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)

[steve-b]

The conservative side needs to kick certain people to the curb (just as the liberals need to, but won't, kick out their ecoterrorists, unreconstructed communists, etc).

[steve-b]

slavery sucked but it wasn't genocide

Irrelevant. The dividing line is between moral relativists such as yourself, and people such as the rest of us who know that right and wrong are not simply two equally respectable sides to a story.

[steve-b]

it was not the bull whips and plantation jails of the imagination, even though those things existed and were used

It's traditional to insert padding between mutually exclusive assertions. That way, you maintain at least a thin pretense of respect for the reader's intelligence.

[steve-b]

The booklet apparently is used as a counterbalance to the works of Harriet Beecher Stowe and others that are also part of the curiculum.

For an encore, they can have the students read Nazi propaganda as a "counterbalance" to the Federalist Papers, and follow it up by a study of DU rantings as a "counterbalance" to the news reports.

Where do these people come from?

[newcats]

OK, I'll bite. I've never heard about the story about a black lady from NC owning a large number of slaves. As they say there, do tell!

Well it's been almost a whole day since yourpost, with no reply to your request.
I wonder if anyone has any proof of that "fact".
I'd be willing to bet no one can come upwith any verifiable evidence of that.

[Mark in the Old South]

None of the points you raise about Lee were in the bio's I have read about his life. At least I do not recall them in Douglas Southall Freeman's bio nor in others such as "The Lee Girls" written about his daughters. Support you claims please.

[Non-Sequitur]

Support you claims please

Here is a Link to a Library of Congress website displaying the evidence. It details the experiences of two former slaves of Robert Lee, Edmund and Rosabella Burke, freed by Lee sometime prior to November 1853 and who emigrated to Liberia with their children with their passage paid by Lee. At the time slaves freed in Virginia had 12 months in which to leave the state or they could be sold into slavery. Like Lincoln, Lee was a supporter of voluntary emigration. Note that the Burke's memories of the Lee family were fond enough that Mrs. Burke corresponded with Mrs. Lee until the rebellion stopped the mail from getting through.

OK?

[Mark in the Old South]

Re: "Do you really believe that Julius Caesar knew he was doing wrong in invading Gaul? That the Babylonians knew they were doing wrong in enslaving the Jews?"

Sure I do, but it is my contention that Julius, the Babylonians et all did the same thing people do today. They announce "That's different" If the tables were turned and Gaul was invading Rome, Mr Caesar would have done all he could to save his country. Unless he was a blame Rome first type and the kind that would make a deal with Gaul. They had those people then as well. And I have no doubt he would have rationalized his actions just a Nazi collaborators did in Vichy France, or Palestinian radicals who buckle the bomb onto their neighbor's kid.

When we put our personnel wealth, personnel convenience, personnel pleasures over ethical behavior toward others we are heading down a dark and grim road. The enslavement of others was an issue almost at the moment of the European settlement of the New World. A Spanish priest gave a stirring sermon in the West Indies in the first decade condemning the practice. The enslavement of the Caribbean Indians was one of the major causes of Columbus's fall from grace in the Spanish royal court.

I will agree you have to temper how hard one views the people in past ages for the very reason you cite but they knew, they knew.

[cyborg]

What a load of crap Alouette.

[Mark in the Old South]

Re: "It's traditional to insert padding between mutually exclusive assertions. That way, you maintain at least a thin pretense of respect for the reader's intelligence."

Only for those who miss a subtle point. Perhaps you have never seen a child get more upset about the anticipation of a spanking than he does during the spanking reality. The human mind often hold a contradiction, one of imagination the other of reality. They often fail to realize it even when pointed out to them.

[Mark in the Old South]

Re: "For an encore, they can have the students read Nazi propaganda as a "counterbalance" to the Federalist Papers, and follow it up by a study of DU rantings as a "counterbalance" to the news reports."

One thing most posters on this thread have failed to note is our information is limited to what the reporter and the editor of this newspaper have published. Sure quotes are given but look throughout this thread and you will see people quoted with a motive assigned by a distractor. Without seeing the material we are limited in what we can infer, unless you have 100% confidence in the pure motives of the News and Observer. I do not. There are "Christian" schools that have very racist POV but then so do many "Liberal" groups. Consider any number of hard left and white union members (calm down everyone who is in a union but "has" to be, I am making a point not a generalization). How many longshoremen has a favorite drinking buddy who is black? but let him get pissed off and it is the "N" word from here to hades.

It has been pointed out on this thread before, slavery was not gas ovens. Bad enough but to equate the two undermines your credibility.

[cyborg]

I suppose no slaves died on ships, on plantations,etc. The idea that slavery was somehow less of an event than the Jewish holocaust is pretty sickening. Why is it people say that when comjng to black people? Now please as someone who has taught holocaust studies to black kids I can tell you I've never heard that slavery was worse than the Jewish holocaust.

[Bella_Bru]

Slavery more than sucked, Alouette. I would expect better of you.

[Mark in the Old South]

Re: "I suppose no slaves died on ships, on plantations,etc."

No one suggested they didn't. The slave trade was the worse aspect of the whole business. By all means make that point if you feel it has been neglected but you make an implication with the "I suppose" that is unjustified. Emotionalism is not a substitute for fact and I call you on it. I could counterpoint that thousands upon thousands of elderly slaves were cared for by their slave masters. It was the rule more than the exception, but it really doesn't really change the problem with slavery.

Re: "The idea that slavery was somehow less of an event than the Jewish holocaust is pretty sickening."

This appears to be contradicted by this "Now please as someone who has taught holocaust studies to black kids I can tell you I've never heard that slavery was worse than the Jewish holocaust."

Re: "Why is it people say that when comjng to black people?"

I can not figure out what you are asking here.

[cyborg]

I made that statement to show that black people do not denigrate the memory and uniqueness of theJewih holocaust. I think they're two separate events in histor one not more evil than the other.

[Mark in the Old South]

Re: "I made that statement to show that black people do not denigrate the memory and uniqueness of theJewih holocaust."

I can live with that, I don't think I have either.

Re: "I think they're two separate events in histor one not more evil than the other."

This I don't know about. Slavery has occurred in almost every culture including the much vaulted and admired Native American. So I don't think this is a "black" thing. The fact that slavery is perceived as such is a reflection of our racial prism that too many insist on seeing through. Prisms have a use but if you prescribe them as eye-wear don't be surprised if you bump into a few walls.

I also see the Holocaust in religious terms. I think it has a spiritual aspect that is yet to play out in the future. I can not support that in the usual way so take it for what it is worth. Perhaps the Civil War does as well but I have even less to support that idea. And besides it changes the subject of the thread.

[cyborg]

fair enough...we'll have to disagree

[cyborg]

fair enough...we'll have to disagree

[cyborg]

oops double post

[Alouette]

What a load of crap Alouette.

Slavery more than sucked, Alouette. I would expect better of you.

I've made the Civil War and the issues involving it a particular field of study for over 15 years. I'm sitting here looking over my bookcase: "Slave Testimony" by John Blassingame, "Twelve Years a Slave" by Solomon Northrop, "Aren't I A woman," by Deborah Gray White, "The Autobiography of Frederick douglass," "Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation," "The Kidnapped and the Ransomed," and more and more and more.

I think I have read enough about American slavery from slave narratives to get an idea of what their lives were like. I have also read the dissenting religious opinions of the 1850's as to whether American slavery was sanctioned in the Bible.

Do please do not brush me off with personal insults.

I don't think that it is appropriate to compare the experience of slavery with the experience of the Holocaust.