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NCMaureen's avatar

I wonder what all these loons would says about the blacks who owned black slaves in the south.

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bestuvall's avatar

they weren't slaves. they were "friends" who helped out and worked for free. unless they tried to move elsewhere

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Jim Wills's avatar

I don't believe that they really care about any of that - black-owned slaves, white-owned slaves, black slave traders or indentured servants, like my ancestors. They just want lucre and dominance. And fame. Social Justice Warrioring seems to them like the easiest grift to get those things.

They remind me of a fellow I grew up with. Always a bully, he finally caught religion and started bullyragging all his neighbors to get "saved." In reality he was a nobody. But he desperately wanted to be Somebody. They - and he - will never get what they want.

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dorothy slater's avatar

Before any name is changed, any statue demolished, any words in a book changed, I submit that everyone voting for such changes, should be required to submit their taxes to see how much they donated to support all these minorities they are protecting.

I have often wondered why changing names, etc due to some dark history these folks uncovered in their deep research into American slave-holding history, , is going to help anyone except their own virtue signaling reputations. Noone, that I have read about, has sold their large homes - I am from Portland so know all too well about those homes - to finance low income housing : none that I know of have taken in two or three black or Native America teenagers and supported them for years in private schools so they can overcome their racist history and succeed in today's world.

When it was recently discovered that the ancestors of Angela Davis came over on the Mayflower as COLONISTS for heaven's sake, I had to laugh. Wonder if Henry Gates did a heritage history of any of these folks, he would find a slave owner. Oh THE HORROR. .

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MM's avatar

Yeah, it's so much easier to "do something" by changing names and forcing pronouns, etc.

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Lynne Morris's avatar

Personally I do not think they really care about that either. I truly believe it is about the fight , the protesting, and the feelings generated thereby. Nothing is ever going to be enought to slake their thirst for power.

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MM's avatar

Having been one of them for a long, long time it's more or less of all of the above for various of them (formerly us) at various times in their (our) lives.

The one thing I, at least, would never have admitted even to myself was that it was about power. Because power is hierarchical, and "hierarchy - BAD," of course. And to the extent that it was about being "in power" (by fair and legitimate political and administrative processes), it was all in the name of "having the power" to affect positive change for all the various "oppressed/marginalized/colonized" groups that needed change to be made...

For many true believers now, I think they do think that if they change words they change culture (Mao, yep) and that changes people's minds and behaviors. But mostly I think a lot of folks don't think at all and it just "feels right." Whether it feels right b/c it makes one feel "powerful" (as opposed to empowered, maybe...) or just b/c one wants to feel nice and part of the group, I dunno. One thing I know almost none of them are gonna do is pay a whole bunch more in taxes, give up their nice homes, cars, vacations, doggy day cares, etc., much less their 401Ks...

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Lynne Morris's avatar

Thank you for this. I really appreciate the insight. I did not mean to sound harsh. I am just so weary of this. It is like trying to live on a sand dune of ever shifting sand. I don't like change to start with so when I accept it I have to be satisfied there is just cause to do so. But if all of this demand for change is supposed to enlighten or improve me it is having the opposite effect. There is a world of things I simply could care less about now - climate change, saving water, saving electricity, saving the planet, saving the whales, donating to any cause, etc.. I seriously doubt I am the only one.

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MM's avatar

You're not, including myself. And it didn't sound harsh at all. I think it's really important that us disaffected folks (from both sides) have meaningful conversations about this stuff.

One of the things that eventually changed it all for me was asking of our methods if they actually achieve what we say we want to achieve. They don't. Most it is just bad communications practice, at a 101 level. Then it became more clear, oh we're not actually trying to do the ostensible goal (for me, for example, on race it was Dr. King's vision of the beloved community) because these tactics don't get us to that. So we must *really* be trying to do something else... Ah, oh it's just about power.

And some level of warped, juvenile idealism that thinks "burning it all down" actually results in something good (rather than literally killing - ACTUAL literal violence, not just "harm" from the name of a long-dead, imperfectly good and awful guy - the same "oppressed/marginalized/colonized" people it claims to be revolting on behalf of).

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Lynne Morris's avatar

Oh goodness. I want to hug you. Thanks for the conversation. It gives me hope.

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MM's avatar

Ditto! Though I'm not sure I have any hope anymore, and I don't even know how to handle that...

Listening to a podcast about the history of Rome probably isn't helping.

:)

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LonesomePolecat's avatar

The left ignores facts and history they don't like. They live a wacky leftwing fantasy full of unicorns, rainbows and butterflies.

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Jeff Cunningham's avatar

"Loons" - that's good. A missed opportunity on the title. It should have been "Looney Tunes".

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NCMaureen's avatar

I should have added that native Americans also owned black slaves.

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Bob Park's avatar

There were even blacks who owned slaves.

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MM's avatar

Yeah, all five of the "civilized tribes" should have to change their names, too.

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Albert Loveland's avatar

Not just owned slaves but were hired as slave catchers to track them down for the owners. But who cares about that when you go on feelings not facts.

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JB87's avatar

One is not allowed to talk about that. They were merely internalizing the white oppression that had been forced upon them... ...does make the whole reparations thing a bit messy, though...

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Celia M Paddock's avatar

Except that they had been enslaving people of other tribes since long before Europeans came to this continent. I guess "white oppression" is able to defy physics and travel throughout time and space.

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Tom Sparks's avatar

Maureen, come now. They were just victims of internalized racism. Not culpable. ; )

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