School defends slavery booklet (Critic says text is 'window dressing')

News Observer ^ | Dec 9, 2004 | T. KEUNG HUI

[mac_truck]

Students at one of the area's largest Christian schools are reading a controversial booklet that critics say whitewashes Southern slavery with its view that slaves lived "a life of plenty, of simple pleasures." Leaders at Cary Christian School say they are not condoning slavery by using "Southern Slavery, As It Was," a booklet that attempts to provide a biblical justification for slavery and asserts that slaves weren't treated as badly as people think.

Principal Larry Stephenson said the school is only exposing students to different ideas, such as how the South justified slavery. He said the booklet is used because it is hard to find writings that are both sympathetic to the South and explore what the Bible says about slavery.

"You can have two different sides, a Northern perspective and a Southern perspective," he said.

'SOUTHERN SLAVERY, AS IT WAS' Here are some excerpts from the booklet:

* "To say the least, it is strange that the thing the Bible condemns (slave-trading) brings very little opprobrium upon the North, yet that which the Bible allows (slave-ownership) has brought down all manner of condemnation upon the South." (page 22)

* "As we have already mentioned, the 'peculiar institution' of slavery was not perfect or sinless, but the reality was a far cry from the horrific descriptions given to us in modern histories." (page 22)

* "Slavery as it existed in the South was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity. Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, it was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence." (page 24)

* "Slave life was to them a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care." (page 25)

[yarddog]

It might not matter to you if the slave was comfortable and well cared for, or worked to death in the mines of ancient Syracuse, but to the slave I suspect it mattered quite a bit.

[processing please hold]

OK, thanks. I'll be a lot more careful from here out.

If I could pull it up so easily, I shudder to think how easy it would be to pull up porn....disgusting.

[valkyrieanne]

...as a private institution the school is not beholden to the government for resources.

Unless it happens to want to take vouchers, that is.

[mac_truck]

I'm not sure that this material is appropriate for K-12 levels, but it is a private school

At what grade level would you deem it appropriate to expose students to the viewpoints and perspectives of mid-ninteenth century southern United States as it regarded the institution of slavery?

Or for that matter at what grade level should students at a private Christian school begin to read and understand the Epistle to the Collosians?

[cyborg]

I think I understand.

[processing please hold]

I don't know about that. I have some neighbors down the road a ways that could use a good thrashing. They are old and ornery and can't get along with a fence-post.

[cyborg]

You got it wrong my friend. Vouchers are OUR money, unless you believe your property taxes aren't your money.

[mikegi]

What I meant to say was I understand and I wouldn't be so quick to call people evil. I don't know the people who owned slaves and don't think everyone who did so was 'evil'.

Totally agree with you. My ancestors should not have owned slaves but they were not evil people. Of course, there were ugly, sadistic people who terribly mistreated their slaves even by the standards of the times. I *would* call them evil.

[Nowhere Man]

And perhaps they weren't. But the system was. And to deny that a system that enslaved human beings was not monstrous or evil is, in my mind, as reprehensible as those who deny the holocaust.

This reminds me of a little bit from David Gerrold's 1973 book, "The Making of Star Trek" where he made the point where "Star Trek" was bascially "1966 men" in a 23rd Century world meaning thatm any of the episodes were mirrors of what were were dealing with at the time such as "A Private Little War" was a critique on Vietnam. He went on where "Bonanza," which was running at the same time "Star Trek" was is much the same thing, albeit in reverse, a 1966 viewpoint in the world of the 1870's. I do agree that in the Grand Scheme of Things, slavery is evil, let's face it, I doubt anyone would want to be one although I'm sure there are a few who might trade freedom for goodies. Still though, if we judge the slaveholders with a 2004 mind or even a 1966 mind, they would be evil but if we were part of the culture of 1850, we might not see it as such unless we were Abolitionists. In 1850 and before, it was seen as normal, today we know better and have progressed beyond it, I hope, but we have to see that we are judging 1850 people by the values of the latter half of the 20th Century and/or early 21st.

[Nowhere Man]

Here, I'll try to explain it. You see, slavery in the south was more benign that folks realize, and would have gone away within a generation or two or three, Civil War or not. Folks just needed to be more patient.

I come from the school that slavery's days were numbered, I think it would have went away by 1890 or 1900 when the electric motor and the internal combustion engine technologies came online.

[Dan from Michigan]

I'd need to see the book before I could make a real informed comment of the entire book.

But my BS detector is ringing off the charts at those quotes. Who the hell wrote that? George Fitzhugh's ghost?

[saquin]

At what grade level would you deem it appropriate to expose students to the viewpoints and perspectives of mid-ninteenth century southern United States as it regarded the institution of slavery?

That's not what this booklet does. I have no problem with students reading contemporaneous accounts via slave narratives, viewpoints of slaveholders, etc. and discussing them in class.

This booklet "Southern Slavery, As it Was" (the very title indicates it's selling itself as the "truth" about how slavery was), "a booklet that attempts to provide a biblical justification for slavery and asserts that slaves weren't treated as badly as people think", is not a contemporaneous account from one side or the other. It's a recently written pamphlet with a particular viewpoint about history and it asserts things like:

"Slavery as it existed in the South was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity. Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, it was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence." (page 24)

"Slave life was to them a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care." (page 25)

That is not akin to reading Mein Kampf as an insight into Hitler's thinking. It is more akin to reading a pamphlet written by a recent holocaust denier.

I think it has no place in the classroom and I would pull my child out of any school that used such a pamphlet.

[saquin]

...but we have to see that we are judging 1850 people by the values of the latter half of the 20th Century and/or early 21st.

Agreed.

But some things are right or wrong no matter what the century and I'd think "human beings should not be owned like cattle" would be one of those basic things. Especially in a country whose founding document asserts that all men are created equal. So no one can argue that people in that time period just didn't understand the moral questions. And I'm amazed by the attitude of so many here who usually lambast "moral relativism" when practiced by the left.

[Michael.SF.]

I agree with you. There are today and were then a lot of welthy people who lacked both a moderate level of intelligence and common sense.

[valkyrieanne]

You got it wrong my friend. Vouchers are OUR money, unless you believe your property taxes aren't your money.

Every voucher plan implemented so far is *means*-tested; you have to be poor to qualify. The bulk of school funding comes from 1) real estate taxes; 2) state income taxes; 3) federal taxes.

From the bottom up, those poor enough to qualify for vouchers also most likely aren't paying any federal income tax. They may even *get* money from one of the last welfare programs, the Earned Income Tax Credit.

They pay very little if any state tax if they are truly that low-income.

They only pay real estate taxes if they are property owners (in cities, many of the poor are *not.*) Many receive Section 8 or rent subsidies (which means they aren't even *indirectly* paying real estate taxes through rent.)

Ironically, vouchers aren't generally available to the one class of poor people who *do* pay taxes - the rural poor.

Further, in many inner cities, large amounts of school funding come from the state (i.e. subsidized by middle-class taxpayers) rather than from local real estate taxes, because property values and assessments in inner cities are often so low, and because so many corporations & developers get tax breaks/abatements.

So IOW voucher money is definitely "our" money - "our" money going into the pockets of someone else who didn't earn it.

[Eagle Eye]

You call slavery unspeakably evil, yet the Bible doesn't go that far. The Bible clearly condemns witchcraft and homosexuality, but then tells masters to be good to their slaves.

If it was so unspeakably evil, why didn't it make the Top Ten list?

[dsc]

"I don't know about that. I have some neighbors down the road a ways that could use a good thrashing. They are old and ornery and can't get along with a fence-post."

Well, that doesn't mean you're going to enslave them, surely.

My limited understanding of that issue is that you're not required to feel the emotion of love for your neighbor, just to act like you do.

[Kornev]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2820162

There's on this.

[Cogadh na Sith]

Slave Window bump....