Difference between revisions of "471A3--Week 13 Questions/Comments--Tuesday"
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"I have watched my kid’s history books over the years (four kids, years apart) and noticed how pathetically poliltically correct they all are. Some even claim the South was trying to free the slaves, in time. None, not one, tell the basic truth that the war camem about because the South’s insane demands for the spread of slavery AGAINST the will of the people. Its not only not mentioned in your text books, various bits of BS are there instead. If you can’t teach the truth — because it’s too awful — don’t teach anything. Don’t teach utter nonsense. I don’t expect grade school children, many who are students at schools named after Robert E Lee, to learn that Lee tortured 13 year old children, and sold their infants, and kept a Hunting List of slave girls, in his own handwriting. I don’t expect them to learn in grade school that Lee was obsessed with the capture of one young girl, and paid six times the normal bounty for her, and then had her tortured, and then sold her baby. | "I have watched my kid’s history books over the years (four kids, years apart) and noticed how pathetically poliltically correct they all are. Some even claim the South was trying to free the slaves, in time. None, not one, tell the basic truth that the war camem about because the South’s insane demands for the spread of slavery AGAINST the will of the people. Its not only not mentioned in your text books, various bits of BS are there instead. If you can’t teach the truth — because it’s too awful — don’t teach anything. Don’t teach utter nonsense. I don’t expect grade school children, many who are students at schools named after Robert E Lee, to learn that Lee tortured 13 year old children, and sold their infants, and kept a Hunting List of slave girls, in his own handwriting. I don’t expect them to learn in grade school that Lee was obsessed with the capture of one young girl, and paid six times the normal bounty for her, and then had her tortured, and then sold her baby. | ||
You could wait till high school to teach them these awful truths. But at some point, they should learn. Learn that the Southern leaders insisted God ordained not only slavery, but the torture to DEATH of slave women, and that God ordained even the sexual obedience of slave women to their master." Apparently this guy was blocked from posting to the site after more crazy comments following this one. - aaskins | You could wait till high school to teach them these awful truths. But at some point, they should learn. Learn that the Southern leaders insisted God ordained not only slavery, but the torture to DEATH of slave women, and that God ordained even the sexual obedience of slave women to their master." Apparently this guy was blocked from posting to the site after more crazy comments following this one. - aaskins | ||
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| + | There are quite a few articles on Levin's site about the black Confederate soldier myth. It is quite prevalent, and there are a suprisingly large number of groups propagating it. As is pointed out by at least one of the articles, and as can be attested to by some of what we have read this semester, this version of the myth is somewhat recent. It used to be that Lost Causers would talk about the faithful slave attending his master before or after battle; it is only more recently that it became about the brave black soldier going into battle alongside his fellow Southerners. Why the change? And is it progress that blacks have risen within this myth at all? -GStan. | ||
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| + | On the nps website, I looked at the category regarding images of destruction in Fredericksburg. Some of the photographs are quite chilling, especially when I realized that these are sites I drive by everyday. They are unrecognizable. It almost seems as though by restoring these houses and buildings, we have erased a major piece of Civil War memory.- aaskins | ||
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| + | I was very interested in the post about the Stonewall Jackson shrine. It discusses if the Stonewall Jackson shrine should have a different name. Do you think the Stonewall Jackson shrine should be renamed and if it should be renamed what should it be renamed to?- Nick | ||
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| + | Nick, when I first started there, I asked about that, because I too was curious about the choice of wording. I was told that "shrine" is an early 20th century term for an exhibit or museum. I can't count the number of folks who walked in and asked about it, and I'm not entirely convinced that that is a proper explanation of the origin of the term. What does everyone else think? How much stake should we put in that explanation?- DR | ||
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| + | Given the recent textbook debates regarding the number of black Confederates under Stonewall Jackson, I thought it was very interesting to see the Prince William County tourist handbook with a young African American dressed in gray. Did anyone else go back to this article? What did you think? DR | ||
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| + | Was anybody else surprised at the amount of knowledge that was expressed in the comments? I know that their were plenty of crazy people making comments but the majority of people that took the time to write comments wrote them concisely and with plenty of historical fact to back up their statements. These guys are not idiots, they know their stuff. Logan T | ||
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| + | I liked the comments that centered on the debate on West Virginia breaking away from Virginia during the war and if this should be mentioned in the Governors proclamation. One guy brought up the fact that many Southern fire eaters supported the concept of States Rights and nullification but at the same supported the fugtive Slave Law which was a federal law that goes against state rights. How much of these types of arguments are missed in the memory of the war? Why do we forget that politicians 150 years are really no different than ones today? Politicians say one thing and do another. Logan T | ||
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| + | One of the posts I read involved the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the civil war, and also that of the 10th anniversary of 9/11, specifically the lack of commemoration on the part of the national govt. I hadn't thought about it until I read this article but despite the fact that I've heard much about the 150th anniversary of the civil war in our class, I have heard little to nothing about it anywhere else. It's also interesting that they drew the connection between these two anniversaries occurring together much like the 100th year anniversary of the civil war coincided with our nations bicentennial. - AJ | ||
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| + | The civil war memory site is one that I came across many times when looking for a blog post, I never actually took the time to really look at it much beyond the first page because I was too busy on my quest for each weeks post however. Like Logan mentioned though the comments and posts on this site are well thought out and backed up, it's remarkable that I didn't think to browse over these posts for ideas or simply to learn more. - AJ | ||
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| + | I focused my attention to the religion category when looking over the "memoryblog". There really aren't many posts about that topic on the course blog in the resources and we haven't discussed the topic much in class. Levin makes several good points about religion on his posts that are clearly reflected in other discussions we've had even if they didn't have to do with religion directly. I think religion has particular importance in the memory of the war more so than during the war. During the war no one knew the outcome and so they just prayed for a victory. But after the loss for the South, I'm sure they questioned the results and how God played a part in it. I think religion has a lot to do with understanding an event after it's occurred and it would be an interesting area to focus on. In particular, Levin discusses the idea of the war being "punishment" for slavery. It would be interesting to look into that further. -Victoria Y. | ||
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| + | I looked at the "Southern History" category on Civil War Memory and one of the most prevalent themes is that of black Confederate soldiers. One author, Ann Dewitt, in particular, has work that appears repeatedly in websites about black Confederate soldiers, but she is a writer of historical fiction (and, for some reason, it sounds like her fiction centers primarily on black Confederate characters?). In a separate article titled "Who is Ann Dewitt?" Levin tries to discover more about this writer and can find relatively little except that she was working on getting her website (blackconfederates.com) up as a comprehensive teaching tool for teachers. This whole string of articles has some good consideration of responsibility on the internet, the integrity of presenting ostensibly educational sources online. --Erin B. | ||
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| + | I'd found the national park service blog before, in fact I think I blogged about it as one of my resources. It is really interesting but one of the posts I found most interesting was [http://npsfrsp.wordpress.com/2010/07/11/a-mystery-roeblings-wire-bridge-on-the-rappahannock/ this article]. Probably because we learned about Roebling in the American Technology and Culture class. He oversaw the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. It's strange to think he built a suspension bridge in Fredericksburg before going on to do that. There was also a post about a picture from one side of the Rappahannock showing "behind the scenes" of a drawing but I can't find the link again. -Megan Mc. | ||
