The New York Times has an interesting article on the growing popularity of the “Plantation Wedding.” The houses are big and sometimes beautiful, but the fantasy of Moonlight and Magnolias can almost make a bride forget that the Big House was at the center of slave labor camp. Some plantation destinations are trying to add real history, but is it enough? Here are a few excerpts from the article:
The resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement this spring spelled the end for many Confederate symbols. Monuments have been removed, by vote and by force.
But those symbols include the romanticized imagery of weddings on Southern “plantations,” a practice that carries on. These properties were forced work camps, where enslaved Africans and their descendants were tortured and killed.
Perhaps nowhere has benefited more from the idea of the romance of Southern weddings than Charleston, S.C., where the Civil War began, and which is now one of the top destination wedding locales in the United States, hosting nearly 6000 weddings in 2019 before the coronavirus pandemic interrupted the industry.
Winslow Hastie’s family has owned Magnolia Plantation & Gardens since the late 1670s. Mr. Hastie, who is white, is also the president and chief executive officer of Historic Charleston Foundation, which works to preserve structures, many built by enslaved people.
Magnolia “opened to the public in 1872,” Mr. Hastie said. “I think it was actually one of the first tourist attractions in the state of South Carolina. And that was out of economic necessity.”
Today, Mr. Hastie said, “the wedding side is part of the business for us.”
“It might seem like a lame response,” he said, “but the reality is the funds that are generated by the events do help to underwrite a lot of the other programing.”
Magnolia retains the quarters where enslaved people lived, he said, to provide a “powerful opportunity for us to talk about that aspect of our history.” Wedding groups, he added, can visit the cabins.
“Weddings on plantations is often discussed in the campfire conversations that we conduct,” Mr. McGill said. “There is no surprise that the demographic makeup of the participants often determine how most feel about the matter, most Blacks against, most whites for.”
“The most unfortunate thing that happens, I think, happens typically with white wedding parties,” said Bernard Powers, who is Black and the director of both the College of Charleston Center for the Study of Slavery and of the International African-American Museum, which is scheduled to open in Charleston in March 2022.
“They simply go out for the peaceful, kind of pristine, natural environment, the beauty, the romantic vistas of the Southern landscape,” he said, adding that this disconnection to how the sites were created in the first place is part of the South’s “schizophrenic approach” to history.
Dr. Powers said some African-Americans have wedding ceremonies in these places to bring a greater solemnity and commitment to the marriage rite. “Simply because,” he said, “if the people incorporate the knowledge of what happened at these places, then their marriage ceremony, and indeed their marriage, becomes an example of psychic and cultural repair.”
That’s the idea that led Christi Ascue Kershaw, who is African-American, to choose Boone Hall Plantation & Gardens, perhaps Charleston’s most famous, for her 700-guest wedding in 2009.
Mrs. Ascue Kershaw is an owner of her family’s auto-body business. Her roots are within South Carolina’s African-American Gullah Geechee traditions. She said beyond the beauty of Boone Hall, a part of her wedding dream since high school, “we went there to honor those who built the plantation.”
Pearl Vanderhorst Ascue, Mrs. Ascue Kershaw’s mother, said friends and relatives definitely had questions: “‘Why are you going back to a plantation where our ancestors were held hostage, and working for free labor? They were enslaved. Why would you go back there for a huge wedding out there?’”
“I just told them we are back to the plantation — but it is for a different reason. Our ancestors, their spirit is still there for sure,” Mrs. Vanderhorst Ascue said. “I felt it, she felt it. The people even at the wedding felt it — it was just totally spiritual in a way that we honor our ancestors for what they did and the work they did at that plantation.”
Her daughter’s ceremony incorporated African-American traditions. Favors were of woven sea grass, a Gullah traditional craft. Mrs. Ascue Kershaw’s aunt, Charlotte Jenkins, a famed Gullah chef, chronicled the wedding in her 2010 cookbook, “Gullah Cuisine: By Land and by Sea.”
Boone Hall, her wedding venue, still hosts weddings, but it is rethinking how it can add more context to its history. “The discussion of slavery is often difficult, but it is a part of history that should be discussed openly and honestly whenever plantation life is addressed,” Boone Hall management said in a statement. “We believe there is a responsibility and a commitment to present history in an accurate and educational manner each day.”
Boone Hall is also where the white actors Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds married in 2012. In an apology this summer in Fast Company magazine, Mr. Reynolds said: “What we saw at the time was a wedding venue on Pinterest. What we saw after was a place built upon devastating tragedy.”
The question of the use of these historical sites across the South is not settled.
Ashley Rogers, who is white and from North Carolina, is the executive director of the nonprofit Whitney Plantation in Wallace, La.
“We are an educational institution. And that’s how we see ourselves, that we are here to provide context and education around the history of slavery and race relations in this country,” Ms. Rogers said. “Everything that we do has to really be in support of that mission.”
Weddings are not a part of that mission. “There is a moral and a right thing,” she said.
She said the common justification that weddings and other social events support educational programming is “fiction.”
“You have to dedicate whole teams to sales and coordinating the events and either you buy all of the equipment or you’re renting equipment. It’s a huge cost,” she said. “You really have to pour a lot of resources into just running your events and wedding business.”
At Whitney, she said coordinating wedding events on site would redirect “all of my energy or a significant portion of my energy into doing a thing that is counter to my mission.”
“We have to grind against this really entrenched idea of white supremacy, of the glory of the Old South,” she said. “Having a wedding in 2019 or 2020 in front of these gorgeous colonnades on a plantation, all it does is reinforce the idea that what a plantation is: a beautiful home — when it’s not. It’s a labor camp.”
Explore Charleston, a convention and visitors bureau, released a statement in June defending these sites as places for weddings that noted the same. “Virtually every historic site in the South has some tie to enslavement,” it read.
Aneesa Glines, a North Carolina wedding planner who is Black and Puerto Rican, owns Harmony Weddings and Events. She and Elana Walker of Southern Noir Weddings started a conversation about diversity for venues and planners called Bridging the Gap. About 500 were on their June webinar, which they said was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement.
Mrs. Glines said that even as a plantation wedding causes “a lot of emotion and disgust and discomfort with many people, Black and white, in the South,” it’s difficult to find a public venue with enough space for a wedding and “tons of beautiful land that does not have any history that ties back to slavery.”
Some local wedding sites have recently dropped the word “plantation” from their names, she noted. “I think that is a good step,” she said, “but there is more to be done than simply changing the name.”
It does not bother me to see Whites have their plantation weddings, though they might want to do some serious soul searching or, better still, submit to psychoanalysis. I am, however, deeply troubled that, apparently, some Blacks are still so financially oppressed that they are willing to dress up like slaves and entertain Whites at plantation weddings, effectively prostituting their painful heritage. As a Black person, I would not attend Plantation weddings as a guest — much less as an entertainer. And if I were White, I hope I would have too much humanity than to don the insensitive mantles of my slave-owning ancestors for such a celebration. The fact is that slavery was not a voluntary celebration of fun and games for slaves. Moreover, Whites have yet to confess the sins of their ancestors. Who in their right mind wants to see those often cruel and exploitive times return.
As we see frightening changes occurring at state levels, and efforts to negate EEO programs for federally protected groups, Black entertainers at these misguided events should be utterly conscious of what they might be ushering in for their posterity. History repeats itself, and obviously many Whites hold visions of those selfish and inhumane times close to their hearts. Did I say hearts?
“A Strange Reversal of Human Relations…”
Bathurst National Advocate, 10 March 1892 [colony of New South Wales, Australia]
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/156660484
Frederick Douglass put an exemplar of how both White and Black Americans can find and value reconciliation about past, present and future.
Hugh,
Indeed, Frederick Douglas took reconciliation with Whites to the limit: Even though he might have been lynched for it, he married Helen Pitts, a White woman. His existential framework was quite different from most Blacks then and now. I might add that I doubt that this example of reconciliation would be well received in many quarters.
Meanwhile, White leaders KNOW how to take steps toward lasting reconciliation with Native Americans and Blacks. If the shoe were on the other foot, they would act on what they know. We saw how effectively governmental leaders coalesced during the pandemic, and rolled out financial assistance to minimize suffering throughout America. I believe that any reconciliation between Whites and historically oppressed ethnic groups is largely owing to Indians’ and Blacks’ cultural dignity and determination to move forward in peace, regardless of the past. Regrettably, I suspect that peaceful posture might have been seen as weakness in some circles.
Carol-
Firstly, thank you for having engaged with me in having a chat here. I sincerely appreciate it.
With regards to Frederick Douglass, I would put rather that reconciliation in public manner was not something he often embraced or advocated as part of his historical argument; this he usually reserved for private expression, though I agree that his marriage to a White American woman and his noble advocacy on the part of his former master’s daughter are big exceptions.
In the latter, he had nothing to gain from this; he was in no way obliged to do so and his doing so could and may well have been attacked/wrongly taken advantage of by others for some form of gain.
None of this matters; at the high moment of history, Douglass chose to do that which was kind and that which was right. He stood tall.
This episode is the equivalent for Douglass as ‘the Church Story’ is of General Robert E. Lee.
And I think you quite right; this story of Douglass, (nor ‘the Church Story’ for the General), would be valued particularly far and wide today.
That matters not an iota; each was still the right thing to do.
I will decline to enter into the discussion with Covid, respectfully. I feel it not right to add amixture of today’s contemporary politics in and of themselves w/o direct ties to the historical focus.
If plantations have no value in bringing about a spirit of reconciliation in any way/shape/form, then how can ANYTHING of America’s past be regarded as such?
If we feel such is possible to adduce reconciliative value to say, the very country of the United States, is that simply because we aver from holistically/earnestly critically reflecting on the history we know is there, but to do so would cause us disadvantage?
Can we ask people of say, French Canadian heritage, like myself, to view the very continued existence of the USA as anything separate from the desired cultural/physical genocide the American colonists intended upon French Canadians by the very formation of their country in 1776?
All one has to do is look at how the Declaration of Independence is literally a Declaration of War upon the legal provisions to the lands/rights/culture/ language/religion/existence of French Canadians that the British had guaranteed in law in the 1774 Quebec Act.
Can French Canadians be asked to view the history in any other context?
I will say, as such a person…yes.
I’m equally proud of Les Habitants that fought for George Washington as those who stood against him. Both groups changed Washington and America.
In my hometown in Canada there was a Residential School for Aboriginal children. What has become of these premises?
The local Nation Tribe has moved their band offices into these exact premises. When I spoke with them about this, they said that they would plant the blossoms of a bright future upon these grounds to cleanse them.
The cries of sorrow would never be forgotten; they would be wrung with the cries of peace and joy for the past, in present and in future.
To render it, ‘…the place of Peace, Profound.’
-Victor Daley, ‘Eureka’
Note: Please read above line correctly as, ‘Douglass’ and Lee’s examples of reconciliation would NOT be widely appreciated today’
Hugh, I see that I might have only a small amount of space to comment on your astute writing; so, I might need to stop in the middle of a thought. I should tell you that my perspective is guided by an academic background in psychology, and intensive spiritual grounding in Christianity. I am not a disciplined historian, though I have a deep appreciation for history. I often juxtapose psychology and history. My comments about plantation weddings show my impatience with short-sighted critical thinking that apparently did not consider or care that many Blacks might feel hurt or anxious about the revival of plantation celebrations. Moreover, it does not help that a few Blacks have joined the movement–thoughtlessly I hope. As you know, slavery was enabled largely by Africans who selfishly betrayed their own tribesmen for rewards from slavers. That paradigm is not likely to end soon. My resistance to glorifying plantations runs deep from a psychological perspective. I happen to believe that our enslaved ancestors passed on emotional scars that are more immutable than DNA, but I know of no governmental program ever conceived to address this. I have no doubt that the plantation movement is unnerving to many Blacks who are already anxious about the retrogression of state and federal legislation that, at least, offers the promise of some protections.
The need for reconciliation during the Antebellum period and present times is linear in my eyes, and will remain so, at least until America offers some form of apology or atonement to the descendants of slaves. America was built on the backs of slaves. That is the reason that I leapt from Antebellum times to our government’s response to Covid. My sense is that, after 158 years, no serious reconciliation or even apology has been offered to descendants of slaves, but during the pandemic, American leaders proved that they know how to behave in a caring and protective manner (when their own may be at risk). Their remedial actions were a form of consolation during a time of fear and need–not unlike the fear and need that many descendants of slaves contend with everyday as a matter of course.
Now, regarding Frederick Douglass: I agree that he left a tremendous legacy of dignity and diplomacy to all people. In spite of a hint of narcissism in his quest to be photographed as often as possible, his fair-mindedness was obvious in every facet of his life, including his respectful treatment of his first wife with whom he had nothing in common. Even if he were a bit self-focussed on his handsome countenance, he was selfless in repeatedly risking his life to abolish slavery. That is sufficient for me.
Douglass was a complex man of many talents–akin to what we might call a renaissance man in these times. Indeed, he made his complex reality count for the people of his time, and for our time; I would like to say for all times, but I will not go that far as I see how unpredictable our world is becoming. It is true that we have Black statesmen now, because of courageous men like Douglass who were determined to open doors for Blacks. In fact, Douglass was on the leading edge of advocating rights for women.
So, I did not intend to detract from Douglass’s legacy in any way. I simply wanted to say that he drew outside the lines uniquely, and effectively, but his success is not likely to be cloned. Notwithstanding that, we can draw on his courageous legacy of optimism, advocacy for education, support for music and the arts, political participation, equal rights, family loyalty, and other values. You and I are together on the contributions of his amazing service to humanity–past and present.
Incidentally, one of the reasons that Douglass claimed to be photographed unsmiling so often is that he wanted to dispel the notion of the “happy slave.” I am suspicious of his reason (excuse), but . . . .
It is true, however, that when I criticized Blacks who participate in White plantation weddings, I wanted to send a stern-faced message that slavery was not a time of fun and games for Blacks. I stand by my comment that I believe dressing up like slaves, singing, and dancing at plantation weddings is counter productive and potentially detrimental to perceptions of Blacks now and in the future. I hope not to ever see that again!
Thanks Hugh for expanding my perspective. Now, I will begin to study effective models of reconciliation in a better frame of mind. Carol
Carol-
I appreciate the depth of your two comments. Thank you for posting these.
Allow me to begin my responses by holding that while I am assertive in my views, that convincing you of anything is not my interest. Conviction is your sole purview, pursuant to anything.
I am a historian of the Civil War/War Between The States, but I bring to this, w/o context switching, many, many historical fields of study to bear. And not only of history, but of historiography, (the way in which history is taught and studied).
I also am an Apologist; a layperson who studies and provides explanation of the formal Roman Catholic faith to non-formal Roman Catholics, and part of this requires understanding of non-Roman Catholocism, (such as understanding the theological, personal, etc, reasons Martin Luther came to the conclusions he did, why Orthodox clergy can marry, how formal Pagan and Christian beliefs do share valid cross-current underpinnings, etc, such as how and why holly berries and evergreen trees came to be associated with Christmas).
I should point out that I bring the perspective of a historian first and foremost to bear on the subject and yes; I do think that plantations have a valid place of both historical reckoning and reconciliation in society today. And we differ in that I do not agree that history can be viewed as a linear unfolding from the past to the present.
For myself, if that is so, then with all of my Irish republican heritage, can I not validly state that, due to the ‘invasion and occupation’, (to use the terms of both the ‘Irregular’ historiography of Ernie O’Malley and Gerry Adams, or the Settler Colonialism school of Patrick Wolfe, Lorenzo Veracini, Leigh Boucher, etc, of Ireland that occurred upon my ancestors from 1168 to 1850, (and which continues to the present), has the trauma of centuries of attempted physical and cultural genocide not imprinted on my DNA? Apparently, science has confirmed that it can in some meaningful way.
I can not put that all events that have unfolded since 1922 within Irish society can be 100% placed at the hands of England. Nor do I have the right to state or imply that all Irish whom would engage with the past are absolutely bound to view or engage with it in the same manner as I might. There is too much disparity in both past and present to hold that history can or ought to be viewed or experienced in one manner only. That is what George Orwell warned as being ’emotional nationalism’ in his masterpiece, ‘Notes on Nationalism’.
History is not linear; the past is gone and the figures of today can not be accepted as ‘stand ins’ for those of the past. To argue that the past is linear is the first step into a journey of Orwellian emotional nationalism, as he argues.
It is indeed understandable that many Black Americans would be hesitant to visit plantations. Not all Black Americans would necessarily agree. Why?, is a good question that is based in diversity.
That slavery was cruel and an inhuman practice is beyond debate. But Black Americans found a way, even in its grip, to embrace their human worth and dignity.
I, as a historian, would put a number of questions to plantations being used as either social gathering locations or historical education sites. I would put such as:
-If the plantation is being used for education, how much breadth and far-ranging representation does the history depicted attempt to show, (resources considered).
That is, does the plantation depict the history ONLY that occurred upon its location, or is it showing a representative example, (in the latter, that directly invokes Frederick Douglass. A vast amount of what he represented in his ‘Autobiography’ verifiably DID NOT happen to him. His justification was that if not to himself, it happened to other slaves, and he was attempting to depict slavery).
-If the plantation depicts Black Americans portraying enslaved characters, what is the historical basis involved here? Are they depicting emancipation? Do they depict a wide range of life? What are the essentials of the depiction portrayed? Are they depicting specific enslaved Black American figures of history or generalised? Is there some kind of historical evidence that the portraylism is based upon and if so, is this readily available.
In this, we come upon something that again touches upon Douglass: The fact that as much of a lion that he was to no just Black American history, but to American and world history, Douglass historical legacy has been to render opaque the wide diversity of both Black American figures of history and their impact, (along with Harriet Tubman).
When we look at Douglass in tandem with Martin Delany, Thomas Morris Chester, ‘Heroic’ Holt Collier, the Gibbs brothers, (Mifflin Wistar and Jonathan Clarkson), David White, Elizabeth Keckley, Sojourner Truth, Robert Smalls, Amanda Parks, Lavinia Corley Thompson, Jim Lewis, Susie King Taylor, William H. Carney, Alexander Clark, Jim Beckwourth, Henry Highland Garnett, etc, etc, etc.
If Douglass’ life experiences did not, solely and individually, define and provide summation for the lives of all the above Black Americans in his own lifetime, then how can it be posed that the existence of plantations can ‘absolutely’ provide only one valid impression for Black Americans present or future?
Did any have to agree with him that, “My Old Kentucky Home”, is a pleasant song to listen to? This was his favourite song and he would have his family sing it on their porch and Anne Douglass would play her violin to it.
Now, if we are to turn to how negative experiences in the past might be said to legitimate ONLY one, and only ONE reaction for the future, then I will ask you-
How ought Native Americans regard Frederick Douglass’ at all but as someone who justified the genocide that was unfolded upon them?
At varying times, Douglass made positive statements about Indians, (I’ve read where he called them, ‘the noble Indian’); he also made racist statements such as, ‘An Indian desires is a blanket’. In September of 1866, he made a speech, ‘We Are Here And Want The Ballot Box’, (which he plagiarised from an 1843 speech from Henry Highland Garnett), wherein in he stated, “There is no resemblance in the elements that go to make up the character of a civilized man between the Indian and the negro…[the Indian] sees the ploughshare of your civilization tossing up the bones of his venerated fathers, and he retreats before the onward progress of your civilization…he abhors your fashions, he refuses to adopt them. But not so with the negro.”
Do I need to provide the measure of fair and balanced criticism such historical statements deserve?
Is there only ‘one acceptable way, period’, that Aboriginal people can reckon of Douglass, or, is there a measure of fair and balanced criticism that can be applied, yet, a wider scope of historical critical reflection is warranted when assessing and engaging with him and his legacy?
It is highly possible that Douglass saw, or even met, my ancestors in West Cork when they were undergoing the Great Potato Famine that was the true inspiration for Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’.
I do not intend to say that you are ‘wrong’ that Black American people, or any persons for that matter, can experience pain and negativity, (in quick sum), when visiting plantations. I will put, again, that I do not view history as linear and I will hold that even sites of extreme trauma in the past can have valid, and even surprisingly so, positive application in our times and the future.
As Robert E. Lee said, and I will put, “It is history that teaches us to hope.”
Hugh, as a footnote to my previous message, I have thought a great deal about your apparent openness to reviving plantations. Your position has only bolstered my stance against any such notion. It does not help that I missed slavery by only 80 years–too close for comfort, especially, as I realize that I am in my late 70s now. My mother missed slavery by 45 years, and my grandparents missed it by 25 years or so. My paternal and maternal great-grandparents were slaves.
It is easy for those who have no connection with slavery to contrive altruistic feel-good philosophical solutions. I get that. Therein lies the reconciliatory dilemma. Apparently, Blacks and Whites, and Indians and Whites, simply do not have enough shared experiences to reconcile our existential dissonance. I happen to believe that is by divine design. That is where unconditional love and the other biblical fruits of the spirit can enable us to bridge the gap, but many ignore those, too, in our utterly secular milieu.
Amazingly, most Blacks are not bitter, even though many Whites, even the best educated, seem to have no idea of how hurtful their grand-standing words, actions, and inaction can be to descendants of slaves, and to the overall cause of reconciliation and peace. I do not see that Blacks and Native Americans can do much more to facilitate reconciliation. The fact is that both ethnic groups were intentionally scourged for the benefit of those who believed, and still believe, that their lives are more valuable.
What descendants of slave owners are missing is that they inherited both spiritual and physical damage that their ancestors created. That damage stares at them every day, and they will be judged for what they fail to do on their watch. To put it another way– had they inherited damaged physical property (houses and material things), they would have understood that they needed to repair and restore their inheritance, and not leave it in shambles. How much more, then, should damage to the spirit and lives of slaves’ descendants have been addressed? Instead many declare, “My generation did not do it. I bear no responsibility whatsoever, and I owe slave descendants nothing. Furthermore, I will not tolerate any indoctrination (like CRT) that might help my posterity behave more humanely.” Spiritually, I believe this is a quite damning set of circumstances.
The fact is that White Americans still benefit disproportionately from a country built on the backs of slaves, but they seem to take their wealth and comfort for granted. Many have dug in their heels to avoid apologizing, not to mention atoning. They fail to understand that nothing belongs to any of us. Whites are mere stewards of the wealth built off the backs of slaves, and we should assume that God’s accounting system is fully functional. America’s wealth stemmed from the work of slaves dragged from their homes, families, and villages so that Whites might live in plenty.
I believe that American leaders have failed God’s ultimate test to equalize wealth, and I trust that our Creator will take it from here. It is long past time for American leaders to confess the sins of their ancestors and do as much as possible to address the damage that they inherited, but insensitivity and injustice, appear to be insurmountable stumbling blocks.
Thanks again for your comments regarding reconciliation, but I doubt that reviving plantations will bring peace to the majority of slaves’ descendants. The very thought strikes me as delusional, irrational, insensitive, selfish, and perhaps even manipulative; these adjectives combined verge on sociopathy. I view plantation revival as one more indication that the mental health and spirituality of our society is seriously at risk. Indeed, this is the era in which right is wrong, and wrong is right.
Thanks, Hugh, for your additional comments. I will end by saying that I would not rent plantations for weddings any more than I would rent a gas chamber in Auschwitz for a wedding under the guise of reconciliation. Plantation grounds were the site of hangings, burnings, rapes, and all manner of evil. The beauty of those fields of persecution and killing was a mere illusion of purity in movies like Gone With The Wind. Now, that history has shown us more of the truth, our humanity should be affirmed, not further confused with the irrational notion that if Blacks would only dress up like slaves, and entertain Whites at weddings now, the races can be reconciled, and live happily ever after.
So, I will end this exchange the way that I began. My goal is unchanged — to encourage Blacks to pay closer attention to how they are contributing to or confusing the history of slavery.
Meanwhile, my exchange with you only intensifies my concerns, because intelligent and gifted writers like you can do a great deal of good or a great deal of harm. Therefore, I am sad that I could not convey the threat of sugar-coating any aspect of slavery or any other oppressive era in history.
I tried to make the point that the oppression and suffering during the Antebellum has a certain linearity (connection) to current struggles of Blacks. I feel certain that Jews, Native Americans, and other peoples with oppressive histories would concur that a strong connection to the past is part of their being. I apologize for not making this point clearly. Best to you!
Firstly, I hold a distinct difference between plantations and Nazi gas chambers. You ought be very careful about conflating Genocide with such things.
Were public buses a means of instilling White supremacy in the South? That is quite so.
Does this mean that public buses are the same as the trains that conveyed the Jewish victims to the Concentration Camps like Auschwitz? Does disagreement upon that mean that one is minimising the racial injustice that did occur on public buses in the Jim Crow South? Does this mean that anyone, Black American/White American/etc, who desires that public transport of buses continue mean that they are insensitive to the racism of the past?
To make such conflations is ahistorical.
As I said in my prior posts, the context of the historical argument/etc, is the key point.
The fact that you have from the instant of our interchanges here tried to put me in the light of being ‘astute’, which means that I attempt to understand events, etc, in a manner to take advantage of them is to me telling.
The accuracy of the matter is this: You do not approach history with a historian’s mindset, (which you yourself admit), but in as much as you attempt to speak for all Black Americans and tacitly disvalue those who may not agree with you renders it plain that you are attempting to ‘make history work for you, personally’.
That is profusing history with Orwellian emotional nationalism, exactly as how Eamon De Valera did when he refused to speak anything to David Lloyd George in 1921 but of the genocidal practices of Oliver Cromwell.
I am aware 100% of the sugar-coating of American history. Frederick Douglass, for one example, made that 100% clear in his speech before Boston’s Faneuil Hall in 1849 when he extolled to all of the vastly Abolitionist crowd before him that, because they chose to live in America, they had a connection to slavery that they could not disavow themselves from. Since the US Constitution prevailed throughout ALL of America, the Fugitive Slave tenet within it, (not to mention the 3/5 tenet), that meant, if they chose to remain therein, they had a connection to the very institution they claimed to disavow, (‘Liberator’, 8 June 1849).
That is something that Abraham Lincoln echoed in his 2nd Innaugral Address, and the reason why Douglass called that speech of Lincoln’s, “a masterful effort.”
IF you truly feel in the manner you claim, then I would have to put to you the logical conclusion of your own claims. Do you demand to ‘give back to Mexico’ the lands conquered from it in the 1846-48 Mexican American War? The vast of the primary records tell us what these lands were conquered by boys in blue under the Stars and Stripes for: To protect and spread the institution of slavery, (see the works of Douglass, US Grant, Henry Highland Garnett, William Seward, etc, etc).
These lands were made American soil to further the cause of the barns, fields, whips, chains, bills of sale and bedrooms of the institution of slavery. If you were not aware of this history before, then you are now, and now you are obliged to reckon with it; given your stipulations, you MUST then hold that these lands be returned to Mexico because of their legacy.
No one has discounted that harm in the past can have a bearing in the present towards any. I did strongly state that a linear view of the past to the present can not be validly argued by anyone and to attempt to do so is not only wrong, it is nationalistic in the extreme.
There is no difference in that than when it was brough to the attention of Prussia that Germans living in the French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine did not desire to be join Prussia in either a migratory or political sense, (under French law, they felt they had more civil liberties than they would as citizens of Prussia and they had retained all of their Germanic culture, language and customs).
The reply of the Prussians then was, ‘We, as Prussia, know what is best for all Germans and what is best for their interests.’
I will attempt no argument with you. I will re-state my beliefs in clear manner.
1) I appreciate your responses.
2) I disagree that history is linear. To argue that it is means the first step on the journey into emotional nationalism.
Nationalism is akin to the ‘Wendigo’ of Aboriginal culture.
3) I refuse to comment upon contemporary politics on this page.
4) I put it that plantations can have valid social or historical merit in present and future, depending on the context.
To argue that they don’t is to forget or disavow what Dr. King said, or at least, to concede that his words can be validly put to the topic-
“…The Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all White people, for many of our White brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.
We cannot turn back…
…I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”
Where is this going to happen?
If brotherhood, and the valuing of all human beings can’t be fomented anew on locations of past pain, plantations being only one example, (the death camp of Grosse Isle being another I can think of…), then Dr. King’s dream is not only dead; it was stillborn.
5) You have the right to disagree with me on my historical arguments, needless to say.
But I will continue to believe in my fellow humankind as sure as the words above form historical evidence. As my other hero besides Dr. King, General Robert E. Lee said-
“It is history that teaches us to hope.”
Hope must be valued for all Humankind.
6) I believe that, though you may strongly disagree with my historical arguments, you are not attacking my character.
Thanks, Hugh, for your additional comments. I will end by saying that I would not rent plantations for weddings any more than I would rent a gas chamber in Auschwitz for a wedding under the guise of reconciliation. Plantation grounds were the site of hangings, burnings, rapes, and all manner of evil. The beauty of those fields of persecution and killing was a mere illusion of purity in movies like Gone With The Wind. Now, that history has shown us more of the truth, our humanity should be affirmed, not further confused with the irrational notion that if Blacks would only dress up like slaves, and entertain Whites at weddings now, the races can be reconciled.
Incidentally, I was privileged to study Dr. King’s speeches in real time. He understood human nature well, and he knew when and where to draw the line. In particular, he knew that Whites are not a monolith. I, too, take care not to generalize to entire races in any sense.
Meanwhile, my exchange with you only intensifies my concerns, because intelligent and gifted writers like you can do a great deal of good or a great deal of harm. Therefore, I am sad that I could not convey the threat of sugar-coating any aspect of slavery or any other oppressive era in history.
I tried to make the point that the oppression and suffering during the Antebellum has a certain linearity (connection) to current struggles of Blacks. I feel certain that Jews, Native Americans, and other peoples with oppressive histories would concur that a strong connection to the past is part of their being. I apologize for not making this point clearly. Best to you!
The precise quote from the Prussians, epitomizing emotional nationalism above, from the Franco-Prussian War is-
“The German authorities were convinced of the superiority of
their imposed benefaction. As Trietschke affirmed. “We know
better how to govern Alsace than the Alsatians know themselves.”
-A CONFLICT OF CULTURES
Alsace-Lorraine 1871-1918
A Thesis
Presented to the Department of Modern Foreign Languages
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
and
The University Honors Committee
Butler University
https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1019&context=ugtheses [Accessed 26 March 2023]
-‘Alsace Lorraine Under German Rule’, by Charles Downer Hazen, New York: Henry Hold & Company, 1917, 104-05.
Thanks again, Hugh, I wish I could have taken some of your history courses. Your brilliance is both intriguing and intimidating–in a good way. I presume that you are a history professor. You are a credit to academia. Best!
Carol Surles
Ma’am,
I hope you’ll fare well.
God bless.