Steve:Sally does not only deserve our respect but a little kindness goes a long way.  Also the preservation of Ft. Monroe as well should be considered.  Money is tight now and every historical site and historic house is fighting for it's share of the "pie" so to speak.  So let's hope that they get the funds that they so royally deserve.  

And while we are on the subject everybody make sure that you vote but think carefully before you do.  I know I did as I voted just last Thursday here in North Carolina.  If Senator Obama wins this country will not only have a new president but for the first time in many years small children in the White House as well as an intelligent First Lady(who seems to have her act together just like Mrs. Laura Bush)!  She will more that deserve our respect as well as her children and their father.  And I am sure that Sally Hemings and her family will be smiling down on them and wishing them well(as should we all).  Jane.

-----Original Message-----
>From: "Steven T. Corneliussen" <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Oct 21, 2008 4:07 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: [VA-HIST] Serve Sally? Serve truth?
>
>I changed the subject line (from "New Presidential Descendant Claimant")
>and I offer three replies to Anne Pemberton, whom I thank for her
>thoughtful comments -- which I believe illustrate why there's still a lot
>to discuss about Hemings-TJ, even if it's true that few paternity
>disbelievers or paternity believers are likely to switch sides. As I try
>to say towards the end below, I believe this is actually a lot bigger than
>the mere paternity question.
>
>1. She wrote:
>> I see your point that the Jefferson DNA line could have
>> come from a slave or other person bearing the same genes,
>> but I have to question whether the outcome complies with
>> what we know of both science and history. Go back to your
>> high school biology study of yellow peas and green peas. If
>> a pea mixed of yellow and green peas is paired with another
>> pea of yellow and green, the likelihood of the resulting
>> offspring being true yellow or true green drop off drastically.
>> Yet, Sally did not have children even as dark as herself
>> according to eyewitnesses. It would therefore be scientifically
>> contrary to include a slave who was only 50% white as the
>> mate to 50% white Sally and produce all children who were
>> lighter than she was, light enough to pass as white and
>> disappear from the historic record. If Sally had children
>> by a 50% slave, at least 1-2 of her six-seven children should
>> have been "throw-back" and darker than her.
>For all I know, this is an impeccable analysis. For all I know, the
>eyewitness-and-skin-color parts of it are impeccable too. For all I know,
>this analysis is completely and totally and utterly correct. But here is a
>hard point to get people to see: in most respects, including this one, I'm
>not proposing proof or disproof of the paternity thesis. I'm only talking
>about which Hemings-TJ claims can and can't logically invoke the authority
>of DNA science. In the press and elsewhere, some regularly assume -- or
>even claim -- that the circle of paternity candidates includes only
>members of the acknowledged, extended Jefferson family. Well, maybe it
>does, but any claim of DNA proof for that view is science confusion or
>abuse. Absolutely nothing whatsoever in the DNA molecular findings tells
>us anything whatsoever about the size of the circle of paternity
>candidates. All we know from the molecular findings is that that circle's
>members carried a Jefferson family DNA marker.
>
>2. She wrote:
>> I think the notion of a slave father to Sally's children needs to be
>chucked
>> into the same trash bin as the "likely suspects" who were not present at
>> Monticello during Sally's conception windows.
>Maybe that's correct, wise and altogether fitting as a matter of
>historical analysis. I don't know. All I do know is that when a
>participant in any Hemings-TJ discussion makes the claim made here, she or
>he cannot logically make it on the basis of the DNA molecular findings.
>
>3. She wrote:
>> I also think that it serves Sally poorly to continue to
>> contend that her children had many fathers.
>And she also wrote:
>> I think it important to consider Sally's humanity
>> when trying to decide who fathered her children.
>> Slavery treated Sally with inhumanity, but we
>> don't have to follow suit.
>
>Here's where I got the revised subject line: "Serve Sally? Serve truth?"
>
>A branch of my science argument from above applies here, but I won't
>tediously recite it, except to say -- in a way that I'm genuinly sorry
>will seem harsh to some ears -- that these two comments have absolutely
>nothing to do with establishing what science has and hasn't proven. And
>what science has and hasn't proven is the limited but important domain of
>most (but not all) of what I toss into this overall debate.
>
>But setting that science stuff aside, in my view there's something much
>more important staring out at us from these two comments. I think they get
>right down to the core of what's really going on inside the realm of many
>(but not all) on the paternity-believing side of this whole volatile
>controversy.
>
>In my view what we are really talking about -- within that semi-specified
>realm -- is what I like to call the admirable wish retrospectively to help
>accord as much dignity as we can to those from whom dignity was stolen by
>perverted, despicable slavery. I completely share that wish -- so much so
>that I don't want to disrespect the formerly enslaved by distorting any
>evidence, scientific or not, to help accord the dignity.
>
>For me there's a big irony within the realm of those, including me, who
>wish retrospectively to help accord as much dignity as we can to those
>from whom dignity was stolen by perverted, despicable slavery. The irony
>lies in the practical contrast between the Sally Hemings case and the case
>of Fort Monroe, the place in the Commonwealth of Virginia that's important
>in the history of liberty itself because it's where American slavery began
>to die.
>
>You can't do much about Sally Hemings and human dignity. You can do a lot
>about Fort Monroe and human dignity.
>
>Sally Hemings and Fort Monroe? This will seem to some like a big ol'
>irrelevancy, if not a big ol' red herring. But it's not. Please let me
>explain.
>
>In Sally Hemings's case, the wish to accord dignity retrospectively
>requires -- in some people's outlooks anyway -- acceptance of an intricate
>chain of judgments and inferences about events that many dispute. If there
>is paternity proof -- and maybe there is -- it's complicated.
>
>But in the case of the self-emancipation that began at Fort Monroe with
>the "Contrabands" Frank Baker, Sheppard Mallory, and James Townsend, all
>that the retrospective dignity wish takes is some constructive historical
>revisionism -- some improved interpretation about events that no one
>disputes. The only thing complicated about it is for us to resolve to get
>rid of the white supremacism that, a century and a half after the Civil
>War, is still distorting our view of what actually happened in
>Emancipation.
>
>Was Emancipation really what I was implicitly taught years ago, namely,
>some white politicians belatedly deigning to confer freedom on feckless,
>helpless, passive victims?
>
>I don't think it was. Baker, Mallory and Townsend weren't feckless,
>helpless victims. They stood up and took a big risk for freedom, and when
>they did, slavery began to die, because what they did inspired first
>hundreds and then thousands and then tens of thousands.
>
>Yet in the usual telling of the story -- the white-supremacist telling, in
>that it presumes black inferiority -- those three Americans are usually
>left without the dignity of even being named, whereas the white
>politician-general Benjamin Butler is portrayed as the star of the drama.
>
>Now, it's true that Butler was as admirably clever and constructive as he
>could be in the circumstances. When the three men showed up at Fort Monroe
>shortly after Fort Sumter, the grotesque and perverted laws of slavery
>still applied. So he simply deemed them -- and kept them as -- contraband
>of war, since they were, after all, human "property" legally.
>
>That is, Butler invoked the laws of war and the perverted, grotesque laws
>of slavery to thwart what history sometimes still -- stupidly, in my view
>-- calls the three men's "rightful owners."
>
>But look what laws Baker, Mallory and Townsend invoked when they
>instinctively stood up and took a big risk for freedom. They invoked the
>Laws of Nature and of Nature's God.
>
>The preceding paragraphs, maybe melodramatic but I believe true, stemmed
>from my conjecture, illustrated by Anne Pemberton's comments, about the
>retrospective dignity-according wish that I believe motivates many
>paternity believers. We'll leave the motivations of paternity disbelievers
>for another time -- especially since we still operate in a world where
>some paternity believers suspect or even assume (or even claim) that
>paternity disbelievers are racists. That's a hard problem.
>
>To get back to Anne Pemberton's comments:
>
>To note that DNA science tells us absolutely nothing about the circle of
>paternity candidates is not to "contend that her children had many
>fathers." (Not that she was necessarily addressing me.) It is to respect
>science and history by respecting facts. I too wish retrospectively to
>help accord as much dignity as possible to those from whom dignity was
>stolen by perverted, despicable slavery. But I deny that that worthy wish
>justifies distorting facts. And I assert that Virginians and Americans and
>others who really care about that worthy wish ought to be paying attention
>to our effort to save Fort Monroe from people who don't care about history
>at all. To do that, please visit http://www.cfmnp.org/ .
>
>The Hemings-TJ paternity question remains important. Sally Hemings's
>dignity remains important. But in the matter of Fort Monroe, you can
>actually _do something_ for an endangered place that symbolizes both the
>death of slavery and cherished notions about human dignity.
>
>Thanks. Sorry I'm not clever enough to be briefer.
>
>Steve Corneliussen
>
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Lillian Jane Steele

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