Arkansas - Slave paraphernalia ballot item can be resubmitted, Beebe says

Associated Press | December 23, 2005 | Andrew DeMillo

[PAR35]

I don't think I own any "slave paraphernalia".

No history books around your house? No antiques from before 1865?

"and would include photographs and Confederate flags."

I just realized I was reading it too narrowly. Since slavery is still practiced in parts of Africa, and perhaps Asia, this is still the 'slavery era'. "anything sold for profit related to the slavery era". So you wouldn't be able to buy anything in Arkansas - no food, no clothing, no cars. By her definition, everything you own is 'slave paraphernalia.'

[reformedliberal]

I know someone who collects WWII memorabilia, including weapons and NAZI insignia.

Of course, anything related to either is banned on most Internet auctions.

This collector has consigned some of his items to a dealer with a good-sized list of other such collectors. They are sold at low key, very private auctions. Prices have been going higher for some time, I am told.

I own a Vigny Golliwog perfume presentation. It stays in its box in a cabinet and is shown to a select few, as we are simply nervous about someone being *offended* and retaliating. This item had nothing to do w/slavery. It dates to the late 1920s and was symbolic of the Jazz Age. The black American jazz musicians in Europe were considered exotic and slightly dangerous, in an exciting way. If you get a chance to see the ads for this perfume from the era, one shows a flapper holding the Golliwog bottle on her upturned palm and blowing a kiss toward it.

I recall reading that in Britain in the 20s, the minstrel shows were confined to the ends of piers, where the musicians had to pass the hat to make any money. These performers were Caucasians in black-face. They were considered vulgar.

Golli dolls were a fixture in most British, Australian and South African nurseries. I have seen a very ardent South African anti-apartheid activist just soften and get misty when they see a Golli.

[wildbill]

Oh. I thought they were going after the BDSM fetishists.

[bert]

This is a direct assult on the first ammendment. I essentially ends mention of the Civil War. The woman needs to be sold down the river. America doesn't need her kind.

[Casloy]

"Why are they going to sell slave paraphernalia for profit?" Corbin said in an interview Thursday. "That's a total disgrace."

I guess that silly US Constitution is going to be an annoyance to Corbin.

[right right]

Racism knows no limits or boundries. I guess dynamite is now to be banned after W and Karl blew up the levies. They have eye witnesses you know!!!! Blacks are the most racist and selfish people on earth.

[Mike Darancette]

This is probably the most stupid law I've heard of in a long time. Slave paraphernalia is very collectible and owned by many Black Americans.

Would the ban include items made by slaves such as quilts, pottery, furniture and other folk art items? Some of it is very very good and lends to the knowledge of Black history in America.

To my mind the most hateful stuff is what was manufactured post bellum in the north. And even that junk is avidly collected by Black Americans.

[jordan8]

Obviously, the state of Arkansas has no right to ban the sale of "slave paraphernalia." This is just a petition for a ballot initiative from some yoyo that the AG of Arkansas has to vet for legality. Because it's from a black woman and is about slavery political correctness kicks in and instead of just telling her to buzz off he has to pretend to take this seriously. She's going to press it though, and it's actually amusing to see public officials squirm in cases like this. Hoist by their own petard is the correct phrase, I believe. Course the danger is that they will actually push these sorts of laws through rather than face up to political correctness.

[gitmo]

So Arkansas citizens will have to go to another state to sell their belongings. Any sales tax will go to the other state.

[atomic conspiracy]

My neighbor, a physician, was born and raised here in West Texas. For the first ten years of his life, he could not sit in the lower section of a theater or eat in the front section of a restaurant. His great-grandparents were slaves and his great-grandmother was still alive when he was a small child.
He is an avid collector of Black Americana, a very popular and historically important collecting field. Much of the material in his collection is overtly racist. Most of this is from the early 1900s (pages from the 1904 Sears catalog, for example), but some of it dates from slave times.
This collection is heritage and the truth of history, not partisan activism. The proposed amendment is pure Orwellian revisionism, an obscenity, and very probably a violation of the First Amendment.

[bigsigh]

There goes the bubble!

[atomic conspiracy]

Sheesh, it's occurred to me that I'm getting to be a major thought-criminal. First, I am Jewish, which is a crime in and of itself in many parts of the world. Worse, I have a fair collection of Nazi and other antisemitic propaganda. It is not pretty but it is history and we forget at our peril. In more practical terms, it is handy to have around for comparison when similar material is propagated by Islamofascists and their media tools.
Finally, I engage in an ongoing and flagrant violation of ethnic identity codes by eating ham and putting up Christmas trees.
Someday, I will probably be forced to join the rest of you outlaws in some mountain hide-out, safe from the depredations of the inclusiveness/sensitivity gestapo.

[GodfearingTexan]

yeah ok!