Well said.

Sunshine49 <[log in to unmask]> wrote:  IMO looking for the perfect hero, one with no human flaws, is a 
fool's errand and a very adolescent way of looking at life. The child 
growing out of the certainty of mom and dad being all -powerful goes 
thru a cynical phase of what a clueless pair they both are, they're 
hopeless, once s/he awakens to the fact that they are human beings. 
We seem to have taken on that attitude in our culture at large. Many 
people of all races and backgrounds have, when times demanded, 
sacrificed and risen above themselves to achieve good things for 
others. They were certainly not perfect, no saints [heck, even what 
we consider saints had their flaws]. So what? Consider without a G. 
Washington, warts and all, we could have selected a leader who would 
have gone on and done what the King of England never expected 
Washington to turn down- and we'd be ruled by a monarchy today. So 
when GW was young he had ideas typical of his day and age? So he had 
flaws, even into adulthood? He also was a great man who gave much for 
his country, more than most of us here would, and thanks to him [and 
other flawed men of his day], we were give the opportunity to become 
the nation we are today. Yes, flawed tho we are. Welcome to the 
group, but geez, let's have nothing more to do with this about GW, 
not even put him on a dollar coin, because he had flaws?! Where is 
your sense of history as well as your sense of perspective? Go and 
find us one person anywhere at any time in history who was perfect 
enough to grace a dollar US coin. You won't find anyone- even Jesus 
in his day had his detractors. The man picks corn on the Sabbath? He 
ran amok in the Temple? Do we want to set him up as an example to our 
children? No!

Nancy

-------
The alchemy of a changing life is the only truth.

-Rumi


On Mar 4, 2007, at 10:32 AM, Paul Heinegg wrote:

> I just joined this discussion (and discussion group), so I may be 
> missing the point. What did African American slaves' ability to 
> overthrow their oppressors say about the institution of slavery? As 
> Douglas Deal pointed out and as John Brown's raid and the Civil War 
> proved, it was no easy task.
>
> How can we still be discussing whether or not African Americans 
> accepted their situation and the level of their mistreatment? It 
> reminds me of that fellow in New York State who kidnapped young 
> women and held them for years in his basement where he continually 
> raped them. On being captured he saw no wrong in what he had done 
> and explained how well he fed and treated them and how much they 
> came to accept their life.
>
> The recent apology by Virginia lawmakers is a great stride forward 
> in acknowledging the horrible effects of slavery on African 
> Americans, but it says nothing about the men and the civilization 
> that perpertrated it.
>
> Throughout history men have raped, subjected to forced labor, and 
> terribly mistreated other people they considered their fellow human 
> beings. However, slavery in the U.S. was something all together 
> different.
>
> White men, including supposedly brilliant leaders, owned other 
> human beings that they degraded to such a low level that they were 
> considered property--like a horse, a cow, a chair, a table! What 
> sort of human beings would still be doing this in a supposedly 
> civilized country in the nineteenth century? If the country that 
> was doing this did not happen to be our own, we would call them 
> uncivilized barbarians.
>
> The U.S. mint plans a new $1 coin with George Washington's image on 
> the front. Is this the sort of person we want our children to 
> emulate? He may have never told a lie, but after a battle with an 
> Indian tribe in the French and Indian War, he wrote of the Indians, 
> "They are human in form only" [James W. Loewen, Lies My Teacher 
> Told Me]. Washington illegally shuttled his slaves from 
> Philadelphia to Mount Vernon so he would not have to manumit any of 
> them and he still held them at his death, sixteen years after 
> acknowledging the evil of slavery. His will freed them but only 
> after the death of his wife.
>
> Which white men who had the moral fortitude to free their slaves 
> during their lifetimes do we acknowledge as great men? How many 
> average Americans can name any? How many historians can name any?
> Paul
>
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