I am sorry. I know I mentioned this on my side bar, but I keep going over that essay by Michael Medved, and quite frankly, the range and scope of the stupidity of some of his assertions baffle me.
For instance, in making a comparison between the Holocaust and slavery he says:
"By definition, the crime of genocide requires the deliberate slaughter of a specific group of people; slavers invariably preferred oppressing and exploiting live Africans rather than murdering them en masse. Here, the popular, facile comparisons between slavery and the Holocaust quickly break down: the Nazis occasionally benefited from the slave labor of their victims, but the ultimate purpose of facilities like Auschwitz involved mass death, not profit or productivity. For slave owners and slave dealers in the New World, however, death of your human property cost you money, just as the death of your domestic animals would cause financial damage. And as with their horses and cows, slave owners took pride and care in breeding as many new slaves as possible. "
But wait there is more. Here he argues that the real victims of the slave trade were the slave traders:
"Historians agree that hundreds of thousands, and probably millions of slaves perished over the course of 300 years during the rigors of the “Middle Passage” across the Atlantic Ocean. Estimates remain inevitably imprecise, but range as high as one third of the slave “cargo” who perished from disease or overcrowding during transport from Africa. Perhaps the most horrifying aspect of these voyages involves the fact that no slave traders wanted to see this level of deadly suffering: they benefited only from delivering (and selling) live slaves, not from tossing corpses into the ocean."
"NO SLAVE TRADERS WANTED TO SEE THIS LEVEL OF DEADLY SUFFERING"?
What? Folks, let's be clear, there is some serious shit going on in this country. And if we don't wake the fuck up main stream America will be saying that slavery never really existed as we like to portray it in the first place. That slavery was really a good thing for the millions of African Americans that are here, because, after all, they could have ended up in Africa....but wait, I think I am already hearing this shit.
Make no mistake, Michael Medved is as main stream as it gets.--- The guy does movie reviews for crying out loud-- And he has joined a large group of right wing black and white conservatives who have taken to intellectualizing black suffering and the over all issue of race in A-merry-ca.
But as long as I have a computer and a keyboard, I will call them on their bullshit. And I hope
every person of conscience feels the same way that I do.
As far as I am concerned we are in a war, and I intend to win this motherfucker!
For instance, in making a comparison between the Holocaust and slavery he says:
"By definition, the crime of genocide requires the deliberate slaughter of a specific group of people; slavers invariably preferred oppressing and exploiting live Africans rather than murdering them en masse. Here, the popular, facile comparisons between slavery and the Holocaust quickly break down: the Nazis occasionally benefited from the slave labor of their victims, but the ultimate purpose of facilities like Auschwitz involved mass death, not profit or productivity. For slave owners and slave dealers in the New World, however, death of your human property cost you money, just as the death of your domestic animals would cause financial damage. And as with their horses and cows, slave owners took pride and care in breeding as many new slaves as possible. "
But wait there is more. Here he argues that the real victims of the slave trade were the slave traders:
"Historians agree that hundreds of thousands, and probably millions of slaves perished over the course of 300 years during the rigors of the “Middle Passage” across the Atlantic Ocean. Estimates remain inevitably imprecise, but range as high as one third of the slave “cargo” who perished from disease or overcrowding during transport from Africa. Perhaps the most horrifying aspect of these voyages involves the fact that no slave traders wanted to see this level of deadly suffering: they benefited only from delivering (and selling) live slaves, not from tossing corpses into the ocean."
"NO SLAVE TRADERS WANTED TO SEE THIS LEVEL OF DEADLY SUFFERING"?
What? Folks, let's be clear, there is some serious shit going on in this country. And if we don't wake the fuck up main stream America will be saying that slavery never really existed as we like to portray it in the first place. That slavery was really a good thing for the millions of African Americans that are here, because, after all, they could have ended up in Africa....but wait, I think I am already hearing this shit.
Make no mistake, Michael Medved is as main stream as it gets.--- The guy does movie reviews for crying out loud-- And he has joined a large group of right wing black and white conservatives who have taken to intellectualizing black suffering and the over all issue of race in A-merry-ca.
But as long as I have a computer and a keyboard, I will call them on their bullshit. And I hope
every person of conscience feels the same way that I do.
As far as I am concerned we are in a war, and I intend to win this motherfucker!
36 comments:
We live in a nation where hanging Nooses from a tree where Black children can see it is called "a prank". Why not say that slavery wasn't that bad? I guess all those pictures of old Black men with permanent grooves, countless examples of rape and sexual mutilation and the US constitution calling black people 3/5 human was just make believe. We live in a screwed up country.
Aaaaarrrrrrgggghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!
FN,
Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
The utter hatred in this article is astounding, but I'm glad to get it out in the open, so we can see who he is.
"As far as I am concerned we are in a war, and I intend to win this motherfucker"!
___________________________________
No doubt about it! And I'll be right there with you.
This is to ease their guilty ass conscience & one more excuse not to pay reparations.
D%%%%t, I'm tired of this BS!
Yes, Field, as Rikyrah stated, thanks for bringing this to my attention. I hadn't seen it onyour side bar yet.
I know I shouldn't be shocked. But I really am shocked that someone can actually see something, close their eyes, and then tellyou what they saw when their eyes was open was never actually there. Just because you choose to close your eyes or look away doesn't make the truth any less real. Truth is truth, whether you choose to face it or not.
What these folks, both white and black, that want to play down the terrorism of African people want is to not accept truth. They rather dress up history with a lie, even at the expense of their own personal souls. So sad...
Angie
I am with you Field...
peace, Villager
The first time I heard this crap was from Walter William's mouth as a panelist on a Ch.6 issues show. Dinesh D'Souza's socalled research, books and speaking engagements gave credence to this BS and the Ann Coulters of this country took the spin to a whole other level.
One of my first post was about this. I thought it serious enough to contact some conservative black bloggers to get their take on it, no response. When I confronted one, he said it must of been lost in spam. Right!
I have blogged about this since then and I posted again yesterday to refer to this side bar.
I occasionally check out certain sites and have to challenged them in their efforts to rehabilitate the south and slavery. The issue of slavery is being depicted as a simple economic reality so that the justification of the secession of the Southern States, becomes a matter of States Rights and of liberty, not slavery. Then you have the outright racist who are still fighting the Civil War and defending Southern honor. Many bloggers have gone out of their way to portray slaves as willing fighters on the Confederate side, but failing to show the motives or considering that in some places free blacks who did not considered themselves blacks tried to join the Confederacy. The myth of the New South is incorporating all of this crap.
Ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
One of the untruths in Medved's argument that you could drive a truck thru is the fact that slave traders intentionally tossed slaves overboard to collect insurance money. Just Google "middle passage"+insurance and read thru the results. Here's one example of what you'll find - http://www.google.com/gwt/n?output=xhtml&q=%22middle+passage%22+insurance&source=m&hl=en&ei=9KH_RqioCo6AowKPwLHvAw&sa=X&oi=blended&ct=res&cd=1&rd=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fscotland%2Feducation%2Fhist%2Fabolition%2F%3Fsection%3Dtri_trade%26page%3Dsecond-leg%26mainContent%3Dmedia%26clipNum%3D15
"We live in a nation where hanging Nooses from a tree where Black children can see it is called "a prank". Why not say that slavery wasn't that bad? "
Yes cappadona,sadly we do.
Hathor, thanks for those links and your writing on this subject. It's so important that the right people stay on top of this issue.
anon.9:27 thanks for the link, and for punching a hole through Medved's arguments with actual facts.
Field,
I first read about this over at another site called Urban Hang Suite. It is a blog by a young lady who calls herself Jazzy Lady. She posted the whole article on her blog if anyone would like to go read it. urbanhangsuite.blogspot.com
I agree with you Field. We are in a war. I have thought for a long time that America is going to have another civil war, but I was telling myself that it was going to be between the classes. (I.E. Rich and Poor.)
But since I have been reading your blog and others by black people for black people, and comparing them to some of the white blogs, I have begun to rethink my original arguments.
We definitly are living in 2 Americas. A white one and a black one. The black America is getting fed up with the white America and vice versa. But for the live of me I cannot understand the white point of view.
Blacks in this country have did everything that the whites have demanded of them. We have accepted their religion, their language and their culture, to the point that most of us cannot trace our lineage to anywhere other than the city where we were born.We have did everything that we can do to be accepted in this damn country and we are still hated and despised.
I know to hate is wrong, and I really try to find the good in everyone I encounter, but if any one has a reason to hate, it is the black American. How can any white America be proud of their past? How can they be proud and yell out white power, when the United States was built on the backs and bathed in the blood of people that they consider inferior to them? What has black people ever did to white America to be hated as we are? We are made to look like animals in every newspaper and on every news web site in America. The good that we have accomplished in this country is never talked about, but the bad is highlighted at every oppurtunity that shows itself.
They have even turned us against each other. Just look at the 306 MURDERS in your home city Field.
I tell you man, this shit is coming to a head. I just hope that America is ready when and if the unthinkable happens.
Medved- House Negro
That is absolutely despicable. I can't remember the last time I read anything that actually made me lose my appetite.
I wish that I could say that I was shocked but....
Slavery and colonization lead right to the front steps of genocide. Both are deliberate and typically group specific. The removal of a culture is genocidal, the removal of familial connection is genocidal (in this context)and I am sure that if Medved found himself chained to hundreds in the bowels of a bought or had to watch as Live human cargo went sliding into the sea in an effort to lighten the load his views on slavery might shift just a taste. Hell if he sampled some fresh, piping hot Jim Crow he might even taste the bullshit he rights and reinforces!
Oh and why don't we all whip out our Kleenex and erect a statue to those poor slave traders....WTF?
Just because you don't shove a brother into an oven doesn't mean genocide ain't on the agenda.
Reading the responses over at Townhall to his column tells me one thing that I already knew...
This is a war...
But then I wish that I could say that I was shocked but.........
My sis found this a few days ago and I posted the whole thing on my own blog because I knew I should and because if it disappeared I would have a copy of it. I am also saving a copy to my hard drive. I also read the responses and they were sickening. I'm not shocked either. It's there and we know it, slinking, lurking, hiding in the hearts of so many whites, and this time a Jew. If this were to be said about the holocaust this man would be screaming all over the world about how he had been done wrong, apologies must be made and that nothing so deep and evil could be said about the Jews and the holocaust. I wonder where our apology is?
How do you intend to win this war?
My suggestion, wait a little while longer. Except for a few on the extreme fringe which will never go away, thiings will get better. As old people that were raised in a time when open racism was commonplace die off, their hatred won't be passed along to their heirs. Any doubt that the hip-hop generation will be much more color blind than the generation of the robert bryds? Imagine the children & grandchildren of the hip hop generation.
Anonymous,
Most of the Lew Rockwell crowd is under thirty and quite a few of those I have argued with, are in their early twenties. Most of the libertarians find this philosophy when they are in their teens, so I don't know when those generations will be born.
Field:
As you know I'm no guilty liberal and I'm not Black, just an average white guy.My daughter spent a semester in Ghana, and stood at the door of no return at Cape Coast Castle. Based on what she shared with me about her experience and based on my own reading, there's no doubt slavers not only knew of the likely death & suffering but calculated it in order to ensure profit. Medved's not only a jerk, but intellectually lazy and dishonest. Keep up your good work--as always, thanks for the perspective.
I agree that we're in a war, but I think we need some new analytical, rhetorical and political tools to win this war.
Do you believe that people can be so fearful that it becomes a mental illness? But, you believe that no matter how fearful whites are of Blacks, it NEVER rises to the level of mental illness? Unwittingly, this is the same kind of exceptionalism from which whites "benefit" all the time.
If whites fear spiders as much as they fear Blacks, and engage in similarly dysfunctional behavior toward them, then they would immediately be referred for psychiatric help. But, because the "stimulus" or "cue" that evokes their response is our skin color, society deems their behavior normal, even if if would be abnormal in any other context.
It's time for Blacks to lead the way in suggesting that whites get psychiatric help, but this will require that we explain with particularity how their symptoms are evidence of a psychiatric disorder.
A couple comments:
1) Medved argues a technicality. Slavery was not genocide strictly speaking. He is right on that count. But it was genocidal, in that it took human life (i.e. the slaves' lives were no longer their own), and did so to a race of people.
2)To dirty red: White people have turned black people on each other? How do you mean?
Trying to bring you a positive story, FN:
Man establishes museum for black World War II effort
This Medved guy (dumb name) does make a good point or two. But rather than saying that slave traders did not want to see deadly suffering, I think they were more indifferent toward it. And they're certainly not the victims.
The slave traders obviously saw the Africans as sub-human, but if entire ships full of them kept dying on every trip, that would be bad for business because no planation owner was going to buy a boat full of corpses. But to make it sound like the slave traders were running hospitals and providing the best care possible is ridiculous. Widespread death was a minor concern for the slave traders, it wasn't their life's mission to ensure the Africans' survival.
And to compare slavery to the Holocaust...no. The African slave trade was extremely terrible, but it wasn't like the Holocaust. A world power wasn't actively trying to exterminate the African culture and people. Europeans, and later Americans, were just turning them into slaves. Reprehensible, yes, but at least the slaves had their lives (most of the time).
7-0 Giants, 1:17 in the 2nd.
From what I learned in school, much of what went on during slavery also occurred during the Holocaust. During both eras, people were taken from their homes, had their freedoms stripped away, were tortured, and forced to work against their will. The main difference was that under Hitler, the eventual goal was complete physical extermination Under slavery, the goal was mental extermination. Take away any sense of identity. Mentally break the will. The goal was to have a body that would work, but not think. (Is it really better to be alive in this state?)
To me, there's no way you can compare slavery and the Holocaust and say one is "not as bad" as the other. Each stands on it's own as a terrible chapter in world history. The fact that people like Medved make light of it is sad. We should be learning all we can so we can stop making the same mistakes over and over again.
Timothy Burke writes about Medved's ignorant errors at http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/43209.html
To win a war, you must too have offense.
The offense needed against this barrage is an attack on the Holocaust propaganda machine--distinguished from an attack on the Holocaust or an attack on Jewish people.
One way to attack is to call it this, "the Holocaust propaganda machine." This allows you to separate it from being conveniently cast as an anti-Holocaust, anti-Israel, or anti-Jewish. Avoiding what have been for the propagandists deep covers will increase the probability of our offense being effective.
The other thing to do is to call up--even harp--on the ways in which the Holocaust propaganda machine has hurt. One way in which I believe the propagandists hurt is by shutting down so many beneficial conversations. For example, one line of conversation that is never pursued in discussions about the Jewish Holocaust is: Why was it so relatively easy to make the Jews the focus of such venom and hatred in those parts of Europe such took hold? This is a question--like why are the Palestinians so angry at Israelees, that the Holocaust propaganda machine have tried to silence and cast as a hostile question. To ask this question, according to the Holocaust propaganda machine is to be open to an excuse for the Holocaust. In reality, it would offer us better information with which to avoid and possibly protect insulated minorities from such attacks in the future. But, rather than care abou tthis, to presumably protect their own interest, the Holocaust propaganda machine refuses to allow the inquiry.
Finally, whatever Medved might insist regarding how slavery operated in the United States, in the carribbean, for sure, slavery met the definition of genocide. Slave owners intentionally worked slaves unto death. The slaves were nto meant to survive generationally. Slave owners brought slaves into the "camp," so to speak, to die. They just worked them hard--enslaved them--before the invitable.
blogs all over are taking on medved i first read about it with this guy http://hjhop.blogspot.com/2007/09/someone-should-really-hold-michael.html
Glad to see your on top of this hatemonger. If only publishing was based on intelligence level instead of what sells...
until we get some new kind of Fairness Doctrine going the right wing talk radio machine, of which Medved is a minor but significant part, will continue to determine the flavor of America with its uncontested repetition.
medved gets to spew his drivel to almost 3 million per week, according to talker's magazine -http://www.talkers.com/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=34
there is no bigger single reinforcer of racism and injustice on the planet than these loudmouthed racists like limbaugh reaching tens of millions every day. the jena six injustice gets plenty of excuses and justifications on the GOP talk radio monopoly.
without the talk radio monopoly bush and rove would never have had the confidence to hold back on katrina aid while they waited for the black on white violence they could have used on talk radio for years to rile their base.
the way to protest medved may be to do it at the local talk radio level by contacting his sponsors or even waving signs at the station.
sorry if this was doubled
Legitimate candidates for the "most horrifying aspect of slavery":
1) The raw injustice of the practice;
2) Its chattel nature, such that slaves were legally persons without substantive rights and only one procedural right: that to a due process hearing as to slave status itself;
3) The fact that the children of slaves were also born as slaves and usually died as slaves;
4) The immoral depraved indifference of white people to chattel slavery back then
5) The immoral depraved indifference of white people to chattel slavery today
6) The near silence or tacit acquiescence of self-appointed moral and religious guardians (NOT ALL) to the reality of slavery.
7) The deaths of slaves from ship-borne diseases, starvation and drownings.
What's not the "most horrifying" fact: pearl-clutching slave traders' frustration at lost profits.
Stupid Medved. A smarter slavery apologist would have covered the turd with a little more ketchup.
Oh yeah, I forgot. These same morons who scream about how terrible it is not to have "freedom" (whatever that means) in health care or whatever the idiotic watchword is for the week suddenly lose their love of freedom when the alternative to slavery is freedom in Africa.
Let's cut the crap: if Africa had been so bad, the slave traders would have been MOBBED by "slaves" begging for passage, there would have been no effort to capture people, they would have needed guns to keep people from stowing away on boats undetected. People would have been killing each other to board the boats. But Africa was not the Titanic, no matter what Medved in his onanistic bleatings hallucinates.
Yeah. "Freedom" (TM) is important, so long as it take care of us wingers and screws those people.
My opinion is that the real danger here is that Medved's article is an example of Denial. The problem with Denial of a Genocide (or even near genocidal behavior) is that it dramatically increases the likelihood of re-occurance. From the Genocide Watch site:
"DENIAL is the eighth stage that always follows a genocide. It is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres. "
@dmd-
Read the legal definition of genocide; killing is not an essential component. I think that the only arguable aspect (from a legal definition) is intent. I would, for example, classify slavery as "serious mental harm"?
Apologies; the last "?" should have been a "." Bad Edit on my part from a prior version of the post.
It is this kind of article that us Canadians read over and over again (Medved's) that makes us Canadians shake are heads in disgust..The world looks on as right wing lunatics continue to enter main stream america more and more. Do NOT let them take over...Medved is a disgrace to the human race.
Canadian, eh
They tried to sell us this line in my 8th grade history class as an "alternative" point of view. But what is freaky, as anon. just said, is how mainstream this take on things is becoming now.
Medved should try reading some documents of the time. They really, truly did not think of slaves as people and it is evident.
Also: Africa is "bad" to the extent that it is because of colonialism and its results. The slave trade was one piece the whole phenomenon.
So come now, Medved.
Thanks Zimbel... I would agree with you.
Medved reminds me of David Horowitz and Stephen Goldblatt of the National Review, conservative Jews who Salon's Joan Walsh said 'Admired African- Americans when they were righteous victims but when they found out they were human they became even bigger racists than the Klan. Medved used to be a civil rights lawyer (read his book) and in the 70's became disenchanted when Black folks wanted more than just be 'righteous victims' and wanted a voice in the debate.
Medved also said that "there was no need for the civil rights act of 1964 or any other legisaltion because "The free market would have ended racism", I think it's time we challenged the Jewish Media and tell any candiate to restore the fairness doctrineand allow a diverse amount of voices in music and in politcal thought because as long as Clear Channel, Disney, CBS, NBC and Fox and others are allowed to collude and hire extreme right- wing voices but will not let people hear balanced reporting form the other side we will have slavery deniers like Medved.
Mr. FN, are you at all suprised. My people are dealing with a very large well financed group of asswipes who insist the Holocaust nevr happened, and that was only 65 years ago(http://www.ihr.org/leaflets/denial.shtml).
My only regret is that Meshuganah Medved is one of our boys http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Medved#Personal_and_religious_life
We need him about as much as you neeed Uncle Clarence Thomas.
Iknow I'm late to the party but this is a "who the hell says that" moment if ever there was one. Just damn!
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