Roger DeBlanck's Blog - Posts Tagged "thomas-jefferson"
The Disease of Racism in America and the Disgrace of the Confederacy
I.
Racism exists like a contagious disease in America. It is passed on and passed down generation to generation. However, racism is not a permanent condition; no one is born racist. Racism is taught, learned, and acquired, and racism lives and survives through what a person says and does and supports. A person chooses to be racist. Likewise, a person can also unlearn racism and choose to confront and eradicate it.
Confederates relied on the disease of racism to dehumanize Black people and perpetuate the falsehood that Blacks were inferior. The Confederacy seceded because they demanded the laws remain intact so that they could continue enslaving and terrorizing an entire race of people in order to preserve their economic wealth and their uninhibited lifestyles of luxury as an entitlement of white privilege and supremacy. President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, and his vice-presidential mate, Alexander Stephens, propagated the disease that whites are the divine race and Blacks were born for servitude.
In his infamous “Farewell Address” to the U.S. Senate in 1861, Davis dehumanized Black people as “that very class of persons as property; they were not put upon the footing of equality with white men—not even upon that of paupers and convicts.” In his “Cornerstone Speech” to Georgians in 1861, Stephens also declared bluntly how the Confederacy believed in “the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.” Indeed, the preposterous beliefs of the Confederacy stood for an America established upon racist ideology and white supremacy.
II.
We do not need Confederate statues, flags, emblems, and mascots that serve only to glorify those who defended the injustice of human enslavement. When we remove Confederate symbols, we are not erasing history, nor are we making history unrecognizable, as Trump has been so ignorant and crass in claiming. To the contrary, by taking down and banning Confederate symbols and renaming military bases that were sadly named after Confederate soldiers, we have never been more clearsighted in telling the truth and addressing the full measure of our disgraceful past about how the Confederacy sought to continue slavery and entrench white supremacy for future generations.
However, as the necessity of taking down Confederate statues proceeds, it should be done peaceably and not through vandalism. Then these artifacts should be relocated to museums where the complete story of America’s history can be clearly addressed with the Confederates exposed for their crimes and their racism. The vital existence of museums along with libraries will forever preserve our history for future generations to recall the sordid parts of our past.
III.
As for the Founders, how do we remember them? They sought to establish a republic based on “equality” for all, but they failed in colossal fashion to end slavery. Were the Founders racists? We know many of them did not think of Blacks as their equals. But still most of them knew that slavery was wrong, including Washington and Jefferson, even though they never found a way to release their slaves. Nor did they choose to utilize their political power and influence to bring bearing towards the steps necessary to ending the institution of slavery. History does not exonerate them from their transgressions, but they did not take up arms against America to preserve slavery as the Confederates chose to do.
Then we have Lincoln. He questioned whether the races could coexist, and he advocated for the colonization of Black people to Africa or elsewhere. Nonetheless, he knew the evil of slavery could not continue. He led the Union on the right side of history to eliminate human bondage. Plenty of Unionists harbored racists ideas, but a strong majority stood with abolitionism and its mission to emancipate Blacks and strive for racial equality. Antiracists such as the tireless Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and William Lloyd Garrison fought both for liberating the slaves from the crime of slavery and for ending the more lasting disease of racism and inequality in America.
IV.
Were the Founders and Lincoln capable of overcoming their racist ideas? They certainly exhibited the minds of individuals capable of unlearning racism. The fact is this: they knew how to draw up and establish a government based on the idea of equality, and they also knew the magnitude of trying to preserve a new form of government that represented a vision for serving and protecting all Americans. But when we remember them, we must also point out their glaring shortcomings as human beings and their failures as lawmakers and statesmen.
Over a hundred and fifty-five years since the Civil War and still Confederate loyalists and segregationists reject racial equality. Now since the cultist rise of Trumpist white supremacy, Trump and his enablers refuse to take part in ending racism. As the leader of white nationalism, Trump chooses to align with the hatemaking ideologies of the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis, Neo-Confederates, Proud Boys, and Oath Keepers in order to fuel hatred, to divide the country, and to endanger the lives of American citizens of all races, ethnicities, backgrounds, and religions.
The most tragic aspect of this Trump-endorsed racial hatred is the fact that we’ve seen this tragedy before: during slavery, during Reconstruction, during the Jim Crow era. It’s as though nothing has changed with the way a certain deplorable segment of society believes they are more human because their whiteness is superior and, therefore, their illogic claims that their rights are threatened by those who they deem inferior—those “others” who are not white.
I want to believe we are better than what the past proves we were. And if we are to be better, we must choose to stand on the right side of history that wants to eradicate the disease of racism.
Roger 8-)
Racism exists like a contagious disease in America. It is passed on and passed down generation to generation. However, racism is not a permanent condition; no one is born racist. Racism is taught, learned, and acquired, and racism lives and survives through what a person says and does and supports. A person chooses to be racist. Likewise, a person can also unlearn racism and choose to confront and eradicate it.
Confederates relied on the disease of racism to dehumanize Black people and perpetuate the falsehood that Blacks were inferior. The Confederacy seceded because they demanded the laws remain intact so that they could continue enslaving and terrorizing an entire race of people in order to preserve their economic wealth and their uninhibited lifestyles of luxury as an entitlement of white privilege and supremacy. President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, and his vice-presidential mate, Alexander Stephens, propagated the disease that whites are the divine race and Blacks were born for servitude.
In his infamous “Farewell Address” to the U.S. Senate in 1861, Davis dehumanized Black people as “that very class of persons as property; they were not put upon the footing of equality with white men—not even upon that of paupers and convicts.” In his “Cornerstone Speech” to Georgians in 1861, Stephens also declared bluntly how the Confederacy believed in “the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.” Indeed, the preposterous beliefs of the Confederacy stood for an America established upon racist ideology and white supremacy.
II.
We do not need Confederate statues, flags, emblems, and mascots that serve only to glorify those who defended the injustice of human enslavement. When we remove Confederate symbols, we are not erasing history, nor are we making history unrecognizable, as Trump has been so ignorant and crass in claiming. To the contrary, by taking down and banning Confederate symbols and renaming military bases that were sadly named after Confederate soldiers, we have never been more clearsighted in telling the truth and addressing the full measure of our disgraceful past about how the Confederacy sought to continue slavery and entrench white supremacy for future generations.
However, as the necessity of taking down Confederate statues proceeds, it should be done peaceably and not through vandalism. Then these artifacts should be relocated to museums where the complete story of America’s history can be clearly addressed with the Confederates exposed for their crimes and their racism. The vital existence of museums along with libraries will forever preserve our history for future generations to recall the sordid parts of our past.
III.
As for the Founders, how do we remember them? They sought to establish a republic based on “equality” for all, but they failed in colossal fashion to end slavery. Were the Founders racists? We know many of them did not think of Blacks as their equals. But still most of them knew that slavery was wrong, including Washington and Jefferson, even though they never found a way to release their slaves. Nor did they choose to utilize their political power and influence to bring bearing towards the steps necessary to ending the institution of slavery. History does not exonerate them from their transgressions, but they did not take up arms against America to preserve slavery as the Confederates chose to do.
Then we have Lincoln. He questioned whether the races could coexist, and he advocated for the colonization of Black people to Africa or elsewhere. Nonetheless, he knew the evil of slavery could not continue. He led the Union on the right side of history to eliminate human bondage. Plenty of Unionists harbored racists ideas, but a strong majority stood with abolitionism and its mission to emancipate Blacks and strive for racial equality. Antiracists such as the tireless Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and William Lloyd Garrison fought both for liberating the slaves from the crime of slavery and for ending the more lasting disease of racism and inequality in America.
IV.
Were the Founders and Lincoln capable of overcoming their racist ideas? They certainly exhibited the minds of individuals capable of unlearning racism. The fact is this: they knew how to draw up and establish a government based on the idea of equality, and they also knew the magnitude of trying to preserve a new form of government that represented a vision for serving and protecting all Americans. But when we remember them, we must also point out their glaring shortcomings as human beings and their failures as lawmakers and statesmen.
Over a hundred and fifty-five years since the Civil War and still Confederate loyalists and segregationists reject racial equality. Now since the cultist rise of Trumpist white supremacy, Trump and his enablers refuse to take part in ending racism. As the leader of white nationalism, Trump chooses to align with the hatemaking ideologies of the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis, Neo-Confederates, Proud Boys, and Oath Keepers in order to fuel hatred, to divide the country, and to endanger the lives of American citizens of all races, ethnicities, backgrounds, and religions.
The most tragic aspect of this Trump-endorsed racial hatred is the fact that we’ve seen this tragedy before: during slavery, during Reconstruction, during the Jim Crow era. It’s as though nothing has changed with the way a certain deplorable segment of society believes they are more human because their whiteness is superior and, therefore, their illogic claims that their rights are threatened by those who they deem inferior—those “others” who are not white.
I want to believe we are better than what the past proves we were. And if we are to be better, we must choose to stand on the right side of history that wants to eradicate the disease of racism.
Roger 8-)
