I remember when I was first exposed to the sin that is
uniquely ascribed to the Southern people- I was a boy in the fourth grade in
East Tennessee when our history teacher, a portly, middle-aged spinster from
some flyover state in the Midwest, regaled us with tales of that “peculiar
institution”: horrific accounts of abuses by cruel slave masters, and on the
other hand tales of the brave abolitionists who “risked their lives” to free
the slaves out of nothing but the goodness of their own hearts, “heroes” such
as Harriet Tubman- a criminal who nearly killed someone for daring to get cold
feet in his escape, by the way- and finally the war that erupted so that
America’s greatest President Abraham Lincoln could emancipate the Negro race
from the cruel South, fighting to keep them bonded and beaten forever. The fact that the entire month of lessons on
slavery and the Civil War were designed to invoke shame and guilt in easily-impressionable
nine-year-olds was obvious enough for me to tell, even at that young age. I was certainly upset that I was being shamed
for something that I had no part in, but the more absurd portion of this public-school
guilt trip was that many of the children who were being lectured weren’t
Southern- their parents had moved to my hometown from the North. A few were not even White, yet were being
treated as if they were George Wallace voters in 1962!
It was at that time that I first learned about
propaganda. Even as a young boy, the
tales of slaves being beaten half to death by cruel masters for not picking
cotton fast enough didn’t make a lot of sense to me, especially after we’d just
read about how expensive slaves were- so much so that four-fifths of the
Southern population, on average, owned none, and only one percent more than
200. What sane man would ruin the
equivalent of thousands of dollars in such a manner? An injured man can’t work at all. Would you intentionally cripple your mule for
not being able to carry enough weight, or kill your cat for not catching enough
mice, or, to use a closer example, light your combine harvester on fire for
failing to meet a quota? Of course not,
and it’s patently absurd to suggest otherwise.
The image we gasped at in our textbook of a slave that had been whipped
so much his back resembled tree roots under soil served much the same purpose
as it did two hundred and fifty-some odd years ago, when yellow journalists in
some Northern city published it in an abolitionist rag- horrifying the general
populace by taking the worst outliers of any institution and equating them with
the practice as a whole, just like they do nowadays whenever some nutjob
shooting and killing children is used as evidence to conclude that all firearm
owners are lunatics who will mass murder if stricter laws are not passed
against them. The propaganda machine has
been at it for quite a while. In
America, the prevailing narrative on Southern slavery has reached the level of
the absurd, such as with professional “social activist” (race hustler) Marcus
Sanders- better known as Tariq Nasheed’s- claims of “Buck Breaking”, events in
which he claims white, devout Christian Southern slave owners would hold
parties for the purpose of committing group sodomy against male slaves. It is funny until we take a step back and
realize that a not insignificant number of blacks in America genuinely believe
abuses of a similar manner that even the most strident abolitionist of the
1850s would find hard to believe happened to their ancestors.
Slavery is today a specific evil ascribed only to the South,
even though it has been practiced, and in some cases continues to be practiced,
by every single group of people on Earth.
Nor was the South’s form of slavery uniquely horrifying- the slave trade
was abolished in the United States well before its colonial European neighbors,
the Caribbean sugar plantations made Alabama cotton fields positively appealing
by comparison, and Ottoman sex slavery made them look like five-star vacation
resorts. It was not even a practice that
was solely unique to the states of the Confederacy- quintessential Yankee state
New Jersey had slaves all the way until the end of the War. But, nonetheless, because Lincoln so shrewdly
attached the baggage of slavery to the South for their part in the War Between
the States, it has become a blight that will haunt it until the end of time.
I do believe, however, that Southern slavery ended up being
a negative for this country and people- but before you get the torches and
pitchforks out, I do not believe that there’s anything morally wrong
with it. Today, you will hear arguments
that “the Bible condemns slavery”. This
is one that is never made in good faith- a cursory readthrough of the
Scriptures will inform you of that. Just
ask someone making this argument to read Leviticus 25:44 and ask him what that
means- if he argues that this part of Mosaic Law no longer applies to
Christians, just ask him if he believes in supersessionism and watch his head
spin as he justifies himself. Likewise,
you will find no condemnation of the practice in the New Testament. There are some that like to claim that Paul
condemned slavery- he did not. The only
line that he ever wrote that could be in any way interpreted to be such can be
more easily read as a prohibition on kidnapping. Paul does not command Philemon to immediately
free Onesimus and do penance for his evil- instead, he simply asks that the
former forgive the latter and receive him as a brother. Christ Himself used the metaphor of the slave
and master to reflect mankind’s relationship with God- certainly a strange
choice if you believe, as liberal theologians do, that God treats slavery as
inherently wrong. The prohibition that
the Scriptures does contain is on masters committing abuse of slaves, which
lines up neatly with the Bible’s similar commandments to husbands and parents. A final argument that my fellow Orthodox
Christians (such as the modernists at Fordham) will sometimes use the decisions
of the Council of Constantinople in 1872 as further proof that the Church
condemns slavery. That decision is
nothing of the sort- it is a condemnation of national politics infecting the Church
and proves that the Church is above worldly ethnic nationalism. It has as little to do with slavery as a football
game does. Likewise, although many
Church Fathers have offered their opinions on slavery, and some have condemned
it, that is their own position as private theologians- the Church as a whole
remains silent on this issue. But that
is enough of this topic.
Those who actually acknowledge that slavery existed in other
places on earth- such as in the Roman Empire, for instance- may point out that
the South’s version (helpfully denoted as “chattel slavery”) is uniquely evil
because it was done on the basis of ethnicity instead of debt or war. Such arguments rarely take into account the
Irish laborers in various parts of North America who had their “indentured servitude”
contracts bought, sold, or indefinitely extended, or the free blacks who
themselves owned slaves, but this is neither here nor there- New World slavery
was largely of an ethnic character. I do
actually agree with this insofar as I believe creating a caste system and
assigning one group the permanent status of “slave” is a purely pragmatically terrible
idea, and it’s responsible for most of the ills that have plagued the South
ever since the end of the War. For
certain, Southern slavery was not the only caste system to exist in the world,
nor was it the most brutal- for instance, there was no freedom for Dalits in
India, Cagots in France or burakumin in Japan- but inevitably, caste systems
end, and what results is never a positive for the nation.
What makes slavery stand out among the caste systems of
antiquity is that it is temporary by design- it is only a system that is
feasible in a pre-industrialized, agrarian society. The institution would have ended no matter
what the results of the War were- it was already growing unprofitable and
impractical by the time hostilities kicked off at Fort Sumter, as cotton
exports from British colonies such as Egypt flooded the market and
technological advances in agricultural harvesting made it an increasing money
drain to purchase, feed, and house humans.
Virginia was already seriously considering ending slavery in 1838 due to
the increasing unprofitability, before the actions of one Nat Turner put an end
to that discussion. The last country in
the world to abolish slavery was Brazil in 1888, and at that time the practice
was basically dead anyways, as former slave-owners found that it was much more
practical to employ some of the many European immigrants flooding the country
to farm, cook, or do whatever slaves could do, as they would happily work much
harder for wages that added up, in the long term, to be less than the cost of
buying, feeding, and housing a slave. If
the South had won the War, it is likely slavery would not have lasted any
longer.
That is not to say that the War and the abrupt end to
Southern slavery didn’t matter, because of course it did. It made the problems that faced post-slavery
states such as Brazil and various Caribbean islands thousands of times
worse. The main downside of caste
systems is that they breed resentment. For groups located toward the bottom of the
totem pole, that status, and that anger, becomes part of their founding myth as
a people. This is especially true in
ethnic caste systems, and even worse with New World slavery because it, as
mentioned above, is guaranteed to end at some point. Though “equality” is a noble goal, it never
works out in practice. Raising a group
at the bottom of the pyramid to the same level as everyone else does not mean
that peace and cooperation will follow- you cannot heal a wound that has been
festering for centuries with one band-aid.
If a group’s identity is based around being wronged, as lower-caste
groups’ identities nearly universally are, all elevating them to the same legal
and social status as the group that they believe wronged them will do is
provide them with the means to get their vengeance on the group that they
perceive, rightly or wrongly, as having been their oppressor. It is even worse when the lower-caste group
is given legal advantages in order to propel them to the same status as
higher-caste groups- they will use these advantages not to advance their own
group but instead bring down the group that they hate. We have seen this in the First
Reconstruction- groups of newly freed blacks, enabled by corrupt Radical
Republican governments, committed murder, rape, robbery, and arson against the
men and women who had once been their masters (and many more who had not) on a
wide scale, and we saw it again as gangs of blacks set Minneapolis, Portland,
Seattle, Washington, and many more cities alight two summers ago. We have seen it in South Africa, where
elderly Boers are being stabbed to death in their homes while the government
that Nelson Mandela founded on the principle of equality for all seizes land
from whites and bans the old flag for being “hate speech”. We see it in Japan, where Zainichi Koreans
constantly demand more government assistance despite the fact that they receive
more than a living wage even though they do not possess Japanese citizenship at
all, and routinely profess their support for North Korea. We see it in India, where Brahmins are
reduced to begging on the streets of Calcutta and living underneath tarps while
Dravidian tribes and Dalits demand even larger quotas at public universities. Their anger will never be sated no matter
what the government or private citizens do for them, because their enslavement
is their very ethnogenesis, and for blacks the Southerner is the Egyptian to
their Israelite. The end of slavery
created a ready-made fifth column- a population of malcontents who have every
incentive to be malcontented. Many slimy
politicians have taken advantage of the fact that you can still whip American
blacks into a violent frenzy today by pointing the finger at someone and
accusing them of racism or Confederate sympathy, and that you can keep them
voting for policies that are objectively terrible for them by accusing the
opponent of the same things. Even many
blacks, such as the great economist Thomas Sowell, have pointed out how
self-destructive this mindset is.
Comedian Chris Rock bemoaned the absurdity of blacks treating O.J.
Simpson being acquitted for double murder as if it was some sort of triumph for
his race. Rodney King pleaded for
“everyone to get along”- it didn’t stop four of his supporters from nearly
killing Reginald Denny. People are not a
monolith, but singular voices alone cannot change a culture.
Perhaps the system of slavery that was practiced by the
Greeks and Romans would have been better for this country, as it did not
discriminate- slavery was an unfortunate condition that anyone could find himself
in with enough bad luck, but it was also something that it was possible to earn
one’s way out of, instead of being something that you are born in and die in
due to your skin color or national origin (Of course, you could also earn your
way out of New World slavery, but that detail is often deliberately overlooked). It certainly would have been more in line
with the way that proud Southerners Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and many
others modeled the government of the United States off of Athens and Rome. But it is no use wondering about how things
would have been different if the world had taken a slightly different course-
the effects of slavery are here with us to stay. Neither is it useful to fantasize about
things such as deporting all the blacks in America on the first ship to
Monrovia- nothing would invite the attention of a UN “peacekeeping force” more than
that. Violent fantasies are the
territory of lowlifes such as the Bowl Patrol idiots and federal agents. The opposite solution- attempting to court
the black population- is as much of a pipe dream. It has not worked for Republicans for
decades, and it will work even less for Southern Nationalists. No article or statue or outreach effort will
change the fact that our heroes are their boogeymen, and vice versa.
Rather, the solution here is to leave them alone as we wish
to be left alone. Our movement and their
group ideology are diametrically opposed- that’s okay. We don’t have to get along, but we do need to
not mess with each other.
Self-determination is the most peaceful way to go. And it goes without saying that violence that
is not in defense of your home, property, or family/community is absolutely
unacceptable. Unprovoked violence
against innocents is both morally wrong and the stupidest thing that followers
of an ideology could ever do. The things
you do need to do, if you ever encounter a member of the black community
attempting to shame or guilt you over slavery, is to gently remind him that you
will not apologize for something that you took no part in and he was not
victimized by, and that you are proud of your ancestors and will not apologize
for their actions, either, and that he would be better served taking those
complaints elsewhere. If he actually has
an interest in peaceful coexistence, then the message will be understood. If not, and he is just using it as an excuse
to cause trouble, it’s fair to say that the civilized world is not going to
look highly upon him. The effects of
slavery are still with us today- we can’t change that. What we can change is our mindset toward it,
and how we react to it. I hope you can,
as well.
