Promoting a revision of history?

Mobile Register ^ | 10.19.03 | Ronald F. Maxwell

[Coleus]

Alex Haley admitted that "Roots" was made up and it's still treated, taught and catalogued as a non-fiction book and subject in public schools. I was in school at the time "Roots" was on TV and remember most students were encouraged and in some schools required to watch it. I wonder if the same holds true with "Gods and Generals"?

A big threat in Today's Schools is the revision of history and the demise of Western Civilization.

[Sans-Culotte]

Even the most basic, bare outline history of African slavery tells us that the insitution was made possible by the enthusiastic support of black Africans who sold their brothers into slavery. Somehow, the culpability of black Africans is not very important in history studies....

[Luke]

It is time that the Mayor of Mobile, Mike Dow, removed George Ewert as Director of the Museum of Mobile. It is time that Harold W. Dodge, the School Superintendent, made "Gods and Generals" required viewing for all grades. As Alabama's "smartnest level" is 47th in the nation, I doubt that most high school students would have the ability to stay focused long enough to read the book.

[2banana]

And neither do you ever hear of the huge amounts of slave bought by Muslims nations (which still continues to this day).

[Libertarianize the GOP]

ping

[stainlessbanner]

Thanks for posting

[stainlessbanner]

Follow up from Mr. Maxwell.

We covered the original article (with a link to Ewert's article) here on FR: 'Gods and Generals' ... and an angry Mayor Dow

[4CJ]

"Gods and Generals" is not content to pander to contemporary expectations or to wallow in some amorphous American triumphalism about the war. It poses hard questions. It takes you by the shoulders and demands that you rethink everything you've ever thought about the Civil War. And in the case of some critics, it demands that they think about these things for the first time.

Kudos to Mr. Maxwell.

[sheltonmac]

A big Ron Maxwell BUMP!

[lugsoul]

I've got nothing against the sentiments or politics of the movie. But it is a bad, bad movie - laden with endless soliloquies and stilted dialogue and some of the worst fake facial hair to appear in modern film.

[4CJ]

A big Ron Maxwell BUMP!

It was a superb movie - Lang should win an Oscar for his portrayal of Jackson.

[Heyworth]

Somehow, the culpability of black Africans is not very important in history studies....

No, it's not, even though you concede that it's part the more most basic, bare outine history of African slavery. Their misbehavior doesn't excuse our own. We should have been better than that. We're the ones who wrote "All men are created equal" in our founding document.

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[Keith]

I use many carefully chosen, and sometime edited, versions of Hollywood films in my history and US Government classes.

Much of it is good, but it is NOT history. I use it to ILLUSTRATE truths, but make sure the students realize it is Hollywood, NOT a documentary. Having it as part of a class, and thus having it required as a class activity, does NOT constitute endorsement. It's about an exposure to viewpoints, which history often finds facts later on that change our whole perception of historical reality. (As my research into the JFK assassination did for me)

As for Maxwell's work, I use the Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain parts, especially the defense of Little Round Top every year. I especially value Chamberlain's little conversation with his Irish aide and his speech to the Maine mutineers to help understand the Northern view of things. They then get to hear the conversation that Pickett, Longstreet, and Armistead have with the British observer to explain that the South is fighting to simply leave the Union, not fight for slavery. I love the comment Longstreet makes that "We should have freed the slaves, THEN fired on Ft. Sumter." But frankly, even he knows the reality of the Southern economy made that impossible. Finally, the short scene where Chamberlain's brother Thomas is speaking to the southern prisoners who are "fighting for our 'rats'" is shown to my class.

We always have good lively discussions, but my students know what is real...and what is Hollywood.

[Colt .45]

I believe that it will take major changes in politics to get our point of view across in the schools. The liberal communists/democRATs have made such inroads into the educational system over the last 60 years that they've adopted PC as the religion of choice in promoting ethnic diversity. WE however, must continue to fight and get our message out there. It wasn't about slavery to us, it was about the freedom of a State's right of self-determination (i.e. its God Given right)!

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

I cringed at the horrible dialogue (or delivery thereof), but I have to admit that any fake facial hair went unnoticed.

[x]

First, the film's main Southern characters, Jackson and Lee, were opposed to slavery, and although products of their time, saw blacks as fellow humans in the eyes of God. For them, the war was not about the defense of slavery.

That's not true, if "opposed to slavery" means wanting to do something to bring it to an end.

Second, this film, perhaps for the first time, captures the perniciousness of the institution of slavery -- that is to say, that slavery was not perpetuated by and did not depend on sadists. It persisted in America, as in many other countries in the 19th century, because of economics, because of cheap labor -- very cheap labor.

"Perhaps for the first time" is ridiculous and untrue. Or if true, scandalous, since there's very little about slavery and its economic background in the film.

Ordinary people like you and me and the characters who inhabit "Gods and Generals" live their lives day by day, hoping to make the best of it with dignity, hoping to get by -- in the context of this film, hoping to survive.

Part of the problem with the film is that it had so little to do with "ordinary people," but instead gave us a sterilized picture of the "marble men," Jackson and Lee.

[Travis McGee]

bttt

[Sans-Culotte]

You're correct, that another person, or group of persons' guilt does not lessen the guilt of others. All I'm saying is: African slavery happened. Shit happens. White Americans were the buyers, and black Africans were the sellers. There's enough guilt to go around for everybody.
But somehow, when it comes to talk of "reparations", or the Civil War, only white Americans, or rather, their descendants are considered culpable today.

[Non-Sequitur]

First, the film's main Southern characters, Jackson and Lee, were opposed to slavery, and although products of their time, saw blacks as fellow humans in the eyes of God.

That is plain ridiculous. Lee, at best, was mildly opposed to slavery. Jackson had no problem with it and was, in fact, a slave owner the day he died. The film's deliberately portrayed the men to be something that they were not.