Ian WhiteNAACP Protesting Confederate Celebration
December 20th 2010 11:14
Category: No Category
Today marks the 150th anniversary of South Carolina's succession from the Union. There will be a secession ball to honor it. So naturally the NAACP chapter of South Carolina are planning a peaceful march in protest. The march will be in downtown Charleston and will include a Q&A session on slavery and a viewing of the KKK propaganda film Birth of a Nation.
A quick digression on marches these days. They're stupid. In the old days of demonstrations, with the Dr. King's and Malcolm X's and Huey Newton’s, thousands would just pick up and gather outside of wherever they were protesting to make themselves heard.
Picking a route, orderly filing in and preaching to the choir will solve nothing. Nobody new is hearing what you have to say, nothing you're doing puts pressure on anyone.
Meanwhile at the Gaillard Municipal Auditorium, ball attendees will pay $100 a ticket, don formal, period dress, and eat and dance the Virginia Reel as a band plays “Dixie.” The highlight will be a play reenacting the signing of South Carolina’s Ordinance of Secession 150 years ago. Afterwards there will be a reenactment of black people cleaning the place up after everyone is finished.
Yes the celebration of slavery is the usual cause of controversy when southerners let the confederate flag fly. To them they don't think it's about that.
The ball is a way to honor the brave S.C. men who stood up to an over-domineering federal government, high tariffs and Northern states that wanted to take the country in an economic direction that was not best for the South, - Mark Simpson, the S.C. division commander for the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
It's the same rallying cry of the tea party even today. Some southerners have even called for another succession, so they can escape the overbearing government and have individual state rights. Like the right to traffic human beings.
The dirty little secret about the Civil War is that it wasn't fought over freeing the slaves. It was purely economical. You think the North cared? Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, all had slaves. They didn't care. It was about the South not wanting to be bossed around by the North, instead wanting to subjugate black people without interference.
This has been an American culture that nourishes racial intolerance. Guys like Mark Simpson may be generally nice people, but racism has been so blatant, intense, and ubiquitous that white supremacy becomes subconscious. Even when blacks were toiling away in fields whites were taught that they were lazy and inferior. Most were oblivious during segregation about the way blacks were treated, and about their contributions to the world. Schools and the media made sure of it. They were all conditioned for lack of empathy.
So that's why when Mark Simpson thinks about the anniversary of the succession. He reminisces about the brave men signing what for many was their death warrant. Standing up for what they believed in. A brave Carolinian man unafraid of death. His reverie doesn't go on long enough to see the slave woman who has his dinner prepared once he gets home.
A quick digression on marches these days. They're stupid. In the old days of demonstrations, with the Dr. King's and Malcolm X's and Huey Newton’s, thousands would just pick up and gather outside of wherever they were protesting to make themselves heard.
Picking a route, orderly filing in and preaching to the choir will solve nothing. Nobody new is hearing what you have to say, nothing you're doing puts pressure on anyone.
Meanwhile at the Gaillard Municipal Auditorium, ball attendees will pay $100 a ticket, don formal, period dress, and eat and dance the Virginia Reel as a band plays “Dixie.” The highlight will be a play reenacting the signing of South Carolina’s Ordinance of Secession 150 years ago. Afterwards there will be a reenactment of black people cleaning the place up after everyone is finished.
Yes the celebration of slavery is the usual cause of controversy when southerners let the confederate flag fly. To them they don't think it's about that.
The ball is a way to honor the brave S.C. men who stood up to an over-domineering federal government, high tariffs and Northern states that wanted to take the country in an economic direction that was not best for the South, - Mark Simpson, the S.C. division commander for the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
It's the same rallying cry of the tea party even today. Some southerners have even called for another succession, so they can escape the overbearing government and have individual state rights. Like the right to traffic human beings.
The dirty little secret about the Civil War is that it wasn't fought over freeing the slaves. It was purely economical. You think the North cared? Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, all had slaves. They didn't care. It was about the South not wanting to be bossed around by the North, instead wanting to subjugate black people without interference.
This has been an American culture that nourishes racial intolerance. Guys like Mark Simpson may be generally nice people, but racism has been so blatant, intense, and ubiquitous that white supremacy becomes subconscious. Even when blacks were toiling away in fields whites were taught that they were lazy and inferior. Most were oblivious during segregation about the way blacks were treated, and about their contributions to the world. Schools and the media made sure of it. They were all conditioned for lack of empathy.
So that's why when Mark Simpson thinks about the anniversary of the succession. He reminisces about the brave men signing what for many was their death warrant. Standing up for what they believed in. A brave Carolinian man unafraid of death. His reverie doesn't go on long enough to see the slave woman who has his dinner prepared once he gets home.
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Comment by Norm
Consumption Malfunction
Equal and Opposite
Arses and Elbows
Footy Power
I'd have to think seriously about freeing all the slaves' descendants from prison and poverty and compensating them by the million.
Comment by nightlydvdreview
Nightly DVD Review
Cinema Voyage
Green and Healthy
The Writer's Nook
Free all people who are in prison who are decendents of slaves? Reparations for something that happened to their great great grandparents? I totally disagree.
Slavery was a bad thing, yes. However, the reparations have already been made. How? In the US, each person now, regardless of color can even go so far as to become president. (It was not only black people and minorities that voted him in.)
Freeing people from prison because of something that happened to their grandparents is ridiculous. No one made that person deal drugs, kill someone, rape someone, steal something, or write bad checks. We cannot circumvent the law because of any feelings of guilt.
Further, you cannot pay reparations to people for slavery without charging the supplying country as well. Do you REALLY think that the Ivory Coast has enough money to pay? Also, how much is a life worth?
Here is why monetary reparations are ridiculous:
There are 38.1 million Black Americans in the United States (based on 2000 census data and we all know the population has increased in the last 10 years) Let's say we give each man woman and child $500,000 each.
The total comes out to over 19 trillion dollars.
Now, since we re-paid the GREAT GREAT GREAT grandchildren of slaves, who, by the way have a better standard of living than most countries in the world.
After we do that, we neet to pay the 2.5 million Native Americans $500,000 each for taking their land (plus another $100,000 because they are still segregated on reservation which equals out to be another $1.5 trillion. Next the Japanese that were in internment camps during WWII. What about the Catholics 100 years ago who were being persecuted by the Protestants and the government did little about that. (There were riots where people were never prosecuted for the deaths of others.)
Point is this: Paying reparations 200 years after the fact is pointless AND impossible. There is a point where money runs out and the only thing you can say is, "We're sorry it happened to your forefathers, but if it did not, you would not have the opportunities you have now."
The other questions are:
1. Who pays? My family never owned slaves. They were indentured servants. So, I owe nothing. My family did nothing. Should I have to pay because I am white? Isn't THAT racist too?
2. Where does the money come from? (We don't even have that much in circulation. We can't print it because it would throw the world market into chaos. When Germany had to pay expenses (reparations) after WW I it threw the world into a depression. They simply printed money to pay the bills.
Simply put. Reparations are not only not possible, they are ridiculous.
Comment by Ian White
A Cynic's-Eye-View
Amuse I
Collective Wit
Daily Wit
Over 100 million Africans were killed. Brought to a new world, they were stripped of their names, their heritage and put to work building America. Over the course of their enslavement they were raped, castrated, killed, and kept from learning. Once freed, they were not re-educated. Nor were they treated as citizens. Over the course of this period of segregation blacks were randomly hunted down and killed by whites. The best jobs they could get were cleaning up after white people or serving them food. Their school's were inferior, and when taught by white teachers, they were belittled and their history was concealed.
Once segregation ended you have a people who still face outright racism and are struggling to regroup and adapt to the still relucant whites who don't why blacks eating or learning with them. Their best chances of personal growth were came in the form of the civil rights activists like the Black Panthers who were targeted and taken out in most cases by the US government, specifically the FBI.
Then came Regan's economic policy that laid the groundwork for the crisis we have today, in addition to the foreign drug trafficking of the administration that flooded black neighborhoods with narcotics, further setting them back. No different from the opium wars. Then once drugs became an epidemic, institute the war on drugs and police brutality to kill or imprison minorities, and once released from a prison that doesn't focus on reform, blackball them from jobs because they have a record. In addition have banks redline minorities looking for business loans, just incase they want some wealth.
The result:
500 years behind, broken families, a community in shambles, its best leaders murdered, all by careful design.
Think of it like a race. Except you shoot one person in the legs and take off running. Then criticize them for not being able to keep up with the others.
Native Americans were at least given casinos. Asian Americans were left alone outside of world war 2. Reparations are imperative. But it's not about breaking off black people a check. It's about correcting a system that is designed for their disenfranchisement. The broken school systems, the negative media portrayal, the police, the war on drugs, the structure and cost of college, is designed for blacks to fail given the circumstances.
Barack Obama was raised by 2 white grandparents, is half-white which already gives him an edge since the fairer skinned black person has always been favored over the darker ever since slave times when they separated the house slaves from the field slaves. He only won because of the minority vote and the youth vote.
Comment by nightlydvdreview
Nightly DVD Review
Cinema Voyage
Green and Healthy
The Writer's Nook
As far as businesses go, it is the law. No one can discriminate based on race, religion, or sexual orientation. If they do, and it can be proven, God help them. They'll have to sell their business for legal defense.
Native Americans were not given Casinos. In fact, many people tried to get it stopped in some states because casinos are illegal where they live. However, that property belongs to the Native Americans. They do not have to pay income tax, sales tax, or ANY taxes that are not tribal, (as long as they don't move off of the reservation.)
My people (or my 1/2 people), Native Americans, were not taken from their country. No. Their country was taken from THEM. They were enslaved, murdered, and even a price placed on their head by the President of the United States Andrew Jackson. We need no reparations, although we were done, in my opinion, worse than the blacks. At least at the end of slavery, they were offered the possibility to return to Africa. Some did. Most did not.
BUT if reparations were to be made, you cannot arbitrarily give it to one race without giving it to another. Christopher Columbus's brother introduced slavery to the New World, in Hispanola, (Spanish/Italian), Ponce de Leon in Florida (French), Cortez (Spain), Portugal and England who transported the slaves. Who do we blame? The Spanish killed whole cities of Native Americans by knowingly giving them blankets that covered someone dying of small-pox and plague. (Referred to as "plague blankets.")
Let's look at it like they looked at the slaves... as property. If you receive stolen property, it is a crime. If you transport stolen property, it is a crime. If you buy stolen property, it is a crime. If you steal property it is a crime.
Africans on the Ivory Coast (and other areas) attacked tribes in the African interior to kidnap people to trade for guns, blankets, and fabric. They sold them to English and Portuguese ship captains who brought them to Puerto Rico and other areas for auction. The price for a slave was very expensive, so, only the wealthy were able to afford servants. In fact, slavery was beginning to die off on its own because it was beginning to be considered less of a status symbol among the wealthy. Indentured servants were cheaper and, as such, were more easily expendable. Family on my father's side were indentured servants. Mother's family is Native American. (Just to be clear.)
My point is this:
I cannot blame anyone today for what happened many years ago. No one walking the streets today holds my life in their hands, only I do that. No one makes decisions for me BUT me. I don't live on a reservation, although I qualify, and, although I am saddened by the past I can do nothing to change it. I studied it as a history major, and recognize its importance, but the only thing we can do now is not repeat the mistakes of the past. We need to look more to the future and to treat everyone EQUALLY. Without regard to the color of their skin, but to the content of their character.
The way things are now, a person can be whatever they have it in themselves to be. The older ones who perpetrate racism (at least on the white side) are dying off. However, some popular music talks about killing "whitey" and "crackers," idolizes those that are in jail and have gone to jail for running prostitution rings, selling drugs, and killing police.
Comment by Ian White
A Cynic's-Eye-View
Amuse I
Collective Wit
Daily Wit
And Africans did take the offer to go back to Africa. But the only reason whites financed that is because
1.They would have been a drain on the government since reeducation and civil rights were hundreds of years away
2.They discovered that the land in Africa was rich, so preffered that Africans settled there so that they can steal the resources later. Which they did, thus for instance why we have the blood diamond epidemic.
Another caveat of reparations. Stop exploiting Africa. They're enouraging and funding revolutions so they can leach off the resources.