Mass Shooting In Charleston

Was Lincoln a racist?

 

Probably not. He was a product of the 19th Century - Just like Samuel Clemens. You have to view things in the context of the time.

To not be racist 18th or 19th Century, one would have to fight against all the common knowledge of the day - go completely against the mainstream culture. So there were degrees of enlightenment from the absolute racist to the non-racist.

(Even in our time I have challenged so-called non-racists to consider how they would react if their teen child wanted to date someone of a different race)

Also, Lincoln was likely not gay. It was common in that time for two men to share a bed without having sex.

 

What is the common knowledge of this day? That race is just a social construct? That there are not significant biological differences?

 

Yeah, that's the politicaliy correct viewpoint.

Ppl have been saying for years that our DNA is more similar outside of racial groups than within, but now they are taking DNA to compare to databases to see which part of Africa black ppl have come from. I have taken issue with some of this PC denial.
Wrote an article in the last century about it.

Racial Difference
Shale Stone
October 1995
(Published: INTERRACE Magazine Vol. 7, No 1, issue 35, 1996)

Increasingly, the political correctness pressures to make everyone equal, has become a confused effort at denying that anyone is different. Forgotten is the fact that equality does not require us to be a bland, genderless, unit of a colorless whole.

Instead of feeling free to celebrate diversity, everyone now has to second guess every comment that might draw attention to anyone's difference. While it's an observable fact that most African-Americans have more melanin in their skin than do most European-Americans, only those who are defiantly honest will dare say it.

Do I exaggerate? In 199l, a team of California researchers discovered that black women develop more bone mass than do white women at puberty. Although this fact is beneficial to the black women, who suffer fewer broken bones from the affects of osteoporosis in old age, the researchers were concerned about releasing the findings because it might feed racial stereotypes. But racial differences have already been established in other physical ailments, most prominent being sickle cell disease which affects black Africans and some Mediterranean whites. Statistics show that young white men get more testicular cancer than young black men. Blacks get more lung cancer than Whites. Cystic fibrosis affects mostly people of European origin. What causes these differences is not always known, but the demographics are there nonetheless, and it would be foolish for scientists to ignore them.

Those of us who read Interrace magazine and identify as one race, and our loved one as another, may be surprised to know that some anthropologists don't consider our relationships unique. Since the 1970s, many in the social sciences have been proposing that race is a construction, and doesn't really exist. We are one species and even on the genetic level, scientists point out that two people of the supposed same race may be more dissimilar than two people of different races. They also argue that sorting people by traits does not determine race. For example, brown skin includes Africans and Indians, and epicanthic eyelid folds are not only on Chinese and Japanese but also African Bushmen. While our genes may all line up the same way, and some similar traits may appear in groups of people from what are commonly thought to be different races, the idea that there are no racial differences is not universally accepted. There are still anthropologists who, like most of us observant "folk taxonomists," have pulled their head out of their microscopes long enough to look around and see that some groups of people are different than other groups of people. For example, how many brown Indians have tight curly hair like brown Africans, and how many Bushmen have straight hair like the Chinese. Racial identity may be a generality, but despite all the exceptions that the scientists point out, one can still discern that the Bushman is not Chinese.

As a writer of essays on the foibles of human society, I often encounter unusual subjects. In one such article, a treatise on the sensuality of underarm odor, I encountered the dilemma of how to deal with racial differences in an environment of dishonest denial, and hence got into this debate on the existence of race.

It seems that different races have different amounts of apocrine glands, those glands in the armpits that give us our familiar and peculiar odor. It was significant to the article to mention these racial differences, which compared Africans, Europeans, and Asians, or the three racial groups traditionally called Negroid, Caucasoid, and Mongoloid.

These traditional classifications go back about 200 years into our racist past, and unfortunately the Caucasoid men of science who used them also formulated hierarchical evolutionary theories about which races were more advanced and had nobler characteristics. Of course the Caucasoids had to be on top, and in order to exploit the Negroids they were seen as an inferior race and possibly a separate species. If it had just been a non-judgmental observation that there were three major groups of people on the planet, each with similar physical characteristics that differed from the other two, nobody would have argued the point. But, racism gave race a bad name.

Which brings me back to my problem - what to call those people who originate in Asia, have straight, coarse, black, hair, epicanthic eyelid folds, sparse body hair, and few, if any, apocrine glands in their armpits? National Geographic, as late as 1986, called them Orientals, which gives a common visual image, but is objectionable to many Asians. The 1994 Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia still refers to Caucasoid and Mongoloid among its five classifications of original races (Negroid is now replaced by Congoid and Capoid), so I decided to use Mongoloid with an explanatory footnote. Despite its use during a racist history, the word Mongoloid worked. It created an image of the people of Korea, China, Mongolia, and Japan, that I needed to convey. There may be social scientists who wince when they read it, but is it really necessary to throw out the races with the racism?

Part of their argument is understandable. There are no pure races. After thousands of years of interbreeding since the glacial era, and especially since the world migrations of the 15th century, there has been too much genetic sharing to take racial differentiation seriously. However, look around the world and you can't fail to notice that a lot of people in China still don't look like a lot of people in Africa. Even though anthropologists tell us we're genetically the same (we also share 98% of our genes with chimpanzees), there are obvious and observable physical differences, and in quite large populations.

It's also true that race is a construct, especially in racist societies that put cultural significance on being of one race or another. The historical black/white division of the U.S. that insisted on black inferiority, and created a "one drop rule" of determining black racial lineage shows how races can be artificially constructed. The result is that a "white" person with a tan can have darker skin than a "black" person. If the one drop rule worked both ways, most black people would have to acknowledge that they were white and most white people would have to acknowledge that they were black.

Race, it seems, is as much in the mind as in the body. We identify with an image of who we are in relation to others. Eventually, there may be just one race without all the visible differences with which we have traditionally categorized ourselves. From the mixtures I've seen of Africans and Whites, Africans and Asians, and Asians and Whites, there will be some beautiful biracial children, then multiracial children, until we homogenize down to just individual differences. This of course is centuries if not millennia away, so it won't be my world.

Which is good, for I would miss seeing the straight shiny black hair and almond eyes of the Mongoloids, and the chocolate brown skin and bushy curls of the Congoids, and even the occassional sky blue eyes and yellow hair of some Caucasoids.

 

Very well written Shale.

It is considered dangerous to make mention of cognitive differences between the races isn't it?

It's clear enough that every finalist in the 100 meter dash every Olympics is black, almost always of West African descent. The best long distance runners in the world are East African, think Kenya. The NBA is 85% black, and yet no calls for affirmative action there. It seems clear that teams are interested in attracting the most capable individuals.

When it comes to intellectual pursuits, and jobs that demand high technical skill, there is a demand that employers conform to some quota imposed by an outside source. There is a demand to ignore the most basic comparitive mathematics. 105 > 100 > 85

We live in a system of white privilege, nevermind East Asians benefit more from white privilege than do Europeans. We live in a time of intellectual privilege, and if you assert that truth loudly enough, you will be shouted down, fired, called names, and ostracized. It's a lonely time for truth warriors.

 

Quoted for emphasis. Very important when judging/placing a conviction on a person that lived in a different time, society and well.. context and why they did and thought like they did. Which makes me wonder how useful it is to paint a person like Columbus as a racist. Maybe something for another thread, but I was just thinking when we apply this principle on Lincoln why not on that guy?

 

Yeah, giving Columbus credit for being a product of the Inquisition mindset, but he was criticised by contemporaries of his time for going above and beyond the scope of cruelty. Even in those times there were ppl with compassion who would not do the heinous deeds that Columbus did. (maiming and killing native slaves for not producing gold, raping native women because they could).

 

As I'm sure you know....they did a hell of a lot more than that.

 

We don't take an honest look at the barbaric cultures of history, or of today. People were shitty thoughout history, and progress was made steadily, but very slowly. Western Europeans were the first in basically every breakthrough in civility. Look at what is happening in the world right now, see who is at the forefront of the progress every time. Oh Christopher Columbus was terrible many centuries ago? Look at what African people do to each other TODAY. Oh there was lynching as punishment for heinous crimes 100 years ago? Africans are lynching each other TODAY, often times for casting the evil eye, being a homosexual, or having two people accuse you of consorting with an enemy tribe. Google "african tire necklace" there are more examples than you can count, often it's happening to totally innocent people. Do a search for how albino people in Africa are hunted and killed for the magical properties of their body parts. Jesus Christ I'm so tired of the refusal to look at how brutal some groups are TODAY, instead we pat ourselves on the back for admitting how bad White people were in centuries past.

Hitting Kids http://cdn-images.9cloud.us/71/piccit_corporal_punishment___world__343472640.gif

Current Slavery Rates http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/10/17/this-map-shows-where-the-worlds-30-million-slaves-live-there-are-60000-in-the-u-s/

Birthrate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_birth_rate#mediaviewer/File:Birth_rate_figures_for_countries.PNG

Maybe partially due to all the raping going on there https://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/2013/07/11/statistics-muslim-countries-obsessed-with-womens-honour-have-one-of-the-highest-rape-scales-in-the-world/

Religiosity http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Religion_in_the_world.PNG

LGBT rights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_by_country_or_territory#mediaviewer/File:LGBT_rights_at_the_UN.svg

IQ http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IQ_by_Country.png

Was Christopher Columbus (1492) worse than the Africans that dismember albinos (2015)? Do we expect more of Christopher Columbus? Why?

 

I wasn't really speaking comparatively to anyone else or any other time frame. Just saying he did some seriously awful shit.

 

Yeah and I'm not trying to aim any of that criticism toward you. It's just bubbling up in response to all the insanity that's considered conventional wisdom.

Is it wrong to say that Europeans have been the fucking best at spreading liberal values of freedom and peacefulness? Shouldn't we always evaluate comparitively? If we can't name one group as a whole that's been better than Europeans, does European guilt make any fucking sense?

 

Just on land and structures that are maintained at taxpayer expense, other than historical sites. Ordinary public places shouldn't have any symbols that communicate (intentionally or accidentally) the message "fuck you" to any group of US citizens.

In the past week, two flag-related decisions have really irritated me. We can probably agree that both crossed the line.

The National Park Service announced that they will stop selling Confederate flags in their gift shops at historical sites. This comes dangerously close to history revision. I have absolutely no problem with a history geek displaying, as a part of his own collection of historical items and books in his home, a small set of flags that includes the various Confederate flags along with the US flag of that era (38 stars instead of 50). That's just honest and accurate history. If he buys a big Confederate flag and flies it outdoors, he's an asshole.

The other situation is at the National Cathedral in Washington (near Georgetown). They're removing a Confederate flag from a stained glass window that has a Civil War theme. It appears beside a US flag in a scene that was intended only to signify that the CW was a significant, traumatic event in US history.

History is more likely to repeat itself when we ignore it.

Now, there's talk of renaming some US Army bases that are currently named for Confederate generals. I have no problem with honoring Lee who is in a class by himself, but some of these bases are named for incompetent idiots, such as Bragg, Pickett, and Hood. Probably, that should have never happened.

SC seems to be making progress following the same pattern as NC, where enlightenment slowly spreads in all directions from the larger cities. In Virginia, the pattern seems to be entirely east to west, except for Charlottesville, which is far ahead of the curve.

I just spent a week in the Shenandoah region, which is still mostly hardcore Confederate, all the way down to Lexington. Some of that sentiment is just pro-Virginia fanaticism. In Winchester, one old lady tourguide said she didn't really have much of a problem with Sherman, since he didn't burn anything in Virginia. What a heartless bitch! How did she know I didn't have relatives from Georgia? I had been nothing but nice and polite to her. Maybe I set her off by saying something nice about Longstreet, who tends to get blamed by Virginians for losing the war. He was from the SC-GA border area. Stonewall Jackson is Winchester's local hero.

Intolerance is a disease without boundaries. I've met several people from Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island who detest and disrespect anyone who isn't Catholic, and there was a time up North when lots of businesses had signs in their windows, "No Irish". WTF? Irish? Really?

Packing for a long trip, I didn't have time last week to give a proper response.

I strongly suggest that you invest some time reading about John Brown, the Harper's Ferry incident, and public reaction to it. Even before the 1859 insurrection, there was significant concern on both sides of the Mason-Dixon that the slavery issue would not be able to be resolved without violence. Northerners were worried that there might be no peaceful way to end slavery, and Southerners feared that there might be no peaceful way to preserve slavery. No country on earth had ever freed so many slaves at one time, so nobody knew what would happen. Anarchy and mass (revenge) murder were possible. Northern abolitionists had no transition plan in mind.

After Harper's Ferry, Southerners were nearing a state of panic. Their worst fears seemed about to come true. Slavery had to be preserved at all costs. Many things were written during this time. Newspaper articles, editorials, speeches, letters, personal journals. At lot of this material has been preserved.

Southern leaders tried explaining that since black people were inferior and incapable of managing their own lives, white men had a responsibility as Christians to supervise and look after them. Therefore, slavery was somehow benevolent. This didn't make much of an impact on Northern thinking, so Southern leaders turned to legal arguments. The Founding Fathers intended for states to be more autonomous, they said. Northerners weren't buying that either. They saw right through the bullshit. Why did Southern states need more autonomy? So they could continue slavery, of course.

The next year, Lincoln ran on a platform of opposing the expansion of slavery into Western territories. As soon as he was elected, prominent South Carolina leaders such as John C. Calhoun began insisting in speeches and in writing that SC must leave the Union, before Lincoln got around to freeing the slaves. This kind of thinking spread to other Southern states like wildfire. A year later, shots were being fired.

It's all out there, if you care to look it up.

That everyone should have equal legal rights. It's not a legitimate role of government to declare one race to be inferior to another.

 

Karen, I agree about this overreaction by the Park Service and National Cathedral. Just because it is inappropriate to display the Rebel flag on current government bldgs. does not mean try to eraticate it from every venue. Civil war battlefields did have both flags flying and they should not censor that history.

I was commenting about places here in the South that have Confederate names. When we first came to Miami my daughter a black girl was attending Robert E. Lee Jr High. The school was built in 1924 when the sentiment here in Florida was still very Southern. Miami was nothing at the time. The school has since been torn down and replaced.

I was writing somewhere about the established Confederate monuments in historical places like New Orleans with Lee Circle and a very large statue of Gen. Beauregard in front of City Park, that are just too much a part of the city and its history to be removed.



Well, someone two days ago put grafiti on the base of the General's statue (Black Lives Matter) and someone has already started a fire at at the pedestal of Lee's statue.



And, some city official is now calling to remove those statues. That is bullshit, Like the 1924 school here in Miami, these post civil war monuments have been there so long that they are a part of the history of these cities. We cannot pretend that New Orleans or Charleston were not a part of the civil war. Ppl are saying relegate the Rebel flag to a museum, well these cities are that museum. Just do not give it any govt. recognition as they were doing in Charleston.

I mean it pisses me off every time I see that huge and beautifully carved statue dedicated to Christopher Columbus in front of Union Station in DC, but it was put there in simpler times (when the Knights of Columbus had power to insist on it). Anyhow, as for New Orleans, who's going to pay for removal of either of those huge statues (Lee is on a very tall pedestal and the streecar goes around the circle - that will be a tourist loss. That city has been so strapped since Katrina they don't even know what they are going to do with Charity Hospital, which is still boarded up.

But I really fault the PC ppl for jumping on everything just because one old redneck city insisted on flying a flag of a non-existent country. (Remember when the Smithsonian Air museum wanted to hide the Enola Gay because it was offensive to Japanese? Fuck. My uncle was killed by some Jap in 1944 - that was offensive). We have to portray and remember history not try to erase it. The Enola Gay may be offensive to many ppl today, not affected by WWII, but it is in a museum where it belongs.

 

I hope she learned at some point that Lee personally believed that slavery needed to end, but not before somebody came up with a rational and sensible transition plan that included job skills education for young black people and a gradual economic transition that would not bankrupt everyone in the South. Maybe something like freedom at a certain age for those who had completed a specific level of public education.

His loyalty to Virginia over the US is a highly debatable point, but it helps make the important point that everybody is different, and complex. Everybody needs to eventually learn that nobody is entirely good or bad.

Absolutely true. Thank god that New Orleans fell early, with little damage!

By the way, do you know when the statue in Lee Circle was replaced? It has a much larger one now, larger than the one in Richmond.

I feel the same way about General Sherman at the main entrance to Central Park in New York City. In modern times, he would be considered a war criminal.

These famous historic figures need to viewed as individuals with their own histories, not just as members of a group.

I'm not sure Christopher Columbus had bad intentions. He seems mostly clueless. The man thought he was in India. Damn. I've made my share of wrong turns before, but...

 

Local Rule! If the locals opt by vote to fly the Jolly Roger or the Stars and Bars over their capitol I can only thank them for the warning.

 

What if they vote to put all minorities in prison? Public beatings for gays?

The idea of minority rights was settled a long time ago.

 

So there was no immediate threat of Lincoln outlawing slavery in these places, it was just the paranoia of the southerners that led them to demand secession? Like if Texas tried to secede today over the impending gun grab?

Is it a legitimate policy to employ scorched earth tactics if a part of your empire demands the end to exorbitant taxation? What do you think about the tactics of General Sherman regarding women and children? Did the South have it coming?

 

Blacks murder one another all the time and in much larger numbers, visit St Louis or New Orleans sometime, thus why is it any worse when a lone white guy snaps and kills nine of them? I've had enough of political correctness.

 

The lives, property, and freedom of minorities are protected by the Constitution and Federal law, the matter of flags is covered under freedom of speech.

 

The Missouri Compromise and other similar agreements over the years had kept the balance of power in the US Senate such that the pro-slavery states always had a slight majority. Based on Lincoln's campaign rhetoric and increasing political pressure from Northern churches and abolitionist groups such as the one led by John Brown, Southern states became convinced that Lincoln would quickly find a way to put an end to slavery or at least restrict it so greatly that it couldn't survive in the long term. They were right. Lincoln didn't wait for Congress. The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order.

It did not cover Northern states, but there were very few of them that allowed slavery at that time, and the ones that did allow it had very few actual slaves in captivity. The shift to skilled labor / manufacturing jobs had changed their economies to the point where slaves no longer played an important role. Therefore, those states didn't need a lot of pressure from elsewhere to put a final end to legal slavery.

I'm not saying that all their "free" workers were always treated properly, but that's another topic for another day. At least they weren't slaves.

I more or less agree with General Lee that a well thought out plan for an orderly transition to paid labor might have been better than simply dumping all the slaves out into a bad job market, with no education, all at once. It was a very painful transition for everyone involved. Maybe not the most compassionate solution. Maybe that's why Lincoln didn't issue the order sooner; waiting for somebody to come forward with a comprehensive plan; a compromise.

War crimes, totally inconsistent with US government policies. In the eyes of Lincoln, Southern women and children were still US citizens who had committed no crimes, since he didn't recognize any right for a state to leave the Union. Sherman's brutal and heartless actions in Georgia and SC were not authorized by Lincoln or Grant. General Grant's idea of a scorched earth policy was more like the practices of Phillip Sheridan in northern Virginia, where crops and livestock were destroyed, because they were of value to the Confederate Army. Houses were left standing. Sherman left nothing taller than a blade of grass.

In an army internal investigation after the war, some officers claimed that Sherman was incompetent or apathetic and/or frequently drunk, and therefore didn't fully understand what his men were doing. The investigation was inconclusive, and Sherman was able to hang onto Grant's former job during most of Grant's presidency. He eventually resigned under pressure after being accused of extreme cruelty to Native American tribes, in direct defiance of President Grant's orders.