It seems the list has plenty of people who "flip out completely" when Jefferson is unfairly attacked, so I don't think this is a double standard or anything of that nature in asking that people remember that Sally Hemings is not just an object. Ia lso am bothered by some of the unkind characterizations cast upon Jefferson. For all historical characters there are good, substantive ways of criticizing their actions or their ideas or even their character. I'm thinking here of Paul Finkelman's critique of Jefferson's views on slavery and emancipation here: measured by the standards of his own geneation, Jefferson's actions did not match his own rhetoric nor did his his actions match those of a number of contemporaries -- thus we can say that Jefferson failed here. But as to his relationship with Sally? well, there is obviously a wide range of possiblities of characterizations for that: everything from cruel exploitation to love affair -- but little direct evidence.
But I entirely agree with your appeal of civility -- to one another as well as to the dead.
David Kiracofe
David Kiracofe
History
Tidewater Community College
Chesapeake Campus
1428 Cedar Road
Chesapeake, Virginia 23322
757-822-5136
>>> DFM <[log in to unmask]> 05/16/08 8:30 PM >>>
As I was pondering all of these goings on today.... I thought about how it
seems to be "kosher" to come down hard on someone like, say,
Jefferson....and let's face it, he gets pretty badly beaten up on this List,
occasionally having been called everything from a rapist to whoremongering
dirty, old man...but when one unkind word is written against Sally Heming
some of us flip out completely!
I wish that this awful judging of both the quick and the dead would just
stop and we would try to stick to facts and ideas and try to do so with a
bit of civility. Please. And I am speaking to myself here, as well.
Your friend,
Deane Ferguson Mills
York County, VA
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Kiracofe" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, May 16, 2008 7:23 PM
Subject: Re: Language
I think what is upsetting here for some folks is that while Sally Hemings
may loom larger in the imagination -- even to the point of being
"semi-fictional" as you say -- than the hard historical record warrants,
there was, in fact, such a living person: she lived as a slave at
Monticello, a woman, and apparently had a number of children, she was a
mother. We know little about her beyond that that everyone on the list
could agree on, but I for one consider it uncharitable and ill-mannered to
describe someone who I don't know with such perjorative and even cruel
terminology.
David Kiracofe
David Kiracofe
History
Tidewater Community College
Chesapeake Campus
1428 Cedar Road
Chesapeake, Virginia 23322
757-822-5136
>>> "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]> 05/15/08
>>> 10:49 PM >>>
What I find intriguing is how anyone can get upset over an opinion about a
semi-fictional character such as Sally Hemings. We have those who can no
longer bear to risk further shocking language and they abandon the list.
We have other self-appointed censors who secretly call the ListManager and
encourage him to bounce the offender. If this list had a rule that
everyone had to know what they were talking about before they contributed a
post, that could cause serious deletion.
Richard E. Dixon
Editor, Jefferson Notes
Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society
4122 Leonard Drive
Fairfax, Va 22030
703-691-0770 fax 703-691-0978
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