Bagginski
Well-Known Member
I’ve said it so often: slavery - as brought here from Barbados and practiced here - is our nation’s original sin.
Espousing freedom and liberty on the back of chattel slavery from the very beginning, a condition little better than livestock, has been warping who we are as people and as a nation for the entire time of European settlement onward. I don’t love my country less for realizing that our hearts have been at war with our wallets since the outset, or hate my fellow citizens who somehow believe that staying asleep & unaware will somehow help them.
But I mentioned the Confederacy.
The Confederacy, the ‘reconstruction’ nightmare that followed, and the Jim-Crow almost-slavery that sprang up to replace it, are central to the way the law has developed in the US since emancipation. Nudge-nudge/wink-wink just-as-good-as-slavery attitudes, beliefs, grievances, with plenty of spite for flavor, has been on the menu in an increasingly broad swath of the US - far beyond the cotton states everyone thinks of instinctually - over the last 10+ years. Backlash built following both WW1 & WW2, and surged in the late 50s after the Warren court ordered school desegregation; with it came the rebirth of the KKK, state-provided vouchers for all-white ‘Christian’ schools, and the roots of the ‘Tea Party’, the ‘Freedom Caucus’, & MAGA. THE WHOLE TIME, however, laws were being molded to fit “southern sensibilities & traditional culture” in ways that have perpetuated and expanded our almost-slavery practices via careful wording and misdirection…. Yes, THE WHOLE TIME.
Trying to unpack modern racism therefore isn’t simple, especially when some are determined to defeat the snooze-alarm of reality or die trying, but it’s impossible without addressing Slaver attitudes, laws, and culture before during and after secession. Having been raised on Confederate battlefields & having experienced the living legacy of slavery, I understand how deeply ingrained it is in people here, and in the confederate sphere, it’s also deeply tied into “that old-time religion”, which makes it trickier & stickier still to deal with - far worse than kudzu patches & blackberry rambles.
Enter Atun-Shea Films: a couple of brothers, it seems, from New Orleans, who have spent some years sifting through the facts and bullshit of the Slaver Rebellion (“war between the states”) & producing a series of well-researched, well-presented, and damned entertaining dissections of “Slaver apologetics” (my term) @ Checkmate, Lincolnites on YouTube (or Atun-Shea films).
I’ve seen the entire series, and can vouch for the quality of the research & sources, based on my own research into overlapping areas. Whether it would change minds or not, I don’t know, but it IS very funny, very informative, and very well done, so I encourage folks to watch it. I think it’ll be an excellent springboard for conversation.
They just released a new one today, so if you want to watch it (it summarizes a lot), you can follow links back to their other stuff.
I will caution you: it gets “wildly fanciful” at the end, and some may find it triggering, so be warned.
Espousing freedom and liberty on the back of chattel slavery from the very beginning, a condition little better than livestock, has been warping who we are as people and as a nation for the entire time of European settlement onward. I don’t love my country less for realizing that our hearts have been at war with our wallets since the outset, or hate my fellow citizens who somehow believe that staying asleep & unaware will somehow help them.
But I mentioned the Confederacy.
The Confederacy, the ‘reconstruction’ nightmare that followed, and the Jim-Crow almost-slavery that sprang up to replace it, are central to the way the law has developed in the US since emancipation. Nudge-nudge/wink-wink just-as-good-as-slavery attitudes, beliefs, grievances, with plenty of spite for flavor, has been on the menu in an increasingly broad swath of the US - far beyond the cotton states everyone thinks of instinctually - over the last 10+ years. Backlash built following both WW1 & WW2, and surged in the late 50s after the Warren court ordered school desegregation; with it came the rebirth of the KKK, state-provided vouchers for all-white ‘Christian’ schools, and the roots of the ‘Tea Party’, the ‘Freedom Caucus’, & MAGA. THE WHOLE TIME, however, laws were being molded to fit “southern sensibilities & traditional culture” in ways that have perpetuated and expanded our almost-slavery practices via careful wording and misdirection…. Yes, THE WHOLE TIME.
Trying to unpack modern racism therefore isn’t simple, especially when some are determined to defeat the snooze-alarm of reality or die trying, but it’s impossible without addressing Slaver attitudes, laws, and culture before during and after secession. Having been raised on Confederate battlefields & having experienced the living legacy of slavery, I understand how deeply ingrained it is in people here, and in the confederate sphere, it’s also deeply tied into “that old-time religion”, which makes it trickier & stickier still to deal with - far worse than kudzu patches & blackberry rambles.
Enter Atun-Shea Films: a couple of brothers, it seems, from New Orleans, who have spent some years sifting through the facts and bullshit of the Slaver Rebellion (“war between the states”) & producing a series of well-researched, well-presented, and damned entertaining dissections of “Slaver apologetics” (my term) @ Checkmate, Lincolnites on YouTube (or Atun-Shea films).
I’ve seen the entire series, and can vouch for the quality of the research & sources, based on my own research into overlapping areas. Whether it would change minds or not, I don’t know, but it IS very funny, very informative, and very well done, so I encourage folks to watch it. I think it’ll be an excellent springboard for conversation.
They just released a new one today, so if you want to watch it (it summarizes a lot), you can follow links back to their other stuff.
I will caution you: it gets “wildly fanciful” at the end, and some may find it triggering, so be warned.