from under a hood.
Try adding a swastika neck tattoo and you might get very different results.
So
If needing to get 5 hours sleep before I head out to work in the morning is surrender, then yeah, I surrender.
I never stated that all polls are meaningless...to the contrary, I'm a scientist and know if done correctly they can be accurate and meaningful.....and scientific.
The specific one you cited is bullshit.....seeking out and polling 240 like minded people out of 2.8 million means less than nothing when used to represent a large percentage of an entire state.
DrWu....our discussion on Treason//Traitor/violent overthrow is admittedly one of semantics.....The secession came first....it was deemed treason before any physical actions were taken which according to my understanding of Treason is an incorrect definition. The Union stating the secession was illegal lead to the Sumter episode which was definitely an attempt to violently overthrow the Union Government. If the secession was allowed, there probably wouldn't have been a war....at least not at that time.
Slavery was the biggest issue in the Civil War....even in Oklahoma where Native American slave owners joined forces with the Confederates.
The things that I can do to honestly and sincerely address the effects of slavery are unfortunately limited to being colorblind when hiring associates and treating everyone equally after I do.....teaching my children about every kind of racism and hoping that their actions and ideals moving forward works toward a society that judges people only by their actions. I've been involved in my community but not necessarily on a racial black/white level....I've worked with and coached 100's of kids of all walks of life and tried to make their life a little better and them better people.....hopefully I've reached at least a couple.
I enjoy discussing problems but it's a lot better to discuss solutions.
Comments
Except the only major states' rights that the south wanted was the right to own slaves.
Mr. GOODHEART: Well, the radicals on the Southern side stood for a free, independent, Southern republic. A republic that would be founded on slavery, with slavery as its cornerstone, as Alexander Stephens, the vice president of the Confederacy, famously said in a speech known as "The Cornerstone Speech."
He explicitly repudiated Thomas Jefferson's doctrine that all men are created equal, and he said: We in our new republic have a new dogma, that we are a republic whose cornerstone is slavery.
In the North, there were a lot of people who, in the 1850s, were increasingly unwilling to tolerate the expansion of slavery. And in some cases, of course, they were abolitionists. But in many cases, they were not abolitionists but simply felt that slavery was an evil system that should not be allowed to gain any more ground.
And a lot of people were tired of compromising. They were tired of a generation of what were seen as weak politicians, known as the dough faces, and they were simply ready to draw a line and say no more.
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=135246259
So it's clear that this was really about slavery in almost every significant way. But, you know, we've sort of pushed that to the side because, of course, we want to believe that our country is a country that's always stood for freedom. And I think it can be difficult for Americans to accept.
amir
I posted that Mississippi poll tidbit AFTER you claimed people were stereotyping the South. I'd still like to see where anyone did anything of the sort before you made that comment, because I looked over the thread again and it just isn't there.
What people have done in this thread is present the cuddly Southern alternative view of the War as only tangentially related to slavery. To which I can only give a big har-dee-har-har.
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour recently opened his ignorant mouth and talked about how in his youth in the early 60s things just weren't so darn bad for black people in his neck of the woods. You can claim all day long that there's no difference in extant racism between the North and the South, but a reptile like Barbour doesn't get elected Governor up here. Doesn't happen. But Barbour's considered a presidential contender in 2012 because he's supposedly got a strong regional appeal.
The region isn't the Pacific Northwest.
It's not a "stereotype" to say college football is a bigger deal in Texas than it is in Massachusetts, and it's not a "stereotype" to say the South still has a bigger percentage of die-hard still-fighting-the-Civil-War racists than other areas of the country do. That doesn't mean "the South is filled with racists." It means there's a reason why GOP chairmen (3 of them so far) feel compelled to apologize for the Southern Strategy. They haven't done that because the strategy didn't work, they've done that because it worked very well.
"The new constitution [of the Confederacy] has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right."
That's the Vice President of the South saying that the Civil War was about slavery at the beginning of the Civil War. Drop the bullshit and recognize.
Here's some more from the speech.
"They [the principles of the Constitution] rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. "
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=76
Amir.....I understand what you're saying.....and you are right as far as groups of old and young white poor Southerners still holding on to past ignorance.......but these are insignificant, disenfranchised people with no power beyond hate speech......these are the people who think the Black Panthers are going to come to their homes and rape and pillage their families....giving them any credence whatsoever is falling for the same absurd Black Panther fear that they harbor. They are the vocal minority that make for good news stories and building the self esteem of those above them.
I've heard your stories of growing up in New England....what you experienced was just as bad as what your southern counterparts experienced during the same time period, and I'm willing to say that in some cases your experience was worse.
In 2011 let's judge ALL people by their individual actions and not by their color, location or what their ancestors might have done.
Your early comment of "I'm not sure the war ever ended. " certainly suggests you think that the South is still the racist place it was 150 years ago.
I'm no History scholar, and I agree and have stated, that slavery was the most obvious driver of the Civil War.
But in Lincoln's inaugural address a month before Ft. Sumter he stated....
I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.
Doesn't this mean that those seceding states, who all already had slavery, could have continued owning slaves within the Union?
And if that's correct, didn't they go to war for more than just the right to own slaves?
I'm looking at this logically rather than from a deep understanding of the Civil War so please educate me if I'm missing some obvious point.
That's all you've got? That's one huge stretch and you know it.
The Southern/Northern divide in US politics is as big now as the Southern/Northern divide in Ireland. That shocks me, all things considered.
How can it be a stretch when just hours later you proved me right.
Lincoln's main concern was preserving the Union. Of course, he didn't start the civil war, the south did, and the south wanted to preserve slavery and felt that was at threat so they broke away.
When Lincoln said he had no problem with slavery existing in the states where it already existed was his concession to the South. However he was against slavery spreading to the West, and the South wanted slavery there as well.
Plus, the South did not think that they would start a civil war. They believed they could kick out union forces from the south, the north would concede and that would be it. Huge miscalculation on their part.
Understood.
I am not trying to label the whole south as all racist but there is definitely a level of wanting the south to return to the good ole days. I truly believe that America has not dealt with the evils of slavery and it's effects in an honest and sincere way. Until we do, this country will always be on edge of another civil war.
What, with the Mississippi poll?
Sorry to intrude on your Dixie-as-Gumdrop-Island fantasy with, you know, facts.
You dropped the "past/condemned/repeat" nugget. I think ignoring the present is just as dangerous.
How can our country and it's citizens, in 2011, deal honestly and sincerely with the effects of slavery?
Living in one of the original Confederate states for 30 years I can honestly tell you I rarely hear the laments of those yearning for the days of racial inequality......maybe they just don't exhibit these feelings in front of me.
Dude...there are 2,844,658 people in the state of Mississippi.
The "factual" poll you referenced states that 240 of them oppose interracial marriage.
That's like 0.000118% of the states population.
Those are "facts".
It's this kind of bullshit that keeps our country divided.
Again, I am not saying all people from the south are racist, but there are a number of people that think that the south shall rise again to put blacks back in their place. By the way, many people you may know may never express these ideals or hatred around you but that certainly doesn't mean that they don't harbor these feelings or want to act upon them. Lastly, you're right about my experiences in Massachuestts...they were not fun times to say the least!
Amir.....I've seen people like the family you described and putting them on national TV is a lot more sensational than putting a white family from S.C. who supported, worked and voted for our President.
Just like putting out a poll that 60% of Republicans in Mississippi are against interracial marriage when in reality in represented a microscopic % of the state works to support a specific agenda....it's certainly not honest or sincere.
To deal honestly and sincerely I think we have to represent our society as a whole and not focus on ignorance.....the latter is exactly what racists do.
I ask the following question because I, as an individual, want to do my part to help heal this country and have it's people come together....
"How can our country and it's citizens, in 2011, deal honestly and sincerely with the effects of slavery?"
Wow. So scientific polling is bullshit?
An awful lot of people are paying an awful lot of money for that kind of bullshit all the time.
And the fact that the state's current Governor thinks Mississippi 1964 was just one great big tub of good times for black folks can't possibly have any significance at all. They were probably too busy singing and dancing to care about a few murders and that pesky not-being-allowed-to-vote stuff. Shucks. Maybe he's right. Maybe if he runs I'll work for his campaign as a tribute to MLK's memory.
I'm imagining this shit. Three recent Republican chairmen are imagining it, too. There are no regional differences at all, ever, and it's unconscionable to even suggest that there are.
After all, the key to uniting this country is to pretend that it's already united.
(And those birthers? Never mind them, they're only a majority of Republicans, but that was just another bullshit poll and they're not racists. They're just sticklers for paperwork.)
The poll you referenced involved 400 people.....must have cost millions....and is damn scientific.....please.
There are plenty of scientific polls that are meaningful....a sample of 400 out of 2.8 million is not, no matter how you try to spin it.
Which family do you think would be easier to find?
10% of white Alabamans voted for Obama according to exit polls. National polling showed McCain beat Obama by 55-43% among white voters.
I could look and see if there's data for South Carolina, but it's not like it would matter since you dismiss all polls as bullshit.
Is there a secret cabal of Illuminati making all this stuff up? How come it's all so damned consistent? Someone is really pulling some big time strings in the fabric of reality.
I feel so used.
Show me the polls you respect that show results contrary to what I'm suggesting.
And all scientific polling is done with relatively small samples. You know that already, so who is actually doing the spinning here?
The first thing I thought of when Rich asked what can I do about the injustices of the past (slavery) is "name them for what they are". When you see a rebel flag, tell people that it stands for slavery and is hurtful and deeply unpatriotic. When you go to a civil war museum and it doesn't accurately portray history, complain to the management. People change when they know they are not supported by honest and reasonable people. Most of these people are not even that conscious of the effect their views have on other people. Confronting their reality is a very important step in helping them become aware.
I've had a very powerful experience such as I have been describing this year at my kids' school. Last year, I was appalled when I found out that my daughter's school held its black history celebration on a Saturday. My daughter and I were the only people in attendance who were not directly participating in the program. It dawned on me that my kids might grow up and not have the kinds of experiences I had coming up, where we celebrated the hugely positive changes wrought by the civil rights movement, where we learned about how things changed from people in the struggle. I spent much of the year talking to staff and parents at the school to figure out why we doing things this way. They all said that it was just the way it is. I spent a lot of time working to build support for a black history celebration that every child would be required to attend and would be a great experience for all. All of the dialog and reaching out paid off. A couple of weeks ago we brought in a bunch of blues and jazz musicians along with a noted African drummer to give an interactive concert on the history of black music and its relationship to the struggle for freedom. The response from students,staff and parents was incredible. Next year we are looking to build a course around the subject matter that will culminate in the students putting on our black history assembly themselves with the support and training of the musicians.
For those who say the there is no difference between the south and north I just can't say that has been my experience. On that same trip to the south I took in 1988, I was in a bar drinking. My friend ordered a coke and the bartender replied,
"we don't sell n****r pop here." My friend who grew up in DC and how seen a lot of racial tension in his time had never heard anything like it. My sister, a proud black woman, who lives in Atlanta, tells me horror stories about the south all the time. That's not to say that she doesn't have bad things to say about the North but it ain't even near the level of animosity and fear that we're talking about in the dirty. It's bad enough that I really get sad when my nephew has to go back home after he comes to stay with his grandma and uncles every summer.
One thing that I have learned from my sister is that black people and white people are not experiencing the same America. I think that's what makes effective communication about racism so hard. Most of us have an inner bullshit detector that is a product of our experiences. Unfortunately, when your experiences are totally different your inner BS detector might not be that accurate. This is a big problem because we trust our BE detector more than we trust other people.
Most independent polls are designed to attain a specific end point.....the old saying "Statistics never lie, but statisticians do" should be heeded.
As far as what makes up a meaningful poll I know you in particular will enjoy this description taken directly from the Gallup people.....they scoff at a 400 of 2.8 million sampling and see it as pretty meaningless.
The first one thousand people streaming out of a Yankees game in the Bronx clearly aren't representative of all Americans. Now consider a group compiled by selecting 1,000 people coming out of a Major League Baseball game in every state in the continental United States -- 48,000 people! We now have a much larger group -- but we are still no closer to representing the views of all Americans than we were in the Bronx. We have a lot of baseball fans, but, depending on the circumstances, these 48,000 people may not even be a good representative sample of all baseball fans in the country -- much less all Americans, baseball fans or not.
Enjoyed the discussion with all of you, calling it a night.
So you flew the flag of surrender.
I hope it was a Rangers pennant and not that BAD, BAD Confederate flag.
BTW polls on elections tend to have very consistent results regardless of the entity doing the polls. Polling organizations that show disparate results don't usually stick around very long. They get stuck with the dreaded "outlier" label and who wants to pay for that kind of crap, etc.
So the "all polls are bullshit" ruse becomes the line of choice for people who can't produce any data, anywhere, to support their spurious conclusions. And no, I'm not impressed by the fact that no Klansmen come up to you shooting the shit on a regular basis. You're a big scary looking hippie and they know you're not one of them because your hair and beard would stick out from under a hood.
Try adding a swastika neck tattoo and you might get very different results.
If needing to get 5 hours sleep before I head out to work in the morning is surrender, then yeah, I surrender.
I never stated that all polls are meaningless...to the contrary, I'm a scientist and know if done correctly they can be accurate and meaningful.....and scientific.
The specific one you cited is bullshit.....seeking out and polling 240 like minded people out of 2.8 million means less than nothing when used to represent a large percentage of an entire state.
DrWu....our discussion on Treason//Traitor/violent overthrow is admittedly one of semantics.....The secession came first....it was deemed treason before any physical actions were taken which according to my understanding of Treason is an incorrect definition. The Union stating the secession was illegal lead to the Sumter episode which was definitely an attempt to violently overthrow the Union Government. If the secession was allowed, there probably wouldn't have been a war....at least not at that time.
Slavery was the biggest issue in the Civil War....even in Oklahoma where Native American slave owners joined forces with the Confederates.
The things that I can do to honestly and sincerely address the effects of slavery are unfortunately limited to being colorblind when hiring associates and treating everyone equally after I do.....teaching my children about every kind of racism and hoping that their actions and ideals moving forward works toward a society that judges people only by their actions. I've been involved in my community but not necessarily on a racial black/white level....I've worked with and coached 100's of kids of all walks of life and tried to make their life a little better and them better people.....hopefully I've reached at least a couple.
I enjoy discussing problems but it's a lot better to discuss solutions.