Thank you, BRENT!
To "delete-without-reading" is a convenient option.
-Melinda

--
Melinda C. P. Skinner
Richmond, VA


 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Tarter, Brent (LVA)" <[log in to unmask]>
> 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
> 
> ______________________________________
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
> http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html

______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html