The
Confederacy and Black Lives Matter
This
video was sent to me by a very conservative Marine buddy, a combat vet who was
a company commander in Vietnam. His nickname is “Machete Eddie.”
I
was going to watch only a few minutes, but ended watching the whole thing. I
think you should to. It is a defense of Black Lives Matter by an excellent,
articulate black defense attorney, Jeffery Robinson. It’s worth knowing how at
least this intelligent black man sees things.
Much
of what he says about the confederacy I agree with. I have never believed the “lost
cause” myth. Every state declaration of succession cites the need to protect
slavery as a primary reason for succession. The south succeeded because they
knew that “Black republican” Lincoln was opposed to slavery and thought his
election meant the federal government would come after it. So by all means,
remove Confederate statutes, though I would prefer moving them to museums to destruction.
So I agree that the south was fighting for slavery and succession was treason.
For
a different view by Walter Williams, PhD, a distinguished black economist, see:
Historical Ignorance and Confederate Generals. Walter E. Williams
Like
a good defense attorney, Robinson cites the points in his clients’ favor, and
ignores the rest.
He
doesn’t say why BLM would destroy the statute of Frederick Douglas, an escaped
slave and abolitionist leader. Or the statute of Col. Hans Christian Heg, a Wisconsin
abolitionist who led a regiment in battle against the slave power.
Why deface the monument
to the 54th Massachusetts, a black regiment that served bravely? (I
have a special interest. My great, great grandfather, Sgt. Oliver Vernal,
served through the war with the 6th Connecticut, and was badly wounded
twice putting down the slave power. Had he died I would have died with him. The
6th went in next to the 54th at Battery Wagner, but they
didn’t make the movie Glory. I might say his history was erased.)
Why deface the statute of
Gen. Grant? True, Grant may be said to have technically owned slaves because
his wife did. But without his leadership, would the confederacy have been
defeated? And as president he defended the rights of black citizens and broke
the Klan.
In Robinson’s view, the
south was fighting for slavery while the north, apparently, was only fighting
to preserve the Union.
He quotes Lincoln as
saying he would keep slavery if it would preserve the Union. He passes over numerous
quotes from Lincoln against slavery. What he doesn’t understand is that if
slavery was to be ended, the south had to be defeated. To do that, Lincoln knew
that he had to keep the north united. There were a great many in the north who
though slavery was a bad thing, but were not abolitionists, fearing what that
meant for society. Without their support, the north would have lost the war. And
slavery would likely have existed another 20-30 years, followed by an Apartheid
country with a long border with the US. Would this have been a good
thing?
The
usual estimate is the 360,000 Union soldiers died in the war, 40,000 of them
black. If they were not fighting slavery, why did every regiment sing John
Brown’s Body as a marching song? Would one in ten BLM members know who John
Brown, William Lloyd Garrison or William Wilberforce was?
He
does not say how a country steeped in systemic racism elected a black president
twice, or why Obama got more white votes in 2008 than Kerry in 2004 or Gore in
2000.
Since
I hold a masters in history, I have read a great deal about slavery and race
relations. I put a lot of this in an essay in 2014, when I was in the hospital
after my lung transplant:
Essay: Racism in
America.
Be
warned, the essay is 2000 words, and the bibliography of books I have read as
of 2014 on the subject is another 2000. I especially recommend:
While
its use of slave genealogies to show how they tried to hold their families together
can be tedious (you can skip), it is well worth reading.
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