The Unplanned Revenge of Bobbie Lee
The above photo is of Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, the living glue that held the Confederacy together for four abominable years, and traitor to the United States of America.
The toppled and vandalized statue below is of Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Army of the Potomac, Destroyer of the Army of Northern Virginia, Usurper of the Confederacy, Liberator of Millions of Enslaved, starting with William Jones.
The toppled and vandalized statue below is of Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Army of the Potomac, Destroyer of the Army of Northern Virginia, Usurper of the Confederacy, Liberator of Millions of Enslaved, starting with William Jones.
Did I mention that Grant also signed legislation allowing the Feds to prosecute the KKK as a terrorist organization?
Grant inherited Mr. Jones from his father-in-law and in 1859, despite being near financial collapse, Ulysses turned down the opportunity to traffic in humans and from deep within the Poorhouse’s basement he signed the manumission document below, making William Jones — free of charge — a free man.
Fast forward 161 years: these are protesters of racial injustice from the city of San Francisco, home of the now homeless Grant statue.
Although presumably no one in this photo vandalized Grant’s statue (they all seem so literate) there does exist within the population of protesters a subset that is woefully uninformed. Below is one example from across the pond.
Given that, in the name of protesting systemic racial injustice, we have now destroyed a statue that honors one of America’s greatest destroyers of systemic racial injustice, I think a brief review of our racial history is in order. I’ll use photographs where possible because they convey a thousand words.
Above is a photo of three Confederate soldiers. All three are dead now. All of their compatriots are dead too. Many of them have been dead for over 155 years. The last certifiable Civil War combatant passed away on August 2, 1956 at the age of 106 (he was a Union man.) That Union man fought on the side that sought to crush the system that wanted to retain the right to commit — in perpetuity — the atrocity pictured below:
But the Union side won, 155 years ago. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865. However, some argue that the phantoms of those dead slavers still haunt every hallway in America and from beyond the grave their oppression continues unchecked, at least so says Louis Farrakhan, among others:
“LeBron James is nothing but a modern day slave … owned by the white man — in a system designed to chew him up and spit him out.”
But this is just one of thousands of similarly glamorous photos of Mr. James. Can you tell the difference between the slave pictured above and the one pictured below?
“LeBron James is nothing but a modern day slave … owned by the white man — in a system designed to chew him up and spit him out.”
But this is just one of thousands of similarly glamorous photos of Mr. James. Can you tell the difference between the slave pictured above and the one pictured below?
To equate the lifestyle of the greatest living basketball player with the lifestyle of that unnamed sufferer above is to mock his suffering on one hand while exonerating his masters on the other. I guess you can do that if you want, but why would you? Why are some so eager to empower their enemies’ ghosts?
Booker T. Washington suggests an answer:
“There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.”
Booker T. Washington suggests an answer:
“There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.”
Booker T: born April 18, 1856 died November 14, 1915
That being said, the list of America’s racial crimes is not short. That being said, Louis Farrakhan is a fraud.
Broward County Florida, 1935
The Equal Justice Initiative calculates that between 1877 and 1950 there were 3,959 lynchings in the south. The image above is of Reuben Stacey, a laborer who was accused of assaulting a white woman, but who probably merely startled her as he passed by her door. For his troubles he was arrested by the sheriff whose jail was overpowered three days later by a masked mob that hung Mr. Stacey from a pine tree, then discharged 17 rounds into his body. Although the 3,958 other recorded lynchings are undoubtedly similarly gruesome, they still represent only a fraction of the brutality inflicted on a people whose only crime was melanin.
But has nothing changed since 1935?
But has nothing changed since 1935?
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In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” and violative of the 14th amendment.
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In 1964 Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, outlawing segregation in public places and banning employment discrimination based on race.
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In 1969 President Nixon issued Executive Order 11478, applying affirmative action hiring practices to the Federal government.
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Rafael Mangual
But did all progress come to a halt in 1969? Is our nation still only 34 years removed from hooded mobs who overpower due process and dangle their victims from pine trees by the thousands?
A growing swath of the country would answer that question in the affirmative, but with a twist; arguing that the mob no longer needs hoods because it wears a police uniform and commits its butcheries with the explicit protection of the legal system. But is there evidence to back up that claim? Rafael Mangual of the Manhattan Institute suggests differently. According to
him, “In 1971 the NYPD reported 810 firearms discharges by officers, which wounded 220 people and killed 93. In 2016 those numbers were down to 72 shootings, 23 wounded and 9 killed.”
A growing swath of the country would answer that question in the affirmative, but with a twist; arguing that the mob no longer needs hoods because it wears a police uniform and commits its butcheries with the explicit protection of the legal system. But is there evidence to back up that claim? Rafael Mangual of the Manhattan Institute suggests differently. According to
him, “In 1971 the NYPD reported 810 firearms discharges by officers, which wounded 220 people and killed 93. In 2016 those numbers were down to 72 shootings, 23 wounded and 9 killed.”
. . .
If Spike Lee is right and people in his town are burning cop cars to protest the fact that “black people are being killed left and right” it’s probably a delayed reaction to the shooting data from 1971.
Speaking of shooting data, in light of the riots in Baltimore and Ferguson Harvard professor Roland Fryer used crime data to investigate the question of how race impacts a police officer’s decision to fire his weapon. If you want to read the results of his study, click here. If you would like listen to him summarize his findings, click below. If you want to maintain the illusion that police shootings are largely racially motivated, don’t click either.
Speaking of shooting data, in light of the riots in Baltimore and Ferguson Harvard professor Roland Fryer used crime data to investigate the question of how race impacts a police officer’s decision to fire his weapon. If you want to read the results of his study, click here. If you would like listen to him summarize his findings, click below. If you want to maintain the illusion that police shootings are largely racially motivated, don’t click either.
Professor Fryer has since broadened his investigation to study the direction of homicide and violent crime rates in communities where riots or political decisions have made law enforcement back off more aggressive policing tactics. You’ll never guess what happens when criminals suspect that the police have retreated.
But should we let data cloud an issue that can easily be resolved via mysticism?
Dan Cathy, CEO of Chick-fil-A, suggests that white people should apologize or atone for their “conscious and unconscious biases” by shining black people’s shoes. I suppose that act of humility is designed to train the white mind to recognize and then prevent the type of harmful behaviors that Caucasians have imposed on minorities for centuries.
But should we let data cloud an issue that can easily be resolved via mysticism?
Dan Cathy, CEO of Chick-fil-A, suggests that white people should apologize or atone for their “conscious and unconscious biases” by shining black people’s shoes. I suppose that act of humility is designed to train the white mind to recognize and then prevent the type of harmful behaviors that Caucasians have imposed on minorities for centuries.
But what Mr. Cathy calls humility I call cowardice… or foolishness… or an attempt to protect his revenue stream. In short, whatever his intentions, the results are some variation on a theme that is evil.
If in the past Mr. Cathy has let racial prejudice guide his actions then he needs to grow a spine, seek out the actual individuals he’s harmed and make amends. Pantomiming humility before some random rapper may assuage his guilt, it will probably entertain the rapper, it is certainly excellent PR, but it will do nothing for any actual humans he’s vandalized. And this kabuki move only becomes more obscene when the actor deludes himself into thinking his atonement will compensate for the actions of other racists in different eras, across other stretches of the country.
If in the past Mr. Cathy has let racial prejudice guide his actions then he needs to grow a spine, seek out the actual individuals he’s harmed and make amends. Pantomiming humility before some random rapper may assuage his guilt, it will probably entertain the rapper, it is certainly excellent PR, but it will do nothing for any actual humans he’s vandalized. And this kabuki move only becomes more obscene when the actor deludes himself into thinking his atonement will compensate for the actions of other racists in different eras, across other stretches of the country.
If sins can be atoned for vicariously, the efforts of a God are required to accomplish the reconciliation. Rest assured that the dude in the white and red hat, though sincere, is insufficiently celestial. My heart wants to take him seriously, but my prefrontal cortex has questions.
How can he or any other pale face obtain collective forgiveness from our “black brothers and sisters for years and years of racism?” Of what good is his prayer to the African mother who’s child was torn from her arms 200 years ago and sold at a handsome profit? How do his babblings alter the heart of her master’s wicked corpse?
But if he could move the cosmos in just such a way as to work out others' posthumous or non-existent repentance, could we not ask this demi-god — after he’s healed our souls— to export his services to the rest of the globe? Or are his powers bounded by geography? Could he not say an additional prayer that might heal the Sunni/Shia rift? Could the animosity that endures between Koreans and the Japanese be assuaged via his mighty will? And might this superhuman empath conclude his world tour by banishing any resentment the Tutsis retain towards their Hutu neighbors?
But the questions don’t end in Rwanda, they’ve only just begun. Are there limits to the atoning powers of this White Wizard? For example, after his words have brought the victimized to tears, do the victims still need monetary compensation or is the debt paid? If unpaid, what is the statute of limitations on the crime of slavery? For example, do the Egyptians still owe the Israelites a check? If not, then when did the clock run out? And if our national clock still ticks, do not other nation’s clocks similarly tick? By 21st century reparation logic wouldn’t the inhabitants of the region once governed by the Barbary States owe the inhabitants of modern day Europe a subsidy for ancient troubles?
And with that final question, a circle General Lee unwittingly left insufficiently flanked is now complete. Because if men and women can be held responsible for the sins of strangers and corpses, then the descendants of Robert E. Lee’s European ancestors can rise again and present an invoice to the descendants of the African ancestors who the General once enslaved. And as an added but unrequested bonus, the nation Robert E. Lee once sought to expel has deleted his conqueror. Little did Bobbie know that the serpent who’s head he sought to crush would one day develop a hunger for its own tail.
If there’s alcohol in the Great Beyond, I imagine that General Grant will soon pass out.
How can he or any other pale face obtain collective forgiveness from our “black brothers and sisters for years and years of racism?” Of what good is his prayer to the African mother who’s child was torn from her arms 200 years ago and sold at a handsome profit? How do his babblings alter the heart of her master’s wicked corpse?
But if he could move the cosmos in just such a way as to work out others' posthumous or non-existent repentance, could we not ask this demi-god — after he’s healed our souls— to export his services to the rest of the globe? Or are his powers bounded by geography? Could he not say an additional prayer that might heal the Sunni/Shia rift? Could the animosity that endures between Koreans and the Japanese be assuaged via his mighty will? And might this superhuman empath conclude his world tour by banishing any resentment the Tutsis retain towards their Hutu neighbors?
But the questions don’t end in Rwanda, they’ve only just begun. Are there limits to the atoning powers of this White Wizard? For example, after his words have brought the victimized to tears, do the victims still need monetary compensation or is the debt paid? If unpaid, what is the statute of limitations on the crime of slavery? For example, do the Egyptians still owe the Israelites a check? If not, then when did the clock run out? And if our national clock still ticks, do not other nation’s clocks similarly tick? By 21st century reparation logic wouldn’t the inhabitants of the region once governed by the Barbary States owe the inhabitants of modern day Europe a subsidy for ancient troubles?
And with that final question, a circle General Lee unwittingly left insufficiently flanked is now complete. Because if men and women can be held responsible for the sins of strangers and corpses, then the descendants of Robert E. Lee’s European ancestors can rise again and present an invoice to the descendants of the African ancestors who the General once enslaved. And as an added but unrequested bonus, the nation Robert E. Lee once sought to expel has deleted his conqueror. Little did Bobbie know that the serpent who’s head he sought to crush would one day develop a hunger for its own tail.
If there’s alcohol in the Great Beyond, I imagine that General Grant will soon pass out.
