I’m sure my post here is going to make some people mad that’s okay. I’m going to give my observations on this based on 25 years of marriage in a white guy black wife marriage and having toured around the country to many of these plantations and other slavery oriented exhibits and tours. Typically when black people tour these destinations , they do it with a group on a bus not individual families, usually... I think that is mostly because they feel a little weird being by themselves and probably might be outnumbered by all the white people that do attend them t...that’s neither good nor bad it just is. That said, my annoyance - and it’s just as much as everybody else here - is the tour guides. Some of them are extremely good... for example recently here in Cincinnati we went into Ripley, Ohio which is on the Ohio River specifically on the Cincinnati side and we toured the John Rankin House as well as the John Parker House. Rankin was a pastor who was an abolitionist and John Parker was an escaped slave who was a half white half black man who of course back then was called a black man and he, through some course of events, became one of the transporters across the river for slaves who were escaping( historically he would be called a conductor of the Underground Railroad). Both men are worthy of their attention and some historical reading. I would consider both of them heroes. That said, the tour guide for The Rankin house... at least this particular man who is white ...did a good job, but some of his lecture was annoying because it had that added effect of telling us how bad we were as white people instead of just stating the facts. I found that to be very annoying and I really don’t need somebody, especially a white liberal, lecturing me. I would rather hear the facts and let myself digest it. OTOH, the gentleman who did the tour of the John Parker House was black and he was an incredible historian and talked in the way where he was painting history and I would never forget anything he said. He was a historian as well as an Entertainer. And he got history across to us and all of the bad parts about slaves and mistreatment and all of the horrible things they endured but I did not mind the way he told it because he did not lecture me or talk down to me or try to make me feel guilty he just told me the way it was. He was not annoying at all and he was not lecturing in any way. When we were leaving there was a bus showing up with about 50 black people from Louisville and it was a church group who was coming to take a tour of both places. Yes that seems anecdotal, however and all these years of taking tours, I have noticed a pattern and that’s what I have to go on. Ats time has marched on, and I do believe especially during the Obama Reign of Terror, tour guides, movie stars, comedians actors , actresses, all have been given permission to increase the laying into white folks.. and even while it is white liberals who are the ones doing most of that. It’s like THEY are off the hook and they have to make us the receivers of the tour feel that wrath and guilt. And they absolutely love having a captive audience so you have to sit there and take it. Facts are facts ...yes absolutely slavery was abhorrent and rapes and lynchings and whippings and chopping off of fingers, toes, feet, branding, family separations, treated like chattel, as well as snipping the Achilles heel if somebody tried to run if they were caught... that all did happen and we cannot deny that nor do I want to deny that. But there is a way of telling people the truth without being insulting and I frankly hate hearing it from white liberals. That’s just my two cents. I actually would much rather have a black person give me a tour and tell me all about it then a white liberal.
Another annoying thing about white liberals is probably 99% of them I’ve never read Frederick Douglass is July 4th speech that he gave in Rochester New York. That is worthy of everybody reading. Douglas was an extreme constitutionalist and implored America to follow its Constitution. It also provides a very good perspective to we white people about what would make black people proud of this country versus not. For example I seriously doubt the Obamas had ever read Frederick douglass’s speech because some of the crap that came out of their mouth and when they refuse to look at the flag would never happen. People like Frederick Douglass Booker T Washington and other well-known blacks understood the pain misery and suffering that their forefathers went through so that they can stake a claim in this country. One thing that I don’t think a lot of blacks understand is that you can love this country and by loving this country you can honor the pain and suffering that your ancestors went through so you can have what you have in this country. Hating it is not going to accomplish that you can’t have both at the same time.
Thanks for sharing your interesting experiences. I didn’t read anything I found offensive.
Even though you are allergic to paragraphs, I read your whole post and agree. Your family gives you a different perspective. As does mine. Slavery is abhorrent. Treating people like expensive farm animals is so ghastly and so morally wrong. Yet it’s better than when his government attempted to murder my dad at age 7. When your family barely escaped Hitler’s holocaust, slavery seems like just one of many unspeakable things that can befall a group of people on this earth.
Ding, ding, ding - we have a thread winnah!
Yeah, because no paragraphs!
One reason that I have little tolerance for the recently increasing socialist feminazi revisionism and hatred against white men, is that I have swung pickaxes and lifted steel with Jamaicans, Hondurans and many others from third world holes along with enduring the hatred that is common in offices and academia. One thing that those men from horrid countries taught, was that people of any color can be tyrants. They also realized that the men who built the United States were, on average, not as likely to be tyrants.
People of every nation are descended from slaves who were treated brutally. It’s time to shed vanities, move on and to stop trying to ruin it. There won’t be any successful and enduring takeover of the United States by foreign entities. George Washington gave the people of the United States and many other nations a chance to live better than the people before him lived. As for black historical figures, it may be healthier to pay more attention to the words of men like Frederick Douglass than those of Susan B. Anthony.
George Washington endorsed the Fairfax Resolves against slavery. Read about that, and read the letter from George Washington to John F. Mercer.
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/inline-pdfs/t-03705.pdf