NYTimes Charles Blow Opinion

[David Lockmiller]

Charles Blow Opinion: "Using Frederick Douglass to Rationalize Slavery? In Florida, Yes!" New York Times, August 16, 2023

In the video, the cartoon Douglass says that the year is 1852. But just two years before, the Compromise of 1850, which included a beefed-up fugitive slave law that even punished people who participated in the Underground Railroad, was passed. Douglass detested this “compromise.”

Eight years later, in 1861, after Abraham Lincoln defended the Fugitive Slave Act as an attempt to assuage Southern slavers, Douglass called him an “excellent slave hound” and the “most dangerous advocate of slave-hunting and slave-catching in the land.”


But let us be fair to history and Abraham Lincoln.

As a private citizen and lawyer, Abraham Lincoln openly stated his disagreement with the Supreme Court Dred Scott opinion.

[Not mentioned by Charles Blow.]

"Eight years later, in 1861," Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, was required to enforce the laws passed by Congress, including the Fugitive Slave Act.

The oath of office reads: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

This oath means enforcement of the laws passed by Congress.

[Not mentioned by Charles Blow.]

It was President Abraham Lincoln who issued the Emancipation Proclamation (effective January 1, 1863) and successfully sought passage of the Thirteenth Amendment legislation (the King's cure) in early 1865 that ended slavery in the United States forever.

[Not mentioned by Charles Blow.]

[Gene C]

I'm glad we live in a country that allows us free speech.
Unfortunately, most opinion writers are better at stirring up emotions than they are at suggesting and working towards practical solutions.

Mad Magazine had it right several years ago
"Those who travel the highway of crime must pay the toll."

[David Lockmiller]

(08-19-2023 06:58 AM)Gene C Wrote:  I'm glad we live in a country that allows us free speech.
Unfortunately, most opinion writers are better at stirring up emotions than they are at suggesting and working towards practical solutions.

Mad Magazine had it right several years ago
"Those who travel the highway of crime must pay the toll."

There are errors of commission and errors omission.

This was a series of examples of the latter characteristic by Charles Blow, which is a harm to truth about Abraham Lincoln.

[Steve]

Here's the text of article/opinion piece for those of us who were confused by the original posting:


Using Frederick Douglass to Rationalize Slavery? In Florida, Yes!
By Charles Blow - New York Times Opinion

(Reprinted in the 21 August 2023 edition of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

Gov. Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign may be floundering as he struggles to win over Republican voters with his deadpan robotic demeanor, and he may be shuffling campaign staff like he’s taking a mulligan, but the damage he did to Florida to get himself to this moment is still rippling through the state.

Last month, the Florida Department of Education announced that grade-school teachers could use videos produced by Dennis Prager’s PragerU Kids in their classrooms.

PragerU is no more a university than Trump University was. In fine type at the bottom of its webpage, it admits that “PragerU is not an accredited university, nor do we claim to be. We don’t offer degrees, but we do provide educational, entertaining, pro-American videos for every age.”

In reality, PragerU is little more than a propaganda media site. The Southern Poverty Law Center takes an even dimmer view of its credentials, saying, “PragerU seems to be yet another node on the internet connecting conservative media consumers to the dark corners of the extreme right.”

Prager himself, this is a man who said on his radio show in 2020, “It is idiotic that you cannot say the N-word.” And last year he falsely claimed that “if you see a noose on a college dorm of a Black student, the odds are overwhelming that the noose was put there by a Black student.”

“If you see the N-word on a dormitory building,” he continued, “the odds are overwhelming that a Black student actually did that. We’re filled with race hoaxes.”

In short, Prager is poison on the racial question, and anything springing from his efforts should, by definition, be considered tainted, particularly when it comes to race.

DeSantis’s destruction of Florida’s schools is awash in this taint. Soon, students could be watching videos like one produced by PragerU that features two children, Leo and Layla, who appear to be white, traveling back in time to talk to Christopher Columbus. In it, a cartoon Columbus says that the first Indigenous people he met when he landed in the Bahamas, the Taino, a subgroup of the Arawak, were “peaceful, curious and really helpful.” Later, he says, “I ordered my men to treat them well.”

Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” tells a different story, detailing how Columbus described the Arawak in his log at the time. “They would make fine servants,” Columbus wrote. “With 50 men, we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Visions of enslavement danced in his eyes from the beginning. And so, he acted.

As Columbus put it in one of his letters, “As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first island which I found, I took some of the natives by force.”

In the video, the cartoon Columbus rationalizes slavery, saying: “Being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no? I don’t see the problem.”

Well, I see a huge problem. In the video, being enslaved or killed are presented as the only options for the Indigenous, which is blasphemous. Slavery was a brutal, inhumane institution, but it wasn’t always deadly. Under Columbus, though, death was a prominent feature of the institution.

According to Zinn’s history, on Columbus’s second trip, he set up headquarters in what would become Haiti, “taking women and children as slaves for sex and labor,” and in 1495 he and his crew went on a great slave raid, rounding up 1,500 men, women and children. They loaded 500 on ships back to Spain, but 200 died en route.

When the Arawaks tried to fight back, they were overwhelmed by the Spaniards’ weapons. Those captured were hanged or burned. That’s when the mass suicides of the Arawaks began. As Zinn writes: “Infants were killed to save them from the Spaniards. In two years, through murder, mutilation or suicide, half of the 250,000 Indians on Haiti were dead.”

In another video, the two children travel back in time to talk to Frederick Douglass. One of the first things that the girl says to him is, “You have really cool hair.” Seriously?

The cartoon Douglass says in the video:

“Our founding fathers knew that slavery was evil and wrong, and they knew that it would do terrible harm to the nation. They wanted it to end, but their first priority was getting all 13 colonies to unite as one country.”

Nowhere in the video does it mention that most of the prominent founders, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, were themselves enslavers.

Then, perhaps most outrageously, the cartoon Douglass says, “I’m certainly not OK with slavery, but the founding fathers made a compromise to achieve something great: the making of the United States.”

Frederick Douglass would never! He despised the compromises that maintained and prolonged slavery.

In the video, the cartoon Douglass says that the year is 1852. But just two years before, the Compromise of 1850, which included a beefed-up fugitive slave law that even punished people who participated in the Underground Railroad, was passed. Douglass detested this “compromise.”

In an 1853 speech, Douglass blasted the compromise as one that “reveals with great clearness the extent to which slavery has shot its leprous distillment through the lifeblood of the Nation.”

Eight years later, in 1861, after Abraham Lincoln defended the Fugitive Slave Act as an attempt to assuage Southern slavers, Douglass called him an “excellent slave hound” and the “most dangerous advocate of slave-hunting and slave-catching in the land.”

To David Blight, the definitive biographer of Douglass, PragerU’s video is appalling and a joke, but in an interview with me, he recognized the danger that it could be compelling to a young student.

Is anyone, ultimately, served by this promoting of logical fallacy and bastardizing of history? As Blight explained it, the video “really does appeal to that version and vision of history that so many Americans still want. They want to be left feeling good at the end of the day. They don’t want to be threatened. They want to sleep at night. They want to know that the greatest of Black leaders really were on their side.”

Using Douglass in any way to soften slavery is a desecration. And, that is DeSantis’s educational legacy in the state.

DeSantis has said, “In the state of Florida, we’re proud to stand for education, not indoctrination, in our schools.” But this summer, at a Moms for Liberty summit in Philadelphia, Prager admitted to his indoctrination efforts. Speaking about criticism he received, he said: “All I heard was, ‘You indoctrinate kids,’ which is true. We bring doctrines to children. That’s a very fair statement. I said, ‘But what is the bad of our indoctrination?’”

In the true hypocritical form of many conservatives, their issue is not with indoctrination itself but with whether they get to control the form and function of that indoctrination.

[Dave B]

For a viewpoint on Columbus other than Zinn's, see "Columbus" by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Oxford University Press 1992, and a book that quotes Fernandez-Armesto, "Christopher Columbus " by Rafael Ortiz.

[David Lockmiller]

(08-27-2023 03:20 AM)Steve Wrote:  Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” tells a different story, detailing how Columbus described the Arawak in his log at the time. “They would make fine servants,” Columbus wrote. “With 50 men, we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

As Columbus put it in one of his letters, “As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first island which I found, I took some of the natives by force.”

According to Zinn’s history, on Columbus’s second trip, he set up headquarters in what would become Haiti, “taking women and children as slaves for sex and labor,” and in 1495 he and his crew went on a great slave raid, rounding up 1,500 men, women and children. They loaded 500 on ships back to Spain, but 200 died en route.

When the Arawaks tried to fight back, they were overwhelmed by the Spaniards’ weapons. Those captured were hanged or burned. That’s when the mass suicides of the Arawaks began. As Zinn writes: “Infants were killed to save them from the Spaniards. In two years, through murder, mutilation or suicide, half of the 250,000 Indians on Haiti were dead.”

Dave added the following source information on Columbus: "For a viewpoint on Columbus other than Zinn's, see "Columbus" by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Oxford University Press 1992."

Thank you both for the information on Columbus. I tend to focus my studies on President Lincoln and the Civil War. I shall learn more about Columbus.

[David Lockmiller]

(08-27-2023 10:33 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  

(08-27-2023 03:20 AM)Steve Wrote:  Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” tells a different story,

I tend to focus my studies on President Lincoln and the Civil War. I shall learn more about Columbus.

I checked out Zinn's book from the San Francisco Main Public Library yesterday that "tells a different story" on Columbus. When I got home, I went to the index to search for "Columbus" true history. On the page for which I was looking, the term "Constitution" caught my attention and below that a listing by amendment with the 13th Amendment showing three text references.

Needless to say, "Lincoln history" has top priority. What did this historian have to say about President Lincoln's role in the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution legislation that acted as the "King's cure" to the end of slavery in the United States of America forever?

The first listed passage (A People's History of the United States, Chapter - "Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom," p. 192) reads in its entirety as follows:

"Limited as it was, the Emancipation Proclamation spurred antislavery forces. By the summer of 1864, 400,000 signatures asking legislation to end slavery had been gathered and sent to Congress, something unprecedented in the history of the country. That April, the Senate had adopted the Thirteenth Amendment, declaring an end to slavery, and in January, 1865, the House of Representatives followed."

Apparently, in the opinion of "People's Historian" Zinn, President Abraham Lincoln's role in the passage of this Constitutional Amendment legislation ending slavery in the United States forever was relatively unimportant.

I disagree.

[Steve]

Blow's column recommended Zinn's book, not me. Zinn's book is notorious as bad history. Given the book's reputation, it's pretty ironic/stupid that Blow would cite it (even if its Columbus quotes are accurate in this case) in a column obstensibly about bad history standards.

[David Lockmiller]

(08-29-2023 06:32 PM)Steve Wrote:  Blow's column recommended Zinn's book, not me. Zinn's book is notorious as bad history. Given the book's reputation, it's pretty ironic/stupid that Blow would cite it (even if its Columbus quotes are accurate in this case) in a column ostensibly about bad history standards.

Can you please explain, if you are able to do so, how a book "notorious as bad history" is able to sell two million copies? Did not other reputable historians criticize the book on this basis?

Blow was trying to write his own "bad history" and one cites alleged authority confirming your work as proof that what you are saying is correct.

[Steve]

(08-29-2023 07:11 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  Can you please explain, if you are able to do so, how a book "notorious as bad history" is able to sell two million copies? Did not other reputable historians criticize the book on this basis?

I don't have any real interest in talking about Zinn and his book, I just wanted to make a point about Blow's column. But in a quick response to your question above, my personal opinion is the book a money-maker and the inaccuracies/distortions are a feature and not a bug for its intended audience; and even a contributing factor of why the book sold so well over many editions.

But since this a Lincoln focused forum, I'll do a quick appraisal of the Zinn quote you made in an earlier post. Hundreds of thousands of slaves left their plantations (and other similar situations) and joined Union soldier lines. I know Lincoln and his advisors may have been disappointed in what seemed like a lack of escaping slaves at first, but the Emancipation Proclamation provided an avenue for slaves to free themselves when Union lines reached near their locations. And after the war was over, it did free millions.

Also, Lincoln was instrumental in getting the 13th amendment passed in Congress. The amendment had failed in the House of Representatives in June 1864, after passing in the Senate. It was Lincoln's insistence on bringing it up for another vote during the lame-duck session of Congress to prevent the Senate-passed bill from dying and his constant politicking which secured passage of the amendment in Congress.

I'll write my response to the Blow article when I have more time.

[Rob Wick]

Quote:Can you please explain, if you are able to do so, how a book "notorious as bad history" is able to sell two million copies? Did not other reputable historians criticize the book on this basis?

I'll tell you why exactly. People know as much about what makes for reputable history as I do about nuclear physics. Sales of a book tell us absolutely nothing about the quality of the book (see, for example, 50 Shades of Grey), just as a book winning the Pulitzer Prize tells us nothing about whether or not it deserved it or if winning it even matters.

Quote:Unfortunately, most opinion writers are better at stirring up emotions than they are at suggesting and working towards practical solutions.

Stirring up emotion is the point of opinion writing. Plus, your definition of practical is far different from mine.

Best
Rob

[David Lockmiller]

The following is a post I made on January 25, 2023 on the 1619 Project:

An example of this historical fact alteration to subvert the truth about President Abraham Lincoln is what I detailed in my previous post. [And, I have made other similar posts on this thread.] The undisputed fact is that President Abraham Lincoln’s August 14, 1862 one hour speech on a black colonization proposal to the Committee of five prominent free black men was unanimously well-received by the Committee members. This historical fact is evidenced by a letter written by the Committee chairman to President Lincoln two days following the meeting at the White House. This “letter fact” of history was conveniently omitted by American History historian Nikole Hannah-Jones in her false narrative describing the same historical event of the August 14, 1862 White House meeting. Nikole Hannah-Jones is trying to cheat posterity out of the truth.

"History is not history unless it is the truth.”

[Rob Wick]

Quote:The undisputed fact is that President Abraham Lincoln’s August 14, 1862 one hour speech on a black colonization proposal to the Committee of five prominent free black men was unanimously well-received by the Committee members.

In what universe? The delegation was respectful, as one would expect anyone meeting with the President to be, but they did nothing to move Lincoln's plan forward. I would remind you that Eric Foner and George Frederickson were sharply critical of Lincoln's viewpoint long before Hannah Nikole-Jones arrived on the scene, with Foner referring to colonization as "Lincoln's support of a policy that might be called the ethnic cleansing of America... ." Frederickson, acknowledging Lincoln's belief in the humanity of African Americans, argued that colonization was a non-starter with both slaves and free blacks. Mark E. Neely Jr. called colonization "a profoundly racist movement" that offered "an all white country in the future."

You need to get over your obsession with Nikole-Jones.

Best
Rob

[David Lockmiller]

(08-30-2023 12:19 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  You need to get over your obsession with Nikole-Jones.

Best
Rob

Thank you for your advice. I will do the best I can. I have not been able to sleep nights.

David

[Rob Wick]

I won't hold my breath.

Best
Rob