Yojsouth's message earlier today about Thomas Jefferson and Sally
Hemings has brought me several private requests and demands that he be
expelled from the list.

Va-Hist has always operated with as much anarchy as possible. The
sponsors at the Library of Virginia have believed that the best remedy
for improper speech is more speech. We have encouraged a civil dialog,
that being the best way for intelligent discussion to proceed.

It is not a violation of any unstated Va-Hist rule that your know what
you're writing about (John Smith did not marry Pocahontas; Sally Hemings
could not legally have married anybody).

Or that you can't believe that "an educated, cultured" white widower
might have had a sex life.

Or that you be free of prejudices (Sally Hemings, an enslaved African
American woman, has not been shown to be "skanky," which the dictionary
defines as repugnantly filthy or squalid or of low or sleazy character,
although perhaps yojsouth believes that is the default condition for
women of one-fourth or more African descent).

Or even that you not gratuitously publish an assertion as if it were a
known fact (nobody here as asserted that Sally Heming could not keep
track of the fathers of her children, although perhaps yojsouth believes
that is a common condition for women of one-fourth or more African
descent).

We cannot require that people hide their defects if they insist on
parading them.

Please do not let these comments unnecessarily goad us into equally bad
or worse behavior.

I, for one, do not propose to respond to yojsouth (who does regularly
violate a Va-Hist rule that we used to state from time to time that all
postings be signed with the author's real name), and I hope that other
people will not, either.

You don't have to read him. I, who am the list moderator, do.

Brent Tarter
The Library of Virginia
[log in to unmask]

Visit the Library of Virginia's Web site at http://www.lva.virginia.gov

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