Questions About John Brown

[My Name Is Kate]

Debate is one thing, arguing is something else. I do not enjoy arguing.

If you will go back and read all the recent posts by everyone, you should be able to easily see how what I posted follows from what other people have posted. Kate Larson posted: " I can assure you that those 4 million people were better off after the Civil War - they had the right to marry, vote, go to school, keep their children, go to church, earn their own money and keep it." Sounds like everything is pretty much hunky-dory, doesn't it? But it is not, not at all. So here is what I posted and why I felt it necessary to bring up present race problems: "From everything I've observed about black people living in this country today, (and as I've said in another thread, I lived for twenty years in poor, unsafe, unfriendly neighborhoods), many if not most of them, do not think they have anything close to the freedom and opportunity they "should" have. They are not happy. Why not, if the Civil War was so beneficial to them? BTW, I live up north, not in the south."

You (Eva) also asked how freeing the slaves John Brown's way instead of with a civil war fought largely by white people, might have helped present-day problems: If black people had played a larger role in freeing themselves, they might today have more self-respect and more confidence in themselves. Then again, maybe not. Who knows.

Then you (Eva) posted the following: "why don't you expect them to free themselves now from their unhappy situation? You expected free sympathetic people to aid them - are you one of those to aid them now?" That last part sounded rather accusatory to me, which is why I brought up some of my own personal experiences regarding race relations. I was to trying to answer your question. I was trying to make people understand that I do not see myself as being "above" black people and in a position to aid them in any meaningful way. I see myself, in some ways at least, as being pretty much in the same boat as they are, yet they seem to expect so much from me, personally. I will tell you what it seems to me that they expect from me: They want me to give them my whiteness and they want to give me their blackness. Now how can I possibly do that? Please tell me.