> Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:35:53 -0500> From: [log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: And Now Nat Turner in a Politically Correct Light> To: [log in to unmask]> > Anita Wills wrote:> > That is a fine assertion if both had the same standing in the system. Slaves did not choose to come to America and be a slave. It is amazing to me how many people claim to know what the slaves thought and felt. Even if the whites were in a worse situation then the slaves, they always had the freedom to leave. The slaves, no matter what their condition, were denied the right to determine their own destiny. Then to pour salt on > Many of the white immigrants were immigrants solely because staying > where they were was _not_ possible, whether they> were refugees from various wars or from famines. Most of these people > either expended their resources on transport> from Europe or the eastern Mediterranean or were bound by contract in > exchange for passage.> > Saying that "they always had freedom to leave" makes as much sense as > saying that homeless people choose to be> homeless.> > Slavery was awful, but most people alive before 1900 lived in conditions > that were at least as bad, if> not worse, wherever they lived.> > And don't forget that the overwhelming majority of adult women of all > colors living in the U.S. before 1920 had> less legal freedom than African-American men after 1865.> > Elizabeth Whitaker
You missed the point entirely and your statements are sprinkled with falsehooods. What do you think the Civil Rights movement was about? There is no way that black men had the right to vote before white women. The most powerful Non Profit Organization in America is the Daughter's of the American Revolution. They were certainly voting, and had rights that black men did not. So that statement was erroneous on its face. Black men were being lynched well into the 1930's throughout the south. I was born and raised in Pennsylvania, and we had a lynching in our community. This happened in the 1920's when my mother was a child. Black men and women in the south, had to pay poll taxes to vote. In some cases they were required to take literacy tests, which were not required of illiterate whites. During slavery, poor whites had the "Legal" freedom of movement something slaves did not have. It is curious that you have so much empathy for the condition of poor whites and none for slaves.
My Great-Great Grandmother was a slave in South Carolina, where she was whipped daily. The Overseer beat the women with whips even those who were pregnant. The family said that the whip marks on her back were visible, even in her old age. She was taken at the age of 12, and endured coming to America in the hull of a ship. I am certain that had she known where to go, she would have escaped from the person who owned her. As it was she could not escape, and was impregnated several times by the white man who owned her (including my Great Grandfather). So where do you think this 12 year old African girl could go? Slavery was a sentence that had no end, and the the religous institutions (some not all), were used to justify it.
Poor whites were all over this country, as it did not require great sums of money for them to move around. They made provisions to come to America and better their conditions. Some signed on as Indentured servants, and many of those ran away, once they arrived.
You are confusing the rights that we enjoy today, with History.
Anita > ______________________________________> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at> http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
_________________________________________________________________
Stay up to date on your PC, the Web, and your mobile phone with Windows Live
http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/119462413/direct/01/
______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
|
