School defends slavery booklet

[Hampton]

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.

Link. (http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1913619p-8258411c.html)

Here are some excerpts from the booklet:

* "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)

* "There has never been a multi-racial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world." (page 24)

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

* "But many Southern blacks supported the South because of long established bonds of affection and trust that had been forged over generations with their white masters and friends." (page 27)

* "Nearly every slave in the South enjoyed a higher standard of living than the poor whites of the South -- and had a much easier existence." (page 30)

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

This is really frightening!
I went to a local Christian school's "back to School Bash" event that they had a few years ago. They told students the most hypocritical and oppressive things I've ever heard. I didn't know how anyone could just sit there and take it. I have no idea how people can tolerate such absurd ideas.

This is far worse than anything I've heard, though.
They're actually allowing white supremacists to write school texts! And they have the gall to say that blatant lies are a viable alternative to the fact that slavery denies people freedom.

[Anti-Capitalist1]

disgusting, but hardly suprising.

the booklet is complete and utter propaganda, and they should not let these bastards get away with this.

slavery was "a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence?" And they're making children read this bullshit?

It's more than offensive, but I don't have the words to express just how offensive it is.

[h&s]

"As a classical Christian school, we think it's important for our students to be able to think and not be slanted to a particular position," Stephenson said. "We want them to think for themselves."

Until two years ago, Stephenson said, middle school students also had read excerpts from "Southern Slavery." He said the booklet was a counterpoint to "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which he said portrayed all Southern whites as treating their slaves badly.
And I suppose the other slave owners hired butlers for their slaves didn't they?
This is disgusting. The guy says that he thinks that slavery is wrong, but if schools carry on distributing pro-slavery shit like this, how long will that idea last for in the population?

[Sabocat]

Is there any U.S. history that isn't be re-written and re-packaged?

That booklet makes it sound so good, I think I'm going to move to the South and try to get taken in as a slave! I had no idea they had it so good. Other than the regular whippings, beatings, castrations, hobblings, and lynchings, it sounds great.

Un-fucking-believable.

[Agent provocateur]

This is not good news. They are murdering history. Everything negative and factual about slavery is being shoved down the Orwellian memory hole. It is very vicious of them. You could only remedy this situation by force. Go in that classroom with a gun and take that filthy text from them and give them Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.

The claim that slaves loved their condition is utterly absurd. How can human beings love being forced to work for another's profit from dawn to dusk without a penny to their name and having their children sold off to some other white cracker red neck? It is preposterous!

[redstar2000]

Actually, this kind of propaganda makes a good deal of sense...if your agenda includes the re-introduction of slavery.

The American prison-labor industry has been profitable...why not extend it to "criminals" or other "undesirables" on an individual basis?

Imagine a legal code where, upon conviction, you'd be sentenced to 10 years of slavery...and then auctioned off to the highest bidder.

The government would profit from its persecutions instead of having to spend money on huge prisons. The ruling class would also profit from having a large pool of slaves to replace wage-laborers.

(By the way, there were industrial slaves in the ante-bellum South...including skilled craftsmen.)

This kind of scheme would work even better if a term of slavery were the penalty for defaulting on personal debts (mortgages, car loans, credit cards, etc.). Your "owner" could charge you for "room & board"...and thus extend your term of slavery indefinitely into the future.

Christian dreams...and a nightmare for everyone else.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Agent provocateur]

Originally posted by [email protected] 11 2004, 03:34 PM
Actually, this kind of propaganda makes a good deal of sense...if your agenda includes the re-introduction of slavery.

The American prison-labor industry has been profitable...why not extend it to "criminals" or other "undesirables" on an individual basis?

Imagine a legal code where, upon conviction, you'd be sentenced to 10 years of slavery...and then auctioned off to the highest bidder.

The government would profit from its persecutions instead of having to spend money on huge prisons. The ruling class would also profit from having a large pool of slaves to replace wage-laborers.

(By the way, there were industrial slaves in the ante-bellum South...including skilled craftsmen.)

This kind of scheme would work even better if a term of slavery were the penalty for defaulting on personal debts (mortgages, car loans, credit cards, etc.). Your "owner" could charge you for "room & board"...and thus extend your term of slavery indefinitely into the future.

Christian dreams...and a nightmare for everyone else.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas
You have a point there. I remember watching Michael Moore's documentary The Big One It showed corporations enlisting prison inmates to answer their phones and book their customers their airline passages. I know corporate Amerika is having inmates perform a variety of jobs for them without pay and of course a large percentage of prison inmates are African-Americans who have been convicted of a nonviolent drug offense. So yeah slavery is making inroads and have just evolved into novel forms.

[commiecrusader]

Why the fuck are they allowed to do that? To just distribute bullshit propoganda without consequence. Give kids Mein Kampf or Zweites Buch and see how everyone reacts to that. It's just the same.

The only possible justification for giving kids such a leaflet is if they are to rip it to shreds, factually, historically, and physically.

[Andrei Kuznetsov]

I was thankfully blessed to have a (somewhat) progressive teacher in AP U.S. History in my high school, who actually gave us selections from A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. Sadly, I hear that other classes in other levels of U.$. "history" were being taught things similar to what Hampton is reporting. But, that's Georgia for yah!

[Hampton]

I know corporate Amerika is having inmates perform a variety of jobs for them without pay and of course a large percentage of prison inmates are African-Americans who have been convicted of a nonviolent drug offense.

Actually they do get paid to perform a number of diffrrent jobs. Typical pay ranges from 35 cents to a dollar or so. Which is intresting because after the unmates make the products, which range from office supplies to dorm furniture, the prisons can make millions per year selling the products. They do not pay them more because they fire they are just making back the cost that it costs to house them there. They do not take into account why or who makes the laws or the conditions which put them there.

And I would venture to say that Angola Prison is the closest thing to a slave plantation. The prison was actually built on an old slave plantation and many of the inamtes are forced to do the duties of the typical field slave.

[Comité De Salut Public]

When will the vast majority of the public understand that we do not have to take this injustice---- that there are a lot more of us than the tiny racist elite who are the oppressors? That is why I don't like the state black people nowadays. Don't get me wrong I'm not racist but Black people are not as political and militant as they used to be in the 60s & 70s. Back then they just scared the pants off the establishment and the country as a whole advanced admirably. We have lost a lot of that militancy in the Black community. It was this militancy in the Black community that inspired us white people into activism. I think sports and rap music, entertainment and materialism in general have distracted Blacks from political action. Most of them are just interested in materialism and petty pleasures. Well that is true for most people in general not just Blacks.

[Hampton]

Don't get me wrong I'm not racist but...

Here we go...


Black people are not as political and militant as they used to be in the 60s & 70s.

I don't think a lot of people are not as political as they were in the preceeding decades. I also fail to see how this has anything to do with the topic at hand. Blaming the oppressed for the state that they are in is the wrong way to look at the situation.


I think sports and rap music, entertainment and materialism in general have distracted Blacks from political action. Most of them are just interested in materialism and petty pleasures. Well that is true for most people in general not just Blacks.

So what you are saying is that most, most meaning more than half, which means something like 15 million people would prefer to have cars and money and a big house as opposed to being truely happy and free. This is not only absurd and stupid but it is also a dangerous assumption that would probally be pushed by the people who wrote that book.

[Edward Penishands]

Originally posted by Comité De Salut [email protected] 11 2004, 06:41 PM
When will the vast majority of the public understand that we do not have to take this injustice---- that there are a lot more of us than the tiny racist elite who are the oppressors? That is why I don't like the state black people nowadays. Don't get me wrong I'm not racist but Black people are not as political and militant as they used to be in the 60s & 70s. Back then they just scared the pants off the establishment and the country as a whole advanced admirably. We have lost a lot of that militancy in the Black community. It was this militancy in the Black community that inspired us white people into activism. I think sports and rap music, entertainment and materialism in general have distracted Blacks from political action. Most of them are just interested in materialism and petty pleasures. Well that is true for most people in general not just Blacks.
I remember a scene from the movie Bulworth where the Senator played by Warren Beatty tells a hostile African-American crowd, "What're you going to do, vote Republican? If you don't put down that malt liquor and chicken wings and get behind someone else other than a running back who stabs his wife, you're never gonna get rid of a guy like me!"

Bullworth: "All we need is a voluntary, free-spirited, open-ended program of procreative racial deconstruction. Everybody just gotta keep fuckin' everybody 'til they're all the same color."