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)

[SedVictaCatoni]

Don't kid yourself for one second. You should never expect the solution of one problem (legal slavery) puts an end to mans depravity and cruelty to his fellow man.

"We did not eradicate all evil for all time" is not a counterargument against eradicating the evil of Southern slavery.

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I'm just saying that some people will believe anything that is thrown at them. I'll bet that more than half of the kerry voters actually believe that he was a true war hero. And the SBV, were nothing but liars.

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Agreed.

[cyborg]

Ah you mean the propaganda films errrr... documentaries about Kerry's 'service'.

[SedVictaCatoni]

I believe "bruck" is dutch/german for pants. What the osan would be I don't know.

Osnabruck is a German city, located in Lower Saxony. An "osnabruck" must have been a slang term for some sort of garment associated with or originating from Osnabruck (sort of like a Panama hat). It's anybody's guess what this might have been, although a social history of the mid-nineteenth century might know what the term meant.

[Mark in the Old South]

Slaves disfigured from years of torture and abuse, foul living conditions, some nearly starved to death.

The house was reportedly haunted for years until a kind woman turned it into an orphanage for poor children. Abortion, contraceptives and the welfare state having put orphanages out of business, it closed and has since returned to use as a private home, sans slavery and ghosts.

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I hear that modern day slave trading in Africa is a booming business.

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LOL. Yep those. His supporters believe them as though they were chisled in stone.

[cyborg]

What slave trade in modern Africa!/sarcasm

[Mark in the Old South]

Re: ""We did not eradicate all evil for all time" is not a counterargument against eradicating the evil of Southern slavery."

At no point have I ever suggested it was. You are arguing with me as if I am offering a counterargument against eradicating the evil of Southern slavery. This is not what I am doing but I suspect you will continue to argue with my points as if I am. I do not accept your premise or the characterization of my mini history lessons. Please re-read them, because there might be a pop quiz tomorrow.

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If I remember correctly, the majority of them end up in the middle east.

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"Pop quiz tomorrow"....LOL...

[Mark in the Old South]

Re: "I hear that modern day slave trading in Africa is a booming business."

Now now lets have none of that it will be assumed you are justifying slavery. I know your point is it has to stop in Africa but others will see it as an attempt to justify slavery here in the South.

Those who try to control what your motives are will win the argument if you let them define the debate in terms of your secret hidden goals. They being mind readers and all.

[Non-Sequitur]

bump

[mac_truck]

I have trouble finding fault with a private school curriculum that exposes its students to a variety of opposing views so that they may better understand the concepts they are learning. In this particular instance the booklet was meant to give the students some understanding of the views and mores of mid-ninteenth century southern slaveholders. It was supposed to counterpoint the northern perspective as embodied by Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.

It may also be of some interest to note that the Cary Christian School has decided to pull the booklet in question from its curiculum. This after they found out the booklet is no longer being published due to inaccuracies in its content.

[yankeedame]

Slavery was wrong no matter who was doing it.

Ah, yes. But why is/was it wrong?

(HINT: Slavery first became wrong in cultures where the right(s) to private property were not only acknowledged but enforced by the law of the land.)

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Good Heavens to Betsy...I hear ya.

But with all the mind readers around, my statement would be redundant, wouldn't it?...lol

[dsc]

If the war had been to preserve slavery, I would have offered my sword to the South.

Ulysses S. Grant

[HitmanLV]

Whoever spent more than 2 seconds contemplating such a booklet (arguing the biblical case for slavery and depicting a 'happy' slave) is one whacked out bird. There have to be better things to do out there.

Give 'em heck, I say - whackjobs like this don't belong anywhere near 'our side.'

[mikegi]

Probably not. Not all Nazi party members were monsters or evil people either. But such is the ability of even decent people to do unspeakably evil things, especially when the culture is blind to it.

I wonder how many people today, who condemn slavery as evil, would have had slaves back then and not thought anything of it (and I believe it would equally apply if you reversed the colors). I also wonder what people in a future century will condemn us for doing right now...

I just don't think that you can compare slavery to what the Nazis did: the scientific, industrial disposal of people. Slavery had been going on for thousands of years.