More on that flag controversy

[Miss Shelby]

The follow up books are "killer angels' and 'The Last full Measure' , two of which I know have become acclaimed movies, and not starring no names either. It's always a good diplomatic tactic to see a view point other than one's own.

 

[Miss Shelby]

Okay, that's where you lost me. Strange to hear about Christian values in a nation that was originally founded and built on racism, white supremacy, white privilege, white nationalism, not to mention on the genocide of Native Americans and the enslavement of African slaves. The only biblical aspects that can honestly be attributed to this country is the genocide and slavery that took place on its stolen tribal lands committed by God fearing Americans. So much for freedom or liberty and justice for all. And let's not forget the cultural genocide many Christians once committed against my ancestors, attempting to strip them entirely of their culture, their traditions, their way of life, their spirituality, and their humanity. Oh, let's certainly not forget all the thousands of Indian children who were stolen away from their families and placed into Indian Residential Schools where they were to be forcibly assimilated and Christianized. Well, cultural genocide against Native Americans is one tradition this country has kept up very well over the centuries since before its inception, and so is racism and oppression of its Indigenous and minority people too. I'd say so much for being a Christian nation.

Red, there is no denying that your people were treated with atrocity. But has the American government not tried to make up for that by designating Reservations which aren't under US gov't authority and scholarships guaranteed for Native Americans to attend college, to name a few?

 

[Colin]

Comedian sums up the flegs......

 

[Red Fox]

Red, there is no denying that your people were treated with atrocity. But has the American government not tried to make up for that by designating Reservations which aren't under US gov't authority and scholarships guaranteed for Native Americans to attend college, to name a few?

First of all, please know that I mean you no disrespect or offense, but please don't call me Red. My Indian name is Red Fox. It was given to me by an elder from my birth mother's clan when I was in my late twenties. It is especially important to me, even sacred in a way, because it was given me as an honor for struggling so hard to regain my Indian identity and heritage after I became an adult. I had shared with her what I had gone through as a child and what I struggled with as an adult. I was then welcomed back into my birth mother's clan and accepted as one of their own and as part of the Cherokee, although not officially through my blood quantum with the Nation. So, I hope you can understand why I am rather sensitive, even protective, of my Indian name. I would sincerely appreciate your understanding. Thank you very much.

Secondly, no amount of money or special privileges from the government will ever undo the immeasurable damage that was done to my people in this country. We, as a people, are still suffering the effects of what was done to our ancestors. And for the record, I could careless about any money or special privileges for being NDN from the government or from the Cherokee or Choctaw Nation. The government can take its money and its empty promises and shove it as far as this NDN is concerned.

 

[Lavendar Frog]

You're not aware that there were northern slave States?
Therefore, the tenor of argument arising here in a model of , good vs. evil, the "slave owning south" being fought by the 'slave liberating north', is not truth.
The Civil War was started over the issue of States rights. The north wanted to impose penalties, a tariff that ultimately morphed into a tax, on the south. The north wanted to penalize, with a dividing line, based on northern political rights to do so, the south. As if they were not part of the USA. But were instead to be beholding, owing, in their business with the power seat in the north.
And slavery, which was practiced in the north, was part of the issue. To argue that it was slavery alone that started the Civil War and not at all State's rights, is ignorance of immense proportions. After all, it's obvious in the divide between the States of the south fighting those States in the north over the right to remain free of a dictatorship that announced itself from the north.
Ergo, the pejorative, that the south and those who fought and bled in the Civil War, were traitors is an abominable slur. The brave people who fought and died in and for the south were freedom fighters! Fighting a northern government that presided over slave states there and that thought it would tax, penalize , as if a separate entity from the northern states of America, those persons and States in the south.

And gurney, those particulars you outlined as what stand as history behind today's American flag, what is the culmination today of a history that had it evolving from the union flag in the Civil War, are points of contention that could very well feed the anti-American agenda that has pursued and succeeded in overcoming the true history, and heritage, of the Confederate flag.
So bolstered, they very well could pursue the American flag next. Arguing in a new century it is time to craft a new flag that better resembles our contemporary values and is more politically correct. Because its history, our American flag, is so egregious the world over that for our sake as a nation we need to wash it clean and start fresh.

We're witnessing, as Christians, that which God himself calls an abomination and unrepentant of, damnable sins, being not only let out of the closet but given the rights to send others into their own for having an opinion about the behaviors. We're witnessing Christians being put out of business because today's contemporary, seemingly higher moral government than that which ruled during the Civil War, giving a sex act and cross dressing behaviors the label of a civil right and thus protections under that marker. We're witnessing abnormal sexual behaviors not only labeled a civil right but given the right to adopt innocent children, or pay to have surrogates create them because those ungodly behaviors can't reproduce on their own.
And now we're witnessing in the midst of all that which is antithetical to morality and God's teachings as pertain to righteousness, a people who are saying a flag and actual history that was carved out and written in the loss of lives, is something to be ashamed of, closeted, lied about, misrepresented in the history books, and labeled as cowardly and traitorous.

We're watching the sequel of Sodom and Gomorrah rise up, break ground, in a country that was founded with Christian ideology interwoven into the tapestry of its beginnings, and here we are arguing that the Christians that fought and died in the south are worthy of being relegated to the abyss. Because the truth of what happened leading up to and including the Civil War between the States, just can't be tolerated in today's world.

 

[LivingWordUnity]

You're not aware that there were northern slave States?
Therefore, the tenor of argument arising here in a model of , good vs. evil, the "slave owning south" being fought by the 'slave liberating north', is not truth.

That was my point back in post #18 of this thread.

What most people probably don't know is that the main point of entry of slaves into the United States was New England.

The Triangle Trade

Colonial Massachusetts and Rhode Island played a major role in the "infamous triangle trade" of the 15th through mid-18th centuries. At the time, Massachusetts and Rhode Island produced some of the best rum in the world. It was this rum that was shipped to the western coast of Africa to be traded for slaves.

The ports in the New England colonies of Massachusetts and Rhode Island formed a vital leg of the triangle. In towns across New England, two forms of rum, tafia and ordinary rum, were produced. The rum was manufactured partially for personal consumption, but even more importantly, it was shipped to the west coast of Africa to be traded for gold and slaves.

Most of the slaves who were bought with New England rum were from Central and Western Africa. These slaves were transported aboard specially designed slave ships from the west coast of Africa to the sugar producing islands of the West Indies and a small portion made the trip to colonial America.

Upon arrival in the West Indies, the slaves were sold and traded for sugar and molasses, two of the key ingredients in rum production. The sugar, molasses and any remaining money were then shipped to New England (Massachusetts and Rhode Island) where the molasses and sugar were used to produce the rum which would be traded for another group of slaves in Africa. New England's rum distilleries were integral to the continuation of the immensely profitable triangle trade. This continuous cycle of rum production and trade ensured a constant influx of capital which was used to help "industrialize New England with ventures into textile manufacturing."

The transportation of slaves from Africa to the West Indies was know as the "Middle Passage." The Middle Passage was the longest leg of the triangular trade route. Slaves were kept below deck in conditions that were almost uninhabitable. The food that they were fed was often contaminated as was the water. For reasons such as this there was roughly a 12% mortality rate during this part of the journey alone. Typically, slaves were allowed on the above decks of the ship for only a short while each day for "exercise". The purpose of the exercise was not because the slave traders were friendly or caring, but they realized that the circulation of the slaves was poor because they were laying on their backs for roughly 23 hours a day in chains. When the slaves were brought above deck revolts were not uncommon, nor was the action of slaves throwing themselves overboard to avoid a life in captivity.

(Source)

 

[Lavendar Frog]

That was my point back in post #18 of this thread.

Careful now, interjecting truth when the revisionist history compartment label of, racist traitors,is a constant for some, is a dangerous thing.

(Edited to correct quote typo per LWU request)

 

[MikeK]

I am sorry that the South were racists, that the "right" to own black slaves was among the rights they were fighting and dying to protect, and that they were traitors. That is not a proclamation of the innocence of the North (or as they should more rightly be called, the United States of America). The Northern States were complicit in all sorts of evils, and I don't fly their flag either.

 

[Lavendar Frog]

That was my point back in post #18 of this thread.

To follow up on the Triangular Trade:

This is a Harvard Professor, Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr and his research:

The Dallas Morning News -Sunday Points - Published May 1 2010
Henry Louis Gates Jr.: Africans' role in the slave trade
(Sic)"...Our new understanding of the scope of African involvement in the slave trade is not historical guesswork. Thanks to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, directed by historian David Eltis of Emory University, we now know the ports from which more than 450,000 of our African ancestors were shipped out to what is now the United States. About 16 percent of United States slaves came from eastern Nigeria; 24 percent came from the Congo and Angola.

Through the work of Thornton and Heywood, we also know that the victims of the slave trade were predominantly members of as few as 50 ethnic groups. This data, along with the tracing of blacks' ancestry through DNA tests, is giving us a fuller understanding of the identities of both the victims and the facilitators of the African slave trade.

For many African-Americans, these facts can be difficult to accept. Excuses run the gamut, from "Africans didn't know how harsh slavery in America was" and "Slavery in Africa was, by comparison, humane" or, in a bizarre version of "The devil made me do it," "Africans were driven to this only by the unprecedented profits offered by greedy European countries."

But the sad truth is that the conquest and capture of Africans and their sale to Europeans was one of the main sources of foreign exchange for several African kingdoms for a very long time."

Continues at link​

 

[Lavendar Frog]

I am sorry that the South were racists, that the "right" to own black slaves was among the rights they were fighting and dying to protect, and that they were traitors. That is not a proclamation of the innocence of the North (or as they should more rightly be called, the United States of America). The Northern States were complicit in all sorts of evils, and I don't fly their flag either.

I'd be sorry I was proudly promoting falsehood because of a commitment to falsehood, racism and hate. And happily demonstrate, and repeatedly, that no amount of truth will educate my resolve to that commitment.

In fact and to go further before I ignore racism and hate speech in this Christian forum, I'd pray a moderator realizes the slurs propagating in this thread by you and that they do something to edit them out.
Because there are members here who have family in the south. A heritage of blood that reaches back to prior to the CW, through the war, and beyond.
All of whom are being described by the pejoratives, the falsehoods, the uncharitable the un-Christ like slurs that you repeatedly insist on attaching to history, the people of history and by lineage any and all members in this forum who's family line originates in the south. Mine included.

And that is all I have to say to a despicable agenda of hate, falsehoods, and slurs that perpetuates itself repeatedly in this thread until someone puts a stop to it.

 

[Red Fox]

I'm sorry, perhaps I'm mistaken, but it sounds to me like there's an insinuation that because Africans started slavery or owned slaves then that somehow justifies white people owning slaves and having slavery. Surely, I'm misunderstanding the message that I think is being conveyed by posting the information on Africans starting slavery.

 

[LivingWordUnity]

The slave trade also has a connection to Islam since that religion took over much of Africa and allows for chattel slavery. Chattel slavery still goes on in some Muslim countries.

 

[MikeK]

I'd be sorry I was proudly promoting falsehood because of a commitment to falsehood, racism and hate. And happily demonstrate, and repeatedly, that no amount of truth will educate my resolve to that commitment.

Where specifically did I err, oh learned one? Secessionists who leave their country to form a new one (even attacking - though unsuccessfully, a military installation of the country they abandoned) are traitors. They may be noble traitors, but they are traitors. If a group of people decided that tax policies today were unfair, mounted an attack against Fort Campbell and declared themselves to belong to a new country distinct from the USA, they would be traitors too. My other statement was that among the chief rights that the South was fighting to preserve was the right to own black slaves. That is undeniable fact and their period declarations explain as much. No ammount of "but the North was bad too!" will change the fact that the South did in fact hold very dear to their identity the right to own black slaves.

 

[MikeK]

I'm sorry, perhaps I'm mistaken, but it sounds to me like there's an insinuation that because Africans started slavery or owned slaves then that somehow justifies white people owning slaves and having slavery. Surely, I'm misunderstanding the message that I think is being conveyed by posting the information on Africans starting slavery.

Yup. "Bu-bu-but they did bad things too!" is the sort of "logic" that children generally grow out of by the 2nd grade. But the North. But the times. But Africans. But Muslims. Anything to obscure and obfuscate the uncomfortable topic at hand.

It is very similar to the shameful "but some native tribes were cruel to each other!" that Americans will sometimes use to distract from the evils their forebearers inflicted upon the natives.

 

[LivingWordUnity]

Yup. "Bu-bu-but they did bad things too!" is the sort of "logic" that children generally grow out of by the 2nd grade. But the North. But the times. But Africans. But Muslims. Anything to obscure and obfuscate the uncomfortable topic at hand.

Some of us are just pointing that the facts are not so simple. No one in this thread has said that they approve of racism or slavery or said that they want to overthrow the government. Just because someone owns a confederate flag or just because they are white and from the south does not automatically mean that they are a "racist traitor." Ignorance of the facts is not good even if it feels good to vilify someone. Also, we must take care not to be hypocritical when accusing others of hate.

 

[Red Fox]

Yup. "Bu-bu-but they did bad things too!" is the sort of "logic" that children generally grow out of by the 2nd grade. But the North. But the times. But Africans. But Muslims. Anything to obscure and obfuscate the uncomfortable topic at hand.

It is very similar to the shameful "but some native tribes were cruel to each other!" that Americans will sometimes use to distract from the evils their forebearers inflicted upon the natives.

That's exactly what I was about to say. It is the pitiful and feeble excuse some non-native people come up with in their attempts to justify what happened to my ancestors in this country. I wonder how they would feel if foreigners came into this country and did exactly to Americans what was done to my ancestors and then have the audacity to say, "Well, Americans fought against each other during the Civil War!" I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I don't see them trying to justify something like that.

 

[MikeK]

Just because someone owns a confederate flag or just because they are white and from the south does not automatically mean that they are a "racist traitor."

Way to attack a position that nobody here holds. That doesn't seem all that honest to me.

Also, we must take care not to be hypocritical when accusing others of hate.

Who accused anyone of hate? Are we reading the same thread?

 

[Miss Shelby]

Secondly, no amount of money or special privileges from the government will ever undo the immeasurable damage that was done to my people in this country. We, as a people, are still suffering the effects of what was done to our ancestors. And for the record, I could careless about any money or special privileges for being NDN from the government or from the Cherokee or Choctaw Nation. The government can take its money and its empty promises and shove it as far as this NDN is concerned.

The point is acknowledgment has been made about the wrongs done and reparation, inadequate though it may be, is afforded. Short of building a time machine and going back and re doing things, what else can be done? I am sorry for the sufferings of your people, but I am no stranger to suffering myself and it does no good to wallow in it.

 

[wondrousgnat]

I enjoy friendly disagreement. But what I see here and in other threads is a lot of insults. No wonder Christianity is on the decline when Catholics insult each other without bringing other denominations into it.

 

[LivingWordUnity]

Who accused anyone of hate? Are we reading the same thread?

Are you saying that calling the people who own a confederate flag "racist traitors" isn't accusing them of hate?

I'm not calling for any flags to be banned, not even the flags of racist traitors.