I always thought something like this underlay the panic about black men raping white women in the Jim Crow South. "Every accusation a confession," as they say.
It hadn't occurred to me either, but the lightbulb is switched on now.
It hadn't occurred to me either,
Same here. Heebie's first paragraph is very well said.
I imagine Warmth of Other Suns must have gone into this at least a little, but I must have filtered that out when I read it, to my discredit. I remember reading about a world of oppressive omnipresent racial terror, but not about its being sexualized.
If you want to really blow your mind about what didn't end after the Civil War, read (highly recommended, though very painful) or watch Slavery by Another Name. I know I've linked it here before but it really is stunning.
There's also a really good book (among many others, no doubt) about reestablishing white supremacy in electoral politics in post-Reconstruction Mississippi. I can't remember the title of it, but I imagine it was recommended Von Wafer.
2,3: Me too. I wonder if part of the reason is part of a broader whitewashing about war, occupation, and oppression.
I know that my first mental image of war is usually organized troops on a battlefield, learned as a kid, while a more nuanced understanding of captive taking and wrongs requiring the Geneva Conventions came only much later. Even in high school rapine was only hinted at, and only more realistically looked at in college and adult texts. Our collective reluctance to discuss sex in any context, particularly with children, means that this whole strand of crime and terror was likeliest to be ignored.
It's mixed up with the blithe rape of servant- and working-class women, in 19th c. novels, but not inextricably mixed. (Ellen Glasgow's Virginia, for instance.)
I'd venture to say that less than 75% of white Americans even have a vague notion of what Reconstruction was, never mind that it was wiped out of existence and replaced by terrorism. (Not that terrorism wasn't already always going on during Reconstruction.)
The average would be higher among white Southerners and readers & watchers of Gone with the Wind. (Obvs. GWTW's depiction had nothing to do with reality.) Reading GWTW was certainly my introduction and I don't remember it ever coming up in school except probably a few paragraphs in a history text book. ("The end of the Civil War led to a period known as 'Reconstruction'. The Freedman's Bureau helped former slaves to adjust to their new lives.")
I at least had a pretty good notion of sharecropping through Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and Sounder. (Thanks, Scholastic Book Club!)
When I learned about reconstruction and then Jim Crow era in school, it was very difficult (in hindsight) for me to really grasp the difference between "life is hard because there's no indoor plumbing nor electricity and everyone has shitty jobs" and "life is much harder because you're subject to systematic terrorism". It blurred together and all felt unrecognizable.
("The end of the Civil War led to a period known as 'Reconstruction'. The Freedman's Bureau helped former slaves to adjust to their new lives.")
Also, "carpetbaggers bad".
Like, to begin to understand the terrorism, you need to be able to connect with the life they're being deprived of, if that makes sense. That's just a starting point, of course.
Yes, I remember the curriculum considering it important that you learn "carpetbagger" as a vocab item for quizzes and so forth, even though the textbook's narrative was not egregious on its own.
11: Also "scalawags," a term that I learned along with "carpetbaggers" in my Northern Ohio elementary school.
Whether you were a slave or a master in the 19th century, there was no TV or internet. It sucked.
14: Well, you got to admit "scalawag" is a great word.
More or less by chance, I took a seminar class in college on Reconstruction and the South. It wasn't a topic that particularly interested me at the time, and I didn't do well in it, but of all the classes I took in college it's probably the one that has stuck with me the most and seems most relevant.
Maybe we didn't study the Civil War in high school? Anyway, I don't recall learning anything negative (or positive) about reconstruction. We did learn about Jim Crow and lynching, but not about widespread rape.
We skipped a bunch of stuff the year we did American history. My teacher was determined we cover the 60s and 70s so he could bitch about hippies and defend Nixon.
("The end of the Civil War led to a period known as 'Reconstruction'. The Freedman's Bureau helped former slaves to adjust to their new lives.")
(cut to history class covering the period 30 years later) "Now let's check in on blacks in the South. You've got Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, George Washington Carver, so many advances."
(cut to history class covering the 1950s) "Now let's check in on blacks in the South again. Actually it turns out that things are bad."
Back when I went to school it didn't see, like anybody paid that much attention to what version of history we were being taught. But now...I can't imagine how teachers handle it. How can you teach about the Civil War without some group of parents rising up in arms?
We skipped a bunch of stuff the year we did American history. My teacher was determined we cover the 60s and 70s so he could bitch about hippies and defend Nixon.
We've talked about this before but I spent zero seconds in history class covering anything later than the Korean War. I don't think we even got past the fact that there was a Korean War. (spoiler: we won) The period from 1760 to 1870 must have been covered five times, and the colonial period two or three times, and then from 1870 to 1950 two or three times. I still know a lot about the Stamp Act, the Embargo Act, the XYZ Affair, the Wilmot Proviso, etc.
History ends with WWII. I thought that was well known.
16.1: "Carpetbaggers" is pretty evocative, too. Back when America was great, the racists had much better insults. What have we got now? "Low energy?" "Nasty woman?"
23: It certainly did for me.
My recollection of my (objectively good) high school history class was a strong emphasis on moving away from moral historical narratives and towards more ostensibly sophisticated ones -- so, emphasis on setting out both sides of various "controversies," causes of the American Revolution, discussions of the origins of the cold war, lots of talk about "Jeffersonian" vs "Hamiltonian" ideas, etc. The pedagogical purpose was clear - to get a bunch of teenagers to be more sophisticated analysts, come up with topics for little essays, etc. Nothing wrong with that in general. But it did screw up a more accurate understanding of slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, which IMO requires moralizing. "Rich white southeners were evil bastards who raped women and sold their children and when they lost the war raped and terrorized and burnt bodies until the rest of the cowardly and already pretty racist whites in the country left them alone" isn't a particularly complex or sophisticated story but it is a (more) accurate one.
Its a credit to Montgomery County Public Schools that shit-talking about which version of history you learned does not resonate with me.
- In elementary school we had Black History Month every year and every year the white 3rd grade teacher who marched with Dr. King went around to the other classes and told them about his experience.
- My 5th grade English teacher once praised me for having composed a well-written biographical paragraph about John H. Johnson, founder of Jet and Ebony magazines.
- In 7th grade we had a whole reading unit on Langston Hughes, in 8th grade we read "Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry", in 9th grade I think it was "A Raisin in the Sun".
- In 7th grade social studies I remember there was a move about the role black people played in settling the west.
- In 8th grade social studies we read "A People's History of the United States."
I think the key is, though, it wasn't just history class; there was commitment to having inclusive content throughout the curriculum.
Ours was probably not the worst, but a far cry from 28. We did read Their Eyes Were Watching God, parts of which take place locally to my high school.
Which book opens with a discussion of a new couch that has gotten a split while being shipped, which the family saved up for, for so long, and now has no recourse and so they live with it split? Is that TEWWG?
19 was my experience as well. An actual history of Reconstruction would have gotten lots of parental objections in my area of Appalachia.
I also remember a supplemental book called "Vietnam: The War Nobody Won." I'm assuming the US beat the point spread or something.
28: Montgomery County, Maryland? When? What high school?
Noticing now that all your examples are from elementary school and middle school. I was only in Montgomery County schools from 9th grade - 12th.
32, 28 - omg, that bully who threw you into the trash cans grew up to be peep!!
Montgomery County, MD, is but a few Capital Beltway exits and yet many worlds away from Fairfax "War of Northen Agression" County, VA.
OMG, I just looked to see what the Fairfax High sports teams are called now, having been the Rebels in my day, complete with confederate flag banner and "Johnny Reb" mascot.
The flag and Johnny are gone, but they're still called the Rebels. I realize I shouldn't be a bit surprised, but I am, regardless. At least they're trying to hide it, unlike the Redskins et al.
(I didn't go to Fairfax HS -- my middle school was split between the Fairfax Explicit Racists and the Oakton Cougars. I still got into plenty of trouble for protesting the Christianification of my public school.)
I wonder how much history teaching has changed by now in Fairfax "War of Northern Aggression" County, VA where Hillary Clinton beat Trump 65%-29%.
I still got into plenty of trouble for protesting the Christianification of my public school
Cool! What forms did this Christianification take?
Montgomery County, Maryland? When? What high school?
1980s to early 1990s. Montgomery Blair for grades 9 and 10. After that I was in Baltimore.
My Jr. High was called the "Blue Devils" but eventually some parent objected and the mascot was changed to the "Bees."
"Let's go bees. Anaphylactic shock them and profiteer from the overpriced Epipen."
I graduated from Walt Whitman High School in 1981. The Vikings -- shouldn't someone object to that? Aryan? Pro- rape and pillage?
The high school was trying to teach the golden rule and to encourage good samaritan behavior, but Sor Kraab thought this was a slave religion that would inhibit the blossoming of creative amoral aristocratic demiurges such as herself. Hail Satan!
My sister teaches history in Fairfax County and it sounds like "War of Northern Aggression" wouldn't fly at her school, if only because the classes are 70% minority students.
That means there's a market for "War of Northern Aggression" Chart School.
I graduated from Walt Whitman High School in 1981.
My siblings were at Winston Churchill High School around that time. The Bulldogs.
47: Did they play chess? We creamed them.
We didn't learn about systematic rape as a form of terrorism, but we did study the backlash against Reconstruction (mainly in the form of the KKK and lynching) as part of our "genocides committed by white people" social studies theme in 5th grade. But then again, my elementary school curriculum was initiated by the United Black Front and designed by Afro-centric scholars, so it's a bit off the mainstream.
The Whit Stillman High School would be the best and I bet Chris Eigeman needs a job.
43 is perfect. Clever, but not too clever for me to understand it.
One weird aspect of the Potomac River is that cotillion is a thing in Fairfax County, VA but not in Montgomery County, MD.
Is that because it's hard to swim in a dress?
The huge cultural distinction between the two sides of the Potomac is shrinking, I think. Used to be, all the Rs lived in Virginia and the Ds lived in Maryland, but the DC suburbs really drove the recent R wipeout in Virginia.
Is cotillion southern? We had it in LA but then I fortuitously got to drop out on "principle" because they had a racial scandal.
They can't be that traditional if the boys had a debut also.
The debutantes thing was something else -- being Southern California, it had a spanish name and (at the time at least IIRC) no latinas in it. Cotillion taught you how to do the fox trot with girls in white gloves, and was taught by a retired military officer named Commander Unander.
Now I remember. You mentioned him before.
What forms did this Christianification take?
Mostly Young Life and prayers at football game. The people in Young Life were the cool kids, including most of the cheerleaders and football players. Some of them were constantly proselytizing and trying to save my soul.
Every fucking week they would pass out maps to whoever was hosting their meeting and would try to get me and my friend who called herself "The only Jew in northern Virgina" to come. Because it was "non-denominational." Apparently no one ever explained Protestantism that them.
I actually did go once to shut them up and it was all exactly what you'd expect, including a long story about someone who learned a valuable lesson when they did/didn't help a man, and that man turned out to be ... Jesus!
Cotillion is one of the most Southern things in existence. There's an organization called the National League of Junior Cotillions that has more chapters in the Charlotte suburbs than in all states outside the South put together. Although it only has one chapter in California so there must be others.
I think "cotillion" is the same thing as a "debutante ball" in the North. The difference being that debutante balls are for people with, like, 50 million dollars nowadays and cotillion is not that uncommon.
Never mind 60. 42 gets it exactly right.
Trying not to get drawn into the rabbit hole of learning about the strange world of still-extant cotillions/debutante balls. Cleveland's annual debutante ball drew a whopping 5 debutantes in 2013.
No. Debutantes are something else. For women only and you show up for your "debut" at some giant charity ball. Cotillion is just co-ed fancy manners and ballroom dancing classes for middle schoolers. At least IME.
Taken from the Young Life link in 60 --
The Best Week of Their Life -- Camp
Kids consistently tell us that Young Life camp is the best week of their life. That's a rousing (and unsolicited) endorsement! But how else would you describe a week where deep relationships are forged in the midst of mind-boggling fun and where you experience and listen to what we believe is the greatest love story ever told?
Greatest story ever told... perhaps.
Greatest love story ever told... perhaps not.
61: Barry, you're not paying attention!
Bethesda, Maryland.
"The only Jew in northern Virgina"
Really? It wasn't until after I left MoCo that I realized Jews were not 25% of the population.
67: Yeah, everyone knows Lady and the Tramp is the greatest love story ever told.
My sister teaches history in Fairfax County and it sounds like "War of Northern Aggression" wouldn't fly at her school, if only because the classes are 70% minority students.
Yeah, times have definitely changed. I can't imagine teachers being overt about it anymore. Sounds like your sister is in one of the areas with a much higher proportion of POC, e.g., Arlington, than my family's nook did, though that became noticeably more diverse in the first 5-10 years after high school.
Young Life! I made great, lifelong friends in Young Life 40 years ago. Used to go to the meetings every week.
I was a recovering Catholic at the time, but I found myself defending Marianism and transubstantiation and whatnot as being no more ridiculous than the stuff they believed. My Young Life pals not only failed to convert me, but became atheists themselves. They refused to give me any credit, though.
68 oh right, was there a Wal Whitman-Bethesda connection?
Sounds like your sister is in one of the areas with a much higher proportion of POC, e.g., Arlington, than my family's nook did
Well, it does serve the "Route 1 Corridor" which I believe is the going euphemism in those parts.
Fascinating map! Looks like Asians are still the most numerous non-whites, but Latinos are a way bigger proportion of residents, not unexpectedly.
(I will admit that I did absolutely no verification that the data comes from a reliable source.)
73: Yes, there's a high school in Bethesda named after him.
Way bigger than 25 years ago, I mean.
Looks like Asians are still the most numerous non-whites
Only for the last few dozen millennia.
I have conducted an exhaustive five-minute search for anything in Pennsylvania that calls itself a "cotillion" and there seem to be 3 in the richest Philly suburbs and 1 in the richest Pittsburgh suburbs. So yes, a southern thing.
No. Debutantes are something else. For women only and you show up for your "debut" at some giant charity ball. Cotillion is just co-ed fancy manners and ballroom dancing classes for middle schoolers. At least IME.
OK, that makes sense.
73: You don't think the entire country has an equal right to honor Walt Whitman, Barry?
Truth: [coming out of her well] "shame... shame... "
Jean-Léon Gérôme: [painting] "Shame, shame, SHAME"
Mankind: [in unison] "SHAME SHAME SH
64/65
So, what is the role of the one guy in the tux in the Cleveland debutante photos?
Latinos are a way bigger proportion of residents, not unexpectedly.
Yeah, there are a lot of Latinos in her classes. She's told me that there has been a considerable uptick in student churn since Trump took office. Kids moving away on short notice, others showing up in the middle of the school year.
She says a lot of students are worried about their parents' immigration status. What a shitty thing to have to worry about when you are in high school.
72.2: I'll give you credit. Well done!
I quite deliberately lost track of high school people. I kept in touch with a few for maybe 5 years, but that was it. I'm grateful that FB didn't exist then.
I know that some of them went on to become Campus Crusaders (now called just Cru apparently), but I imagine others of them wised up.
She says a lot of students are worried about their parents' immigration status. What a shitty thing to have to worry about when you are in high school.
Yeah, seriously shitty.
81 I do and he should be honored more it's just that Huntington, NY has a local historical connection to him. And I dated a girl who went there.
81 I do and he should be honored more it's just that Huntington, NY has a local historical connection to him. And I dated a girl who went there.
Bethesda having high schools named after notable non-political figures Walt Whitman and Walter Johnson is unusually creative for the US.
It used to be the best MoCo high school name was Walter Johnson High School, named after the legendary pitcher for the Senators.
But that lost the title when they built Eubie Blake High School (pronounced "You Be High.")
The FAQs for "Would you like to know god personally?" are excellent reading.
To bring hegemonic Christianity and racial terrorism together into a probably stupid and naive question, how does mainstream African American Christianity reconcile congregants' ancestors having become Christians because they were kidnapped and enslaved? After all, if god wants you to be able to choose whether to be saved, he has to give you the opportunity, and slavery by Christian Westerners provided the opportunity. So is Christianity the one perk? God wanted them to know the suffering of Christ? Jesus would have showed up eventually, maybe via Western missionaries, it's just that white people chose the more sinful path first?
For that matter I wonder how white Christianity addresses the question. (The question of what role slavery played in African Americans Christians being saved by Jesus, not how their sociopathic white ancestors justified slavery.)
I'm trying not to sound glib about any of this. I'm interested in the actual interpretation(s) to replace my "maybe this is what they're thinking" speculation. I'm sure there are things I could read instead of displaying my ignorance. Anyone have suggestions?
I don't know anything directly on that, but I know that Denmark Vesey was both very active in the AME and extremely proactive in terms of opposing slavery.
93: I'm sure there has been much written to resolve these issues, but I suspect they can all be summarized "The Lord works in mysterious ways."
A lot of students in MoCo are worried about THEIR immigration status. At my son's HS, the shithead kids apparently make deportation "jokes" in the hallways of his 38% hispanic HS.
93 - I'm not qualified to answer that question from the perspective of the black church (and there are many answers from the many parts of that church, I'm sure) but I believe the answer is in exactly the complexity of the black church's history -- sure, without slavery at all, the black church wouldn't exist (and neither would most of the African-American population) but from its origins it was a unique space for resistance, relief, and organization, even (and especially) under slavery. So, yes, originally brought by the masters, but also the best place for organization against the masters.
And note that this kind of complexity is far from a unique problem. More than a quarter of the world's Christians are Latin Americans, mostly descendants of more-or-less-forcibly converted Indians. Nonetheless there is a specifically indigenous Christianity in Latin America. Even Europe is Christian primarily because the Emperor Constantine (or some later kings) converted, not originally by widespread clearly-voluntary choice.
This is a nice meditation on the Virgin of Guadalupe (linked to an Aztec goddess, but nonetheless a Christian symbol) in this context, from a Christian perspective.
95: You're right, but it's such as easy out. Sigh.
I don't remember where I heard this, but it goes:
A long time ago in Africa, the black people had the land and the white people had the Bible. Together they closed their eyes to pray, and when they opened their eyes, the white people had the land and the black people had the Bible.
Looks like variously attributed to Jomo Kenyatta, Desmond Tutu, and even James Baldwin.
90: Albert Einstein, too!
My kids go to MoCo schools, and I like 'em a lot. (Both the kids and the schools.)
93, I don't know about the Baptists, but the AME church being Wesleyan, there's a general belief that the unevangelized are saved just as the evangelized are, as long as they show that they are godly people basically by doing good, following their conscience, being humble etc. when God gives them opportunities to do so. Prevenient grace applies to all mankind and the atonement (Jesus sacrificing self) also applies to all mankind. There wouldn't be a worry that those left behind in Africa aren't saved, if that's what you're asking. There is a concern that it's naturally HARDER to be a good person if you don't go to church or hear the teachings of Jesus.
Some quotes on "Grace and the Unevangelized"
In case you can't tell I've been reading about theological concepts, as a substitute for the phase most guys go through where they read about philosophy.
93: It's been many years since I read it, but I'd recommend Silvia Frey, Water from the Rock.
||
Quick bleg before the kids get home!
There are two postcards in the mail today, one to Pokey and one to Hawaii, from their cabin counselors from summer camp. Clearly the idea is to get the kids to ask to go back to camp for Xmas.
Pokey's counselor wrote something about how his cabin would not be the same without him, can't wait to see him on the ball field next summer, etc.
Hawaii's counselor wrote "It was so fun having you in our cabin. You were so sweet all week. Hope to see you next year and Merry Christmas!"
The "so sweet" line is irritating the hell out of me, because I know Hawaii idolized her counselor. I don't want to give Hawaii the impression that she is known for her sweetness, and that the way to please your super-cool-pretty-etc counselor is to be as sweet as possible.
I should just throw these postcards directly in the trash, yes?
Bethesda having high schools named after notable non-political figures Walt Whitman and Walter Johnson is unusually creative for the US.
Anchorage has one named after Robert Service.
Explain to the kids that they are manipulative consumerist propaganda and then ritually burn them in front of the kids.
The standard media response to this thing is making my head explode.
To my kids' summer camp, Recy Taylor, or the other thread?
Change "sweet" to "sweaty" so they're both getting praise for athleticism.
Other thread. Jesus. I'm unhinged.
I don't know what to think but I like the idea that the response to a letter to your kid saying "you were so sweet!" is to immediately burn it lest she start to think that sweetness is a positive attribute. That is some real commitment to anti-sweetness!
Eight of ten American female serial killers are Texan because of a reaction too much childhood talk of sweetness.
Am I the only one who thinks
"It was so fun having you in our cabin. You were so sweet all week. Hope to see you next year and Merry Christmas!"
sounds like pure, impersonal form letter?
