Slavery by Another Name

**Taosaur** · 07-02-2008 06:01 AM

Originally Posted by Half/Dreaming

I'm not your friend, buddy.

And what makes you think I have a cause, beyond that except pointing out FAKE sympathy when I see it?

The truth is that there are only a few people on this planet that care enough about human enslavement to do anything about it. You, sir, are not one of them.

You hate southerners and you know it. You hate our way of life, assuming there is a "southerner's way of life". I'll bet you're one of those dudes that sees us as a backwards, redneck hillbilly area of the world. I bet my left nut on it. I know your style of northerner.

I'm not your buddy, guy.

You professed a cause of appearing tolerant before the rest of the world, while spitting bile at me for examining a part of our past of which I was largely unaware before today. I don't have rage against America--I have rage against motherfuckers with too much money trying to divide and conquer the people, and doing a fair job of it to this day. I have empathy with everyone else who woke up on the bottom of the pile in this country, to find the blood of their ancestors soaking a land of which they owned not one inch.

With the exception of SE Alabama/FL panhandle territory, my experience of Southerners has been pretty positive (acquired while basically carpet-bagging, though the company I worked for was based out of Tennessee). But yeah, there's a lot of racism and still a lot of tension in towns like Cleveland, MS, where the people on one side of the bayou have the same last names as the people on the other side, but they sure as hell don't want their kids going to school together. I also witnessed plenty of individual racism growing up in Pennsylvania, though it's not as institutionally expressed. I hope to hell we're ready to step above it in the present election, but we're never going to do it by pretending it's not there.

**apachama** · 07-02-2008 01:12 PM

I'm with Taosaur on this one. Not everyone who expresses the opinion that slavery was a bad thing believes that all people in the Southern USA are racist in the modern world.

**Half/Dreaming** · 07-02-2008 01:50 PM

Originally Posted by Taosaur

I'm not your buddy, guy.

You professed a cause of appearing tolerant before the rest of the world, while spitting bile at me for examining a part of our past of which I was largely unaware before today. I don't have rage against America--I have rage against motherfuckers with too much money trying to divide and conquer the people, and doing a fair job of it to this day. I have empathy with everyone else who woke up on the bottom of the pile in this country, to find the blood of their ancestors soaking a land of which they owned not one inch.

With the exception of SE Alabama/FL panhandle territory, my experience of Southerners has been pretty positive (acquired while basically carpet-bagging, though the company I worked for was based out of Tennessee). But yeah, there's a lot of racism and still a lot of tension in towns like Cleveland, MS, where the people on one side of the bayou have the same last names as the people on the other side, but they sure as hell don't want their kids going to school together. I also witnessed plenty of individual racism growing up in Pennsylvania, though it's not as institutionally expressed. I hope to hell we're ready to step above it in the present election, but we're never going to do it by pretending it's not there.

I'm not your guy, friend.

So what's your point? For all you know, that was a damn prison photo. There was probably a white guy tied up on a post right beside him. Maybe he was there because he raped a white woman, not because of the color of his skin.

Now you're on defense. Don't try to convince me you like southerners. But yes, the interview points out some important things. However, UM is right, and this happens in every country, in much worse ways.

**Taosaur** · 07-02-2008 04:19 PM

Originally Posted by Half/Dreaming

I'm not your guy, friend.

So what's your point? For all you know, that was a damn prison photo. There was probably a white guy tied up on a post right beside him. Maybe he was there because he raped a white woman, not because of the color of his skin.

Now you're on defense. Don't try to convince me you like southerners. But yes, the interview points out some important things. However, UM is right, and this happens in every country, in much worse ways.

Yeah, let's give it up, guy.

If you watched the interview, you have an idea of the context for that photo. It was a prison photo--a prison camp where blacks were rounded up on bullshit charges to keep a forced-labor economy going. I was aware that blacks were subject to police harassment and wrongful imprisonment long after the Civil War, but I did not know the extent to which it was a pretext to maintain a slave economy well into the 20th century.

You tell me how this history, and the way it's been obscured and ignored, reflect on the South present-day.

**Universal Mind** · 07-02-2008 04:33 PM

Originally Posted by Taosaur

You tell me how this history, and the way it's been obscured and ignored, reflect on the South present-day.

That comment really brings into question what your agenda is.

It has not been obscured and ignored. We all know how black people were getting majorly screwed way into the 20th century. It is a big issue. I knew about the labor camps long before you started this thread, and the mass lynchings were much worse and are often brought up even now. We also know that the South has a much better culture now. I never hung anybody or owned a slave, and I don't know a single person who ever did either. The people you are talking about are pretty much all dead now, most big cities in the South have black mayors, and nobody who can read is in the KKK at this point. Just in case you are trying to insult the modern South with this stuff, it is not going to work.