So now that slavery never happened...

Thread title intentionally misleading...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/150-years-later-schools-are-still-a-battlefield-for-interpreting-civil-war/2015/07/05/e8fbd57e-2001-11e5-bf41-c23f5d3face1_story.html

I'm wondering if they'll ever add the part to the "slavery" section in history books about black slave owners and white hereditary slaves.

"
Texas officials: Schools should teach that slavery was ‘side issue’ to Civil War"

Are they wrong?

xsanguine wrote:I'm wondering if they'll ever add the part to the "slavery" section in history books about black slave owners and white hereditary slaves.

I like how slavery is in quotes. Like it never happened or something.

xsanguine wrote:"
Texas officials: Schools should teach that slavery was ‘side issue’ to Civil War"

Are they wrong?

Yes. First, federalism was established to further protect individual liberties. It was never about states being able to do whatever they want. Second, the Civl War was about slavery for the south. States' rights was just a convenient slogan to hide behind. Hell, even the article links to a very famous speech given by Alexander Stephens that says as much.

How do you get that I'm implying slavery didn't exist because I decided to put slavery in quotes to refer to it as a specific section in history books?

Turtleneck wrote:Yes. First, federalism was established to further protect individual liberties. It was never about states being able to do whatever they want. Second, the Civl War was about slavery for the south. States' rights was just a convenient slogan to hide behind. Hell, even the article links to a very famous speech given by Alexander Stephens says as much.

It really was a question open to discussion. And I was referring that question to the reason why the north decided to wage war... because I've read that from the North's perspective it was about the Union... not that it's primary aim was a benevolence to free the slaves.

For some reason I've been getting a little bit of a weird vibe from you, TN... you use to seem like you wanted to discuss interesting, theoretical topics for the sake of having a friendly conversation about some of the more unorthodox subjects out there... but lately, like I mentioned... you seem to have taken umbrage with me.
Maybe how I'm perceiving your intent is off... it's very possible, I'm just curious why the apparent change? Because the last post seemed to be the most revealing of that change if my intuition is correct.

xsanguine wrote:How do you get that I'm implying slavery didn't exist because I decided to put slavery in quotes to refer to it as a specific section in history books?

Why would you put it in quotes if you were not trying to imply slavery was something less than what we are taught about slavery. Sure, a few free blacks owned slaves. I doubt the numbers are all that significant compared to white slave owners. It just seems like a way to distract from a genuine discussion about our own history.

xsanguine wrote:

Turtleneck wrote:Yes. First, federalism was established to further protect individual liberties. It was never about states being able to do whatever they want. Second, the Civl War was about slavery for the south. States' rights was just a convenient slogan to hide behind. Hell, even the article links to a very famous speech given by Alexander Stephens says as much.

It really was a question open to discussion. And I was referring that question to the reason why the north decided to wage war... because I've read that from the North's perspective it was about the Union... not that it's primary aim was a benevolence to free the slaves.

For some reason I've been getting a little bit of a weird vibe from you, TN... you use to seem like you wanted to discuss interesting, theoretical topics for the sake of having a friendly conversation about some of the more unorthodox subjects out there... but lately, like I mentioned... you seem to have taken umbrage with me.
Maybe how I'm perceiving your intent is off... it's very possible, I'm just curious why the apparent change? Because the last post seemed to be the most revealing of that change if my intuition is correct.

You likely have a point about the north, but for the south it was about preserving slavery behind the curtain of states' rights. Either way, it was the central issue that drove the north and south apart.

As for my demeanor, you stole my Knight Rider lunch box at the hipster anarchist picnic. Not cool. I am all for sharing, so you just needed to ask if you could borrow it, bro.

Turtleneck wrote:

xsanguine wrote:How do you get that I'm implying slavery didn't exist because I decided to put slavery in quotes to refer to it as a specific section in history books?

Why would you put it in quotes if you were not trying to imply slavery was something less than what we are taught about slavery. Sure, a few free blacks owned slaves. I doubt the numbers are all that significant compared to white slave owners. It just seems like a way to distract from a genuine discussion about our own history.

xsanguine wrote:

It really was a question open to discussion. And I was referring that question to the reason why the north decided to wage war... because I've read that from the North's perspective it was about the Union... not that it's primary aim was a benevolence to free the slaves.

For some reason I've been getting a little bit of a weird vibe from you, TN... you use to seem like you wanted to discuss interesting, theoretical topics for the sake of having a friendly conversation about some of the more unorthodox subjects out there... but lately, like I mentioned... you seem to have taken umbrage with me.
Maybe how I'm perceiving your intent is off... it's very possible, I'm just curious why the apparent change? Because the last post seemed to be the most revealing of that change if my intuition is correct.

You likely have a point about the north, but for the south it was about preserving slavery behind the curtain of states' rights. Either way, it was the central issue that drove the north and south apart.

As for my demeanor, you stole my Knight Rider lunch box at the hipster anarchist picnic. Not cool. I am all for sharing, so you just needed to ask if you could borrow it, bro.

I'm not sure if you've noticed but I tend to use a lot of what others would consider unnecessary symbols of English writing... I use semicolons like periods, parenthesis like I'm drinking water and quotations like commas. I had no intention of demeaning slavery but separating the word because I was referring to it as a topic within history books. I put a lot of words in quotations that have no sarcastic intentions.

I was coming from the perspective of the north... and if anything demeaning the credit they're given for starting the Civil War. Like I said, from everything I've read... even in our history books... the north wasn't as interested in ending slavery as it was in keeping the Confederacy from leaving. That's why I mentioned it, as a "don't be so quick to paint the north as angels"... not because I have any affinity for the south.

From what I've read, in South Carolina as high as 40% of free blacks owned slaves. I don't know if there's ever been any national numbers with regards to either free blacks but we do know that at the height of slavery the percentage of whites that owned slaves in the U.S. was 1.4%... or about 4.8% of southern whites. At the height of slavery there were 500,000 black slaves and 300,000 white slaves... and in 1860 3,000 blacks owned 20,000 black slaves. That's not very insignificant and the reason I bring it up is because it would appear to me that omitting such numbers from history books seems to indicate a narrative being pushed.

Because either way that's not a very significant amount of whites owning slaves, either. So omitting black slave owners and not mentioning how small a number of whites owned slaves yet only mentioning white slave owning just seems to want to unfairly demonize a group of people that ended up being the ones to end American slavery. Europe ended the practice of slavery far sooner than the rest of the world. Even today in Africa, where slavery far predates European slavery... slavery still exists. The movie Roots shows scenes of white slave hunting parties scouring the jungles and trapping Africans for transport back to America... which is historically inaccurate, but this is what is taught.
I went to schools that had just as many black students as white... and in elementary school everyone got a long, we all played on the playground at recess and no one ever even mentioned race. Forward to middle school where these sorts of things start to get taught (historically inaccurate or omitting important parts of the narrative) and you noticed the grounds start to separate and define themselves largely by race. It's why I have such an issue with this issue because all it seems to do is create a racial division amongst children. There's this whole thing that "parents create racists", but in my experience teachers and the schools created the racial division that existed in my neck of the woods.
I don't think that would have happened or at least wouldn't have happened at nearly the level it did if even just accurate facts about the topic would have been taught.

As far as the demeanor... it's fine if something I said irked you, I'm not everyone's favorite person. I just found it interesting because that's usually something the more dramatic posters get involved in. I don't know... maybe I'm just seeing something that's not there.

I don't think it's really even in doubt that the north didn't go to war to end slavery but to save the union. Hell, the Emancipation Proclamation didn't even free the slaves in the four slave states that remained in the Union. It only applied to the Southern states (which means it was all but pointless since the South wasn't too keen on listening to Lincoln at the time.)

At the same time, I think it's foolish to even imply that without slavery the war would have still happened. To be clear i'm referring to the Texas schools, not anything anyone here said. Slavery was the central point that drove the sides apart over the course of about 50 years. And yeah the "it was about states rights" argument is pretty silly since the specific right they were looking to keep was the right to decide if they could own people.

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:the "it was about states rights" argument is pretty silly since the specific right they were looking to keep was the right to decide if they could own people.

Agreed. The GOP has been into revising history. I guess that's what all politicians do, though.

History should be told just as it happened. A lot of it is going to be ugly and show the side of the story most would rather forget. But it should be presented just as it happened... the way it happened for everyone. It does no one any good to omit or even worse, lie about the way things played out. Just tell it like it is.

xsanguine wrote:

Turtleneck wrote:

Why would you put it in quotes if you were not trying to imply slavery was something less than what we are taught about slavery. Sure, a few free blacks owned slaves. I doubt the numbers are all that significant compared to white slave owners. It just seems like a way to distract from a genuine discussion about our own history.



You likely have a point about the north, but for the south it was about preserving slavery behind the curtain of states' rights. Either way, it was the central issue that drove the north and south apart.

As for my demeanor, you stole my Knight Rider lunch box at the hipster anarchist picnic. Not cool. I am all for sharing, so you just needed to ask if you could borrow it, bro.

I'm not sure if you've noticed but I tend to use a lot of what others would consider unnecessary symbols of English writing... I use semicolons like periods, parenthesis like I'm drinking water and quotations like commas. I had no intention of demeaning slavery but separating the word because I was referring to it as a topic within history books. I put a lot of words in quotations that have no sarcastic intentions.

I was coming from the perspective of the north... and if anything demeaning the credit they're given for starting the Civil War. Like I said, from everything I've read... even in our history books... the north wasn't as interested in ending slavery as it was in keeping the Confederacy from leaving. That's why I mentioned it, as a "don't be so quick to paint the north as angels"... not because I have any affinity for the south.

From what I've read, in South Carolina as high as 40% of free blacks owned slaves. I don't know if there's ever been any national numbers with regards to either free blacks but we do know that at the height of slavery the percentage of whites that owned slaves in the U.S. was 1.4%... or about 4.8% of southern whites. At the height of slavery there were 500,000 black slaves and 300,000 white slaves... and in 1860 3,000 blacks owned 20,000 black slaves. That's not very insignificant and the reason I bring it up is because it would appear to me that omitting such numbers from history books seems to indicate a narrative being pushed.

Because either way that's not a very significant amount of whites owning slaves, either. So omitting black slave owners and not mentioning how small a number of whites owned slaves yet only mentioning white slave owning just seems to want to unfairly demonize a group of people that ended up being the ones to end American slavery. Europe ended the practice of slavery far sooner than the rest of the world. Even today in Africa, where slavery far predates European slavery... slavery still exists. The movie Roots shows scenes of white slave hunting parties scouring the jungles and trapping Africans for transport back to America... which is historically inaccurate, but this is what is taught.
I went to schools that had just as many black students as white... and in elementary school everyone got a long, we all played on the playground at recess and no one ever even mentioned race. Forward to middle school where these sorts of things start to get taught (historically inaccurate or omitting important parts of the narrative) and you noticed the grounds start to separate and define themselves largely by race. It's why I have such an issue with this issue because all it seems to do is create a racial division amongst children. There's this whole thing that "parents create racists", but in my experience teachers and the schools created the racial division that existed in my neck of the woods.
I don't think that would have happened or at least wouldn't have happened at nearly the level it did if even just accurate facts about the topic would have been taught.

As far as the demeanor... it's fine if something I said irked you, I'm not everyone's favorite person. I just found it interesting because that's usually something the more dramatic posters get involved in. I don't know... maybe I'm just seeing something that's not there.

Once again the numbers show that just about 1% of the population of the South would have been affected by the freeing of the Slaves.  Rich man's war fought by poor men.

The War of Rebellion was all about Slavery, it is why the Southern Slaver owners rebelled.

xsanguine wrote:

Turtleneck wrote:

Why would you put it in quotes if you were not trying to imply slavery was something less than what we are taught about slavery. Sure, a few free blacks owned slaves. I doubt the numbers are all that significant compared to white slave owners. It just seems like a way to distract from a genuine discussion about our own history.



You likely have a point about the north, but for the south it was about preserving slavery behind the curtain of states' rights. Either way, it was the central issue that drove the north and south apart.

As for my demeanor, you stole my Knight Rider lunch box at the hipster anarchist picnic. Not cool. I am all for sharing, so you just needed to ask if you could borrow it, bro.

I'm not sure if you've noticed but I tend to use a lot of what others would consider unnecessary symbols of English writing... I use semicolons like periods, parenthesis like I'm drinking water and quotations like commas. I had no intention of demeaning slavery but separating the word because I was referring to it as a topic within history books. I put a lot of words in quotations that have no sarcastic intentions.

I was coming from the perspective of the north... and if anything demeaning the credit they're given for starting the Civil War. Like I said, from everything I've read... even in our history books... the north wasn't as interested in ending slavery as it was in keeping the Confederacy from leaving. That's why I mentioned it, as a "don't be so quick to paint the north as angels"... not because I have any affinity for the south.

From what I've read, in South Carolina as high as 40% of free blacks owned slaves. I don't know if there's ever been any national numbers with regards to either free blacks but we do know that at the height of slavery the percentage of whites that owned slaves in the U.S. was 1.4%... or about 4.8% of southern whites. At the height of slavery there were 500,000 black slaves and 300,000 white slaves... and in 1860 3,000 blacks owned 20,000 black slaves. That's not very insignificant and the reason I bring it up is because it would appear to me that omitting such numbers from history books seems to indicate a narrative being pushed.

Because either way that's not a very significant amount of whites owning slaves, either. So omitting black slave owners and not mentioning how small a number of whites owned slaves yet only mentioning white slave owning just seems to want to unfairly demonize a group of people that ended up being the ones to end American slavery. Europe ended the practice of slavery far sooner than the rest of the world. Even today in Africa, where slavery far predates European slavery... slavery still exists. The movie Roots shows scenes of white slave hunting parties scouring the jungles and trapping Africans for transport back to America... which is historically inaccurate, but this is what is taught.
I went to schools that had just as many black students as white... and in elementary school everyone got a long, we all played on the playground at recess and no one ever even mentioned race. Forward to middle school where these sorts of things start to get taught (historically inaccurate or omitting important parts of the narrative) and you noticed the grounds start to separate and define themselves largely by race. It's why I have such an issue with this issue because all it seems to do is create a racial division amongst children. There's this whole thing that "parents create racists", but in my experience teachers and the schools created the racial division that existed in my neck of the woods.
I don't think that would have happened or at least wouldn't have happened at nearly the level it did if even just accurate facts about the topic would have been taught.

As far as the demeanor... it's fine if something I said irked you, I'm not everyone's favorite person. I just found it interesting because that's usually something the more dramatic posters get involved in. I don't know... maybe I'm just seeing something that's not there.

You forgot ellipses.  You use a lot of ellipses.  Have you considered the em-dash?

Rick Saunders wrote:

xsanguine wrote:

I'm not sure if you've noticed but I tend to use a lot of what others would consider unnecessary symbols of English writing... I use semicolons like periods, parenthesis like I'm drinking water and quotations like commas. I had no intention of demeaning slavery but separating the word because I was referring to it as a topic within history books. I put a lot of words in quotations that have no sarcastic intentions.

I was coming from the perspective of the north... and if anything demeaning the credit they're given for starting the Civil War. Like I said, from everything I've read... even in our history books... the north wasn't as interested in ending slavery as it was in keeping the Confederacy from leaving. That's why I mentioned it, as a "don't be so quick to paint the north as angels"... not because I have any affinity for the south.

From what I've read, in South Carolina as high as 40% of free blacks owned slaves. I don't know if there's ever been any national numbers with regards to either free blacks but we do know that at the height of slavery the percentage of whites that owned slaves in the U.S. was 1.4%... or about 4.8% of southern whites. At the height of slavery there were 500,000 black slaves and 300,000 white slaves... and in 1860 3,000 blacks owned 20,000 black slaves. That's not very insignificant and the reason I bring it up is because it would appear to me that omitting such numbers from history books seems to indicate a narrative being pushed.

Because either way that's not a very significant amount of whites owning slaves, either. So omitting black slave owners and not mentioning how small a number of whites owned slaves yet only mentioning white slave owning just seems to want to unfairly demonize a group of people that ended up being the ones to end American slavery. Europe ended the practice of slavery far sooner than the rest of the world. Even today in Africa, where slavery far predates European slavery... slavery still exists. The movie Roots shows scenes of white slave hunting parties scouring the jungles and trapping Africans for transport back to America... which is historically inaccurate, but this is what is taught.
I went to schools that had just as many black students as white... and in elementary school everyone got a long, we all played on the playground at recess and no one ever even mentioned race. Forward to middle school where these sorts of things start to get taught (historically inaccurate or omitting important parts of the narrative) and you noticed the grounds start to separate and define themselves largely by race. It's why I have such an issue with this issue because all it seems to do is create a racial division amongst children. There's this whole thing that "parents create racists", but in my experience teachers and the schools created the racial division that existed in my neck of the woods.
I don't think that would have happened or at least wouldn't have happened at nearly the level it did if even just accurate facts about the topic would have been taught.

As far as the demeanor... it's fine if something I said irked you, I'm not everyone's favorite person. I just found it interesting because that's usually something the more dramatic posters get involved in. I don't know... maybe I'm just seeing something that's not there.

You forgot ellipses.  You use a lot of ellipses.  Have you considered the em-dash?

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