Posted on 11/13/2004 11:12:00 AM PST by LouAvul
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Based on Margaret Mitchell's hugely popular novel, producer David O. Selznick's four-hour epic tale of the American South during slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction is the all-time box-office champion.
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Considering its financial success and critical acclaim, "Gone With the Wind" may be the most famous movie ever made.
It's also a lie.
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Along with D.W. Griffith's technically innovative but ethically reprehensible "The Birth of a Nation" (from 1915), which portrayed the Ku Klux Klan as heroic, "GWTW" presents a picture of the pre-Civil War South in which slavery is a noble institution and slaves are content with their status.
Furthermore, it puts forth an image of Reconstruction as one in which freed blacks, the occupying Union army, Southern "scalawags" and Northern "carpetbaggers" inflict great harm on the defeated South, which is saved - along with the honor of Southern womanhood - by the bravery of KKK-like vigilantes.
To his credit, Selznick did eliminate some of the most egregious racism in Mitchell's novel, including the frequent use of the N-word, and downplayed the role of the KKK, compared with "Birth of a Nation," by showing no hooded vigilantes.
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One can say that "GWTW" was a product of its times, when racial segregation was still the law of the South and a common practice in the North, and shouldn't be judged by today's political and moral standards. And it's true that most historical scholarship prior to the 1950s, like the movie, also portrayed slavery as a relatively benign institution and Reconstruction as unequivocally evil.
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Or as William L. Patterson of the Chicago Defender succinctly wrote: "('Gone With the Wind' is a) weapon of terror against black America."
(Excerpt) Read more at sacticket.com ...
One does not win the Medal of Honor, it is awarded. In the case of Arthur MacArthur, Jr., it was awarded on 30 June 1890. There are only two pairs of father-son recipients of the Medal of Honor, MacArthur and son, and Roosevelt and son.
CITATION:Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, and Adjutant, 24th Wisconsin Infantry. Place and date: At Missionary Ridge, Tenn., 25 November 1863. Entered service at: Milwaukee, Wis. Birth: Springfield, Mass. Date of issue: 30 June 1890. Citation: Seized the colors of his regiment at a critical moment and planted them on the captured works on the crest of Missionary Ridge.
[cr] a full colonel by the age of 19 (1864),
"When the war ended I was Lieutenant Colonel, but held the Governor's commission as Colonel, which the War Department refused to recognize." (From a letter of Arthur MacArthur, Jr. to Charles T. Clark of May 13, 1895)
I bought me a beautiful collector's copy on DVD recently; and, I might add before these types can tamper with the content.
So from me to them, then.
...pound sand.
"There are YANKEES in ATLANTA!"
Thank GOD from a Yankee up north in liberal land - NJ!
Then why did the majority of legally freed slaves remain in the south to live? And if the north was so great, why did the state of Illinois auction off black people into indentured servitude for the "crime" of simply crossing into their borders and staying too long?
Those questions are of interest but are not an adequate response to the well known FACT that fugative slaves were one of the Slavers' greatest problems. In addition, in the state of Virginia freed slaves were NOT ALLOWED to stay there by state law. Besides comparing a free man's actions to those of a slave is silly.
Actually that law was extremely nuanced, had certain exemptions to it, did not affect free blacks already living there, and permitted a substantial grace period (a year IIRC). Compare that to Illinois where virtually ANY black who entered the state's borders and remained for more than about a week was automatically a criminal who could then be sold at public auction into indentured servitude. Before the war Maryland seems to have been the best place for free blacks to live as indicated by the fact that it had the largest free black population.
Why did so many Jews stay in Germany after 1933? The world is full of people who live under tyrannical systems that oppress them but they don't leave and the pull of home and the hope that things will get better is a powerful thing. Some of them don't know where they'd go. Some feel the devil they know is better than the devil they don't. Some don't want to leave family and friends to live among strangers. Some can't afford to move. There are lots of reasons. After a couple of generations, though, blacks did leave the south in great numbers in the Great Migration.
There is nothing to get. There was never any right for any man to hold others in bondage no matter what the laws might say about it. Your insane ravings cannot change that fact.
If one believes, like I do, that rights are from God rather than, like you do, that rights come from the power of an individual then there is no possible way I can believe God gave us the right to enslave our fellows merely because we have the power to do so. Nor has this anything to region.
It is not difficult for persons of judgment to "disserver" the right to slavery because there is NO SUCH right and never was. I will admit that it is difficult for a person like you to comprehend that.
Your analogy is false and emotionally loaded. It is a demonstrable fact that antebellum laws toward freed blacks were on the whole more severe and more segregationist in the northern states than they were in the southern states. The former had a rigid system of black codes and outright prohibitions against blacks living within their borders. The latter, though by no means perfect or egalitarian in its treatment of blacks, permitted their coexistence within their states and societies with comparatively greater tolerance than the north. The simple truth is that free blacks generally did not cross the Ohio river because they knew the laws of places like Illinois and Indiana made them criminals the moment that they did. They also knew that they could obtain employment and relative economic stability in some southern states whereas northern counterparts legally segregated them, restricted their ability to own property, and restricted their rights to pursue employment.
Fortunately I have avoided your friend's grasping for my pants since I don't swing that way.
People like you have no crediblity because of such idiocies as trying to pretend that Blacks had it as bad in the North as in the South. These are nothing but abject lies from desperate minds. Bad as things were in the North they were FAR worse in the South and there is no debate among reputable scholars about this no matter what the crackpots and loons you dingbats prefer.
As I said I in no way "spot" the South institutions but condemn and ridicule its society, culture, politics and economics AS A WHOLE. It is pathetic to see supposedly intelligent people trying to foist the ragged myth of the Noble Cause on modern people.
My quote was a slice of truth which naturally caused another outburst of insane ravings from you thus I count it as a complete success. Nor did nolo contendre prove anything by dragging up from the DS Talking Points a couple of laws which were never of much relevence anywhere in the North. There were even some humane folks in the South who ignored its laws to teach blacks. This complusion to pretend that lives of blacks in the North were as bad as facing the Tyranny of the Slavers just makes you look like loons. Why are there always the same muttonheads who support such absurd contentions here?
There is no question that the enslavement of blacks by Southern slavers was the worst sort of that institution with vast differences from that of the past.
I suggest Ex-Lax for the DSs.
Apparently you have forgotten (bile rising to the brain can do that) but this thread IS ABOUT the South remember GWTW is set in the South. Maybe you thought we were talking about An American Tragedy.
Since you insist on displaying your ignorance and try to pretend that I avoided that question when I told him to check my webpage, I will point out that you are a lying skunk by telling the public what is there. I was educated in the Crossett, Arkansas public schools, attended the University of Chicago, University of Illinois, Wayne State University and several Junior Colleges working my way through all of them since my parents had six younger sons to support. My degrees are in Economics including two toward a Ph.D. My minor was history primarily Greek and Roman. My SAT score was 1400 my GRE in the top 5%. Anything else you want the public to know?
Since one must encounter something to forget it, though I would recommend folks to forget anything you write BEFORE even reading it. Haven't read Ann's new tome nor do I give a fork about displaying the Cornfederate flag and avoided the absurd threads crying about the injustice of those who do not encourage flaunting it to provoke others.
Conservatives support the Union not the ragtag symbols of the traitors.
Since you have exclusive property rights in dung I avoid it except when trying to wipe it away from here after your spews. Stupid statements are also your monopoly.
Lol. And I presume you believe those maps prove something. Hilarious.
You know very well that there were plenty of free blacks in Illinois throughout the 1800s. And the other northern states as well.
I thought the largest number of free blacks was in Louisiana.
In 1860 Illinois had only 7,628 blacks out of a population of 1.7 million. These persons were either the descendants of the tiny number of blacks who already lived in Illinois prior to the adoption of an outright prohibition in the 1840's or those few who had managed to escape detection despite the law.
And the other northern states as well.
Nobody denies that there were some free blacks in other northern states. The majority, however, remained in the south. One of the major reasons for this was an outright prohibition against blacks from entering several of the northern states. Illinois had this prohibition as did most of the midwestern states along the north-south border. Oregon even wrote it into their state constitution.
I thought the largest number of free blacks was in Louisiana.
Louisiana had about 20,000 persons officially listed as free blacks in 1860, though the numbers for that state are unreliable from year to year. In addition to free blacks Louisiana had three additional categories in which they classified their demographics - a holdover from their unique Spanish-French history. They also had mulattos (1 black parent), quadroons (1 black grandparent), and octoroons (1 black great grandparent). Most other states would count mulattos and possibly quadroons in their "free black" count.
Of states with reliable free black counts, Maryland had the most in 1860 with 83K. Virginia was second with 58K, then Pennsylvania with 56K.
While laws preventing black residents had an impact the reason most blacks remained in the South was family and familiarity.
Lousiana's classification methods may account for the statement I saw about its pre=eminance wrt Free Blacks. Had they used Virginia's would that have made it #1?
KY was the only CSA state to segregate CSA veteran's pensions by RACE (why was KY the only one? who knows?). OVER 20% of their CSA pensions for SOLDIERS,MARINES & CSN SAILORS from KY were paid out to BLACK veterans.
i strongly suspect, but CANNOT prove, that the other CSA states had about the same percentage of BLACK VETERANS. (unless you have PROOF that KY was UNIQUE, i would suggest that you accept my premise.)
Dr Blackerby says in his famous book, BLACKS IN BLUE & GRAY that between 100,000 and 150,000 blacks were armed by and served as soldiers, sailors & marines for the CSA.
as for "ignoring facts", i find that to be MOST TRUE of the hateFILLED, arrogant,self-serving,LEFTIST/SOCIALIST, self-righteous damnyankee academic/social elites.
ANYTHING, no matter how well documented(according to the damnyankees) that causes the reader to learn that the damnyankee coven of thugs surrounding "lincoln, the 1st of damnyankeeland") that shows just how IGNORANT, ARROGANT, SELFISH,DISHONORABLE, CRUEL, MURDEROUS and/or criminal, just MUST be wrong. that is called INTENTIONAL avoidance of the facts or PROPAGANDA.
free dixie,sw
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