Removal of Confederate Monuments

[Darrell]

(09-10-2017 09:55 PM)My Name Is Kate Wrote:  I don't see anything "religious" about Robert E. Lee's attempt to justify slavery using religion. What I do see is the abuse of religion. Not to single Lee out though, since I'm sure there were plenty of people around the country at the time, who were guilty of doing the same thing to one degree or another. It's the kind of thing that gives religion (Christianity, in particular) an undeserved bad name.

How bad was life in Africa in 1856, when Lee wrote the aforementioned letter to his wife, stating that the American slaves were immeasurably better off here than in Africa?

Some months ago, I read an essay on Africa in the February 23, 1987 issue of Time magazine. The essay was written by senior writer Lance Morrow, who travelled to Africa to do the story. He reported that there were tribes who lived in huts with walls made of animal dung, wore little or no clothing, hunted with a spear, and after the kill of a goat, "slurped" up the flowing blood with relish. Morality was simple for some tribes, such as the Masai, who believe that in the beginning, God bestowed all the world's cattle upon them, so when they raid a rival village, they are only taking back what rightfully belongs to them.

The foregoing may be shocking to first world inhabitants, but these African tribes seem to like their way of life well enough. It's hard to imagine anyone preferring enslavement over freedom, no matter what the other contingent "benefits" of the enslavement may be.

Your mention of the Time magazine article reminds me of the book "Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa," by Keith Richburg. However, instead of happy tribes, that author described Africa as a continent of "famine, war and misery." (He was in Africa from 1991 to 1994 as the Washington Post's bureau chief, during the civil wars in Somalia and Rwanda.)

The book stirred up quite a controversy in the African-American community as the author also made a "slavery as a positive good" argument - albeit one from a historical perspective. Richburg said that, although embarrassed to admit it, he was secretly glad that his slave ancestor made it out of Africa -- "because, now, I am not one of them."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/ina...chbrg1.htm