The very serious problem which has befallen present day wokers is the insistence that all white people have unjust privilege because Blacks were treated poorly. Blacks are about 14% of the population and it is absurd to assert that bad treatment of 14% is what made the other 86% wealthy. Of course, the other 85% is not wealthy. The moral evil which most current wokers, e.g. The 1619 Project, bring to us is the idea that Whites were only oppressors. They focus on Thomas Jefferson's owning slaves and totally discount the Dec of Indepen which he expressly worded to end slavery. One does not find any acknowledgement that it was White men alone who laid the foundation to end slavery. They did not do it in the Declaration for the same reason American Blacks have not rooted out all predatory behavior in their own community. Some laudable goals are not achievable at a particular time and place. Wokers present a simplistic and racist faux history which always ends up with "Give us Money."
The wokers are bringing a nasty backlash which will result in a deep red Congress after the Nov 2022. The wokers can cry racism all they want, but it will only elect more right wing GOP to office. In MLK's dream, Blacks were not attacking Whites. BTW, Juneteenth day is NOT about equality. It is about Freedom. Freedom and equality are immiscible. We can have equality by simply allowing everyone to be enslaved. I do not recall the salves in Galveston Texas on June 19th yelling for the Whites to become slaves just like thr Blacks so that they would all be equal.
Alongside our relative comfort and privilege I think our family myth is one of discovering America. My parents were literally the first to get out of Brooklyn, and the ideal of American politics is very important to all of us even if it has ended up midcentury liberal in all cases.
I wonder when this retroactive judgmentalism took hold? It seems very much like a religion for the irreligious. You find your GGGrandfather's obit difficult to believe? Perhaps you don't recognize a product of the South's "honor culture." Incidentally, the slaughter and the horror of the Haitian slave rebellions was a constant theme in the South's resistance to abolition. History is never so clear-cut to those living it. You should consider that born in the same circumstances at any time and any place you would hold the same beliefs and perform the same actions as those you so easily- I might say cheaply- condemn. My Irish and German ancestors settled in the North and wore blue. Oddly, they were more forgiving of their erstwhile deadly opponents than so many today who have never "seen the elephant." You might find Mary Chesnut's Civil War Diary a very interesting entry into the mind of the Old South - she was a friend of Mrs. Davis and a member of the planter elite. She is quite the character. Richard Taylor was Pres. Zachary Taylor's son and lead the Rebels in the battles in LA. His memoir "Destruction and Reconstruction" is an excellent picture of the war from a rather unreconstructed point of view. His personal attributes are in the mould of those ascribed to Morris. Plus, he is a rare writer. "The past isn't dead, it isn't even past." One more- a great read "Separate" by Luxenberg a wonderful and readable examination of the Plessy V Ferguson case. So much about the complications of color and caste in New Orleans post-war. Heroes and villains abound.
As to the question of “where did the money go”, look into the legal record. Pre Civil War, as a planter you could mortgage your slaves to raise money (big market in England for such securities). My (Union sympathizing) slaveholding family in Kentucky did that, and when emancipation came, there went the collateral, and the mortgage holders came after the land instead. The court record make fascinating reading. It was hundreds of acres of prime Bluegrass land. At today’s prices the value of the land would be at least $4 million. We were also working class until my great-grandfather married into a prosperous business-owning family in the 20th century.
I am just trying to say something friendly here. My great-grandparents' generation was the one which came through Ellis Island on both sides, and after my mother became interested in genealogy she could not really get any farther back than that. But if my great-grandmother had not been willing to run away to the United States to marry for love I would not be here at all.
This was a very interesting post to read! Really appreciated it. The history was fascinating to me.
Now you've gone and inspired me to order one of those 23&Me kits. I've been avoiding doing it for for a few years, for some reason.
The very serious problem which has befallen present day wokers is the insistence that all white people have unjust privilege because Blacks were treated poorly. Blacks are about 14% of the population and it is absurd to assert that bad treatment of 14% is what made the other 86% wealthy. Of course, the other 85% is not wealthy. The moral evil which most current wokers, e.g. The 1619 Project, bring to us is the idea that Whites were only oppressors. They focus on Thomas Jefferson's owning slaves and totally discount the Dec of Indepen which he expressly worded to end slavery. One does not find any acknowledgement that it was White men alone who laid the foundation to end slavery. They did not do it in the Declaration for the same reason American Blacks have not rooted out all predatory behavior in their own community. Some laudable goals are not achievable at a particular time and place. Wokers present a simplistic and racist faux history which always ends up with "Give us Money."
The wokers are bringing a nasty backlash which will result in a deep red Congress after the Nov 2022. The wokers can cry racism all they want, but it will only elect more right wing GOP to office. In MLK's dream, Blacks were not attacking Whites. BTW, Juneteenth day is NOT about equality. It is about Freedom. Freedom and equality are immiscible. We can have equality by simply allowing everyone to be enslaved. I do not recall the salves in Galveston Texas on June 19th yelling for the Whites to become slaves just like thr Blacks so that they would all be equal.
Alongside our relative comfort and privilege I think our family myth is one of discovering America. My parents were literally the first to get out of Brooklyn, and the ideal of American politics is very important to all of us even if it has ended up midcentury liberal in all cases.
I wonder when this retroactive judgmentalism took hold? It seems very much like a religion for the irreligious. You find your GGGrandfather's obit difficult to believe? Perhaps you don't recognize a product of the South's "honor culture." Incidentally, the slaughter and the horror of the Haitian slave rebellions was a constant theme in the South's resistance to abolition. History is never so clear-cut to those living it. You should consider that born in the same circumstances at any time and any place you would hold the same beliefs and perform the same actions as those you so easily- I might say cheaply- condemn. My Irish and German ancestors settled in the North and wore blue. Oddly, they were more forgiving of their erstwhile deadly opponents than so many today who have never "seen the elephant." You might find Mary Chesnut's Civil War Diary a very interesting entry into the mind of the Old South - she was a friend of Mrs. Davis and a member of the planter elite. She is quite the character. Richard Taylor was Pres. Zachary Taylor's son and lead the Rebels in the battles in LA. His memoir "Destruction and Reconstruction" is an excellent picture of the war from a rather unreconstructed point of view. His personal attributes are in the mould of those ascribed to Morris. Plus, he is a rare writer. "The past isn't dead, it isn't even past." One more- a great read "Separate" by Luxenberg a wonderful and readable examination of the Plessy V Ferguson case. So much about the complications of color and caste in New Orleans post-war. Heroes and villains abound.
As to the question of “where did the money go”, look into the legal record. Pre Civil War, as a planter you could mortgage your slaves to raise money (big market in England for such securities). My (Union sympathizing) slaveholding family in Kentucky did that, and when emancipation came, there went the collateral, and the mortgage holders came after the land instead. The court record make fascinating reading. It was hundreds of acres of prime Bluegrass land. At today’s prices the value of the land would be at least $4 million. We were also working class until my great-grandfather married into a prosperous business-owning family in the 20th century.
I am just trying to say something friendly here. My great-grandparents' generation was the one which came through Ellis Island on both sides, and after my mother became interested in genealogy she could not really get any farther back than that. But if my great-grandmother had not been willing to run away to the United States to marry for love I would not be here at all.