ImOuttaControl
Refugee
U2Kitten said:I don't think it's fair to call everyone in the south in those days 'ignorant'. Remember this country was started by the 'ignorant' George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and many other slave owners. I know it does no good to tell you all this, but it's not really fair to judge those people by 21st century standards. They were raised and lived a different way, and as I've said about other issues, people will twist, justify, and rationalize ANYTHING if they want to do it and not feel guilty. Some of them even found passages in the Bible (and there are some) to back up the master/slave thing as 'okay.' (ignoring, of course, the entire Moses saga about how bad it was to keep slaves and they should go free, and many old slave spirituals mentioned Moses so I know they saw this) People will pick and choose the things that make them feel more comfortable with their position. When the abolitionists, who were mostly religious and some of them extremists, started bugging the southerners to end slavery, some of the slaveholders' comments were 'don't try to run my life, stay out of my business' and 'if you don't want slaves don't own them but don't deny me my right' sound familiar? They also used the old dehumanizing factor to make themselves feel like they weren't a total human being (again harking to another issue of today) and even convincing themselves that they were HELPING the slaves because they were like 'children' and couldn't take care of themselves! Of course, all this is wrong, but those people, even very otherwise good, intelligent and learned men, felt that way because they had been raised that way and it was convenient to them so they could go ahead and do it and not feel guilty. It happens with a lot of things. While this is no excuse, it is something to consider before you label them all 'ignorant' and 'evil.' In their time, in their place, they were not.
And while you're on 'human rights abuses' don't forget the shout out to the Union armies under Sherman and Sheridan who targeted civilians even if they had nothing to do with the war and owned no slaves. Homes were destroyed, women of both races raped, things stolen. Farms were burned, loaded barns and crops in the field destroyed. Houses were burned down around helpless women and children. Towns were under seige, the Union army hurling cannonballs and explosives which randomly hit homes and businesses until in some places, like Vicksburg, Miss., they were forced to live underground! Both there and in Petersburg, VA, the civilians resorted to eating rats! And some of you think Americans have never suffered from a war. This was a legacy of hatred that did not go away either. Then give kudos to those conquering heroes for going out west declaring 'the only good Indian is a dead Indian' and performing genocide, yes genocide, on the Native tribes, including women and children, some in places that had been declared 'safe' by the US government!
Great points. The problem a lot of people have is they want to be able to fit history into a neat little box and to be able to label everything when none of us today can possibly fathom what it was like to be raised in a society where slavery existed and most blacks were viewed as sub human(yes, even in the north). Many viewed blacks simply as animals. Many thought slavery was a blessing for blacks because it brought them into christianity. And don't forget, the VAST MAJORITY of southerners never owned slaves; they fought for something else...hmmm...my oh my things aren't fitting so nicely..So for these people is the confederate flag an evil thing?
I got my masters degree studying the Civil War so I've obviously studied it extensively, and I don't think it's fair for us to label people in this point in the past as "ignorant"...ect because we can never truely know what it was like to be a product of 1850's society. Both north and south people were raised to believe in the inferiority of Africans. This is a far out example, but think of this way. Maybe in 150 years people will begin telling of how ignorant people in 2004 were because we kept dogs as pets...I mean dogs as pets! "How could those ignorant people in 2004 not realize that those "pets" have complex feelings...ect."