How many times will Canadians be surprised at this behavior?
Oh... from the article...
And the story, which didn’t seem to get much news coverage, doesn’t get any better.
Now I know why.
Trump’s Remarks on Charlottesville Violence Are Criticized as Insufficient
- Thread starter mentalfloss
- Start date
How many times will Canadians be surprised at this behavior?
Oh... from the article...
And the story, which didn’t seem to get much news coverage, doesn’t get any better.
Now I know why.
Did Black People Own Slaves?
The answers to these questions are complex, and historians have been arguing for some time over whether free blacks purchased family members as slaves in order to protect them — motivated, on the one hand, by benevolence and philanthropy, as historian Carter G. Woodson put it, or whether, on the other hand, they purchased other black people "as an act of exploitation," primarily to exploit their free labor for profit, just as white slave owners did. The evidence shows that, unfortunately, both things are true.
The great African-American historian, John Hope Franklin, states this clearly: "The majority of Negro owners of slaves had some personal interest in their property." But, he admits, "There were instances, however, in which free Negroes had a real economic interest in the institution of slavery and held slaves in order to improve their economic status."
In a fascinating essay reviewing this controversy, R. Halliburton shows that free black people have owned slaves "in each of the thirteen original states and later in every state that countenanced slavery," at least since Anthony Johnson and his wife Mary went to court in Virginia in 1654 to obtain the services of their indentured servant, a black man, John Castor, for life.
And for a time, free black people could even "own" the services of white indentured servants in Virginia as well. Free blacks owned slaves in Boston by 1724 and in Connecticut by 1783; by 1790, 48 black people in Maryland owned 143 slaves. One particularly notorious black Maryland farmer named Nat Butler "regularly purchased and sold Negroes for the Southern trade," Halliburton wrote.
Perhaps the most insidious or desperate attempt to defend the right of black people to own slaves was the statement made on the eve of the Civil War by a group of free people of color in New Orleans, offering their services to the Confederacy, in part because they were fearful for their own enslavement: "The free colored population [native] of Louisiana … own slaves, and they are dearly attached to their native land … and they are ready to shed their blood for her defense. They have no sympathy for abolitionism; no love for the North, but they have plenty for Louisiana … They will fight for her in 1861 as they fought [to defend New Orleans from the British] in 1814-1815."
These guys were, to put it bluntly, opportunists par excellence: As Noah Andre Trudeau and James G. Hollandsworth Jr. explain, once the war broke out, some of these same black men formed 14 companies of a militia composed of 440 men and were organized by the governor in May 1861 into "the Native Guards, Louisiana," swearing to fight to defend the Confederacy. Although given no combat role, the Guards — reaching a peak of 1,000 volunteers — became the first Civil War unit to appoint black officers.
Like The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.
When New Orleans fell in late April 1862 to the Union, about 10 percent of these men, not missing a beat, now formed the Native Guard/Corps d'Afrique to defend the Union. Joel A. Rogers noted this phenomenon in his 100 Amazing Facts: "The Negro slave-holders, like the white ones, fought to keep their chattels in the Civil War." Rogers also notes that some black men, including those in New Orleans at the outbreak of the War, "fought to perpetuate slavery."
How Many Slaves Did Blacks Own?
So what do the actual numbers of black slave owners and their slaves tell us? In 1830, the year most carefully studied by Carter G. Woodson, about 13.7 percent (319,599) of the black population was free. Of these, 3,776 free Negroes owned 12,907 slaves, out of a total of 2,009,043 slaves owned in the entire United States, so the numbers of slaves owned by black people over all was quite small by comparison with the number owned by white people. In his essay, " 'The Known World' of Free Black Slaveholders," Thomas J. Pressly, using Woodson's statistics, calculated that 54 (or about 1 percent) of these black slave owners in 1830 owned between 20 and 84 slaves; 172 (about 4 percent) owned between 10 to 19 slaves; and 3,550 (about 94 percent) each owned between 1 and 9 slaves. Crucially, 42 percent owned just one slave.
Pressly also shows that the percentage of free black slave owners as the total number of free black heads of families was quite high in several states, namely 43 percent in South Carolina, 40 percent in Louisiana, 26 percent in Mississippi, 25 percent in Alabama and 20 percent in Georgia. So why did these free black people own these slaves?
It is reasonable to assume that the 42 percent of the free black slave owners who owned just one slave probably owned a family member to protect that person, as did many of the other black slave owners who owned only slightly larger numbers of slaves. As Woodson put it in 1924's Free Negro Owners of Slaves in the United States in 1830, "The census records show that the majority of the Negro owners of slaves were such from the point of view of philanthropy. In many instances the husband purchased the wife or vice versa … Slaves of Negroes were in some cases the children of a free father who had purchased his wife. If he did not thereafter emancipate the mother, as so many such husbands failed to do, his own children were born his slaves and were thus reported to the numerators."
Moreover, Woodson explains, "Benevolent Negroes often purchased slaves to make their lot easier by granting them their freedom for a nominal sum, or by permitting them to work it out on liberal terms." In other words, these black slave-owners, the clear majority, cleverly used the system of slavery to protect their loved ones. That's the good news.
And for a time, free black people could even "own" the services of white indentured servants in Virginia as well. Free blacks owned slaves in Boston by 1724 and in Connecticut by 1783; by 1790, 48 black people in Maryland owned 143 slaves. One particularly notorious black Maryland farmer named Nat Butler "regularly purchased and sold Negroes for the Southern trade," Halliburton wrote.
Perhaps the most insidious or desperate attempt to defend the right of black people to own slaves was the statement made on the eve of the Civil War by a group of free people of color in New Orleans, offering their services to the Confederacy, in part because they were fearful for their own enslavement: "The free colored population [native] of Louisiana … own slaves, and they are dearly attached to their native land … and they are ready to shed their blood for her defense. They have no sympathy for abolitionism; no love for the North, but they have plenty for Louisiana … They will fight for her in 1861 as they fought [to defend New Orleans from the British] in 1814-1815."
These guys were, to put it bluntly, opportunists par excellence: As Noah Andre Trudeau and James G. Hollandsworth Jr. explain, once the war broke out, some of these same black men formed 14 companies of a militia composed of 440 men and were organized by the governor in May 1861 into "the Native Guards, Louisiana," swearing to fight to defend the Confederacy. Although given no combat role, the Guards — reaching a peak of 1,000 volunteers — became the first Civil War unit to appoint black officers.
deadspin-quote-carrot-aligned-w-bgr-2<\/title><path d="M10,3.5l3-3,3,3Z" style="fill:%23fff;stroke:%23fff"/><path d="M0,3.5H10l3-3,3,3H26" style="fill:none;stroke:%231b3a4d"/><\/svg>')}.f_branding_on.blog-group-deadspin .editor-inner.post-content .pu
Yeah, heritage
Oh well, them that are innocent, throw the first stone.
BTW
Injns had slaves too...it was regular practice.
The answers to these questions are complex, and historians have been arguing for some time over whether free blacks purchased family members as slaves in order to protect them — motivated, on the one hand, by benevolence and philanthropy, as historian Carter G. Woodson put it, or whether, on the other hand, they purchased other black people "as an act of exploitation," primarily to exploit their free labor for profit, just as white slave owners did. The evidence shows that, unfortunately, both things are true.
The great African-American historian, John Hope Franklin, states this clearly: "The majority of Negro owners of slaves had some personal interest in their property." But, he admits, "There were instances, however, in which free Negroes had a real economic interest in the institution of slavery and held slaves in order to improve their economic status."
In a fascinating essay reviewing this controversy, R. Halliburton shows that free black people have owned slaves "in each of the thirteen original states and later in every state that countenanced slavery," at least since Anthony Johnson and his wife Mary went to court in Virginia in 1654 to obtain the services of their indentured servant, a black man, John Castor, for life.
And for a time, free black people could even "own" the services of white indentured servants in Virginia as well. Free blacks owned slaves in Boston by 1724 and in Connecticut by 1783; by 1790, 48 black people in Maryland owned 143 slaves. One particularly notorious black Maryland farmer named Nat Butler "regularly purchased and sold Negroes for the Southern trade," Halliburton wrote.
Perhaps the most insidious or desperate attempt to defend the right of black people to own slaves was the statement made on the eve of the Civil War by a group of free people of color in New Orleans, offering their services to the Confederacy, in part because they were fearful for their own enslavement: "The free colored population [native] of Louisiana … own slaves, and they are dearly attached to their native land … and they are ready to shed their blood for her defense. They have no sympathy for abolitionism; no love for the North, but they have plenty for Louisiana … They will fight for her in 1861 as they fought [to defend New Orleans from the British] in 1814-1815."
These guys were, to put it bluntly, opportunists par excellence: As Noah Andre Trudeau and James G. Hollandsworth Jr. explain, once the war broke out, some of these same black men formed 14 companies of a militia composed of 440 men and were organized by the governor in May 1861 into "the Native Guards, Louisiana," swearing to fight to defend the Confederacy. Although given no combat role, the Guards — reaching a peak of 1,000 volunteers — became the first Civil War unit to appoint black officers.
Like The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.
When New Orleans fell in late April 1862 to the Union, about 10 percent of these men, not missing a beat, now formed the Native Guard/Corps d'Afrique to defend the Union. Joel A. Rogers noted this phenomenon in his 100 Amazing Facts: "The Negro slave-holders, like the white ones, fought to keep their chattels in the Civil War." Rogers also notes that some black men, including those in New Orleans at the outbreak of the War, "fought to perpetuate slavery."
How Many Slaves Did Blacks Own?
So what do the actual numbers of black slave owners and their slaves tell us? In 1830, the year most carefully studied by Carter G. Woodson, about 13.7 percent (319,599) of the black population was free. Of these, 3,776 free Negroes owned 12,907 slaves, out of a total of 2,009,043 slaves owned in the entire United States, so the numbers of slaves owned by black people over all was quite small by comparison with the number owned by white people. In his essay, " 'The Known World' of Free Black Slaveholders," Thomas J. Pressly, using Woodson's statistics, calculated that 54 (or about 1 percent) of these black slave owners in 1830 owned between 20 and 84 slaves; 172 (about 4 percent) owned between 10 to 19 slaves; and 3,550 (about 94 percent) each owned between 1 and 9 slaves. Crucially, 42 percent owned just one slave.
Pressly also shows that the percentage of free black slave owners as the total number of free black heads of families was quite high in several states, namely 43 percent in South Carolina, 40 percent in Louisiana, 26 percent in Mississippi, 25 percent in Alabama and 20 percent in Georgia. So why did these free black people own these slaves?
It is reasonable to assume that the 42 percent of the free black slave owners who owned just one slave probably owned a family member to protect that person, as did many of the other black slave owners who owned only slightly larger numbers of slaves. As Woodson put it in 1924's Free Negro Owners of Slaves in the United States in 1830, "The census records show that the majority of the Negro owners of slaves were such from the point of view of philanthropy. In many instances the husband purchased the wife or vice versa … Slaves of Negroes were in some cases the children of a free father who had purchased his wife. If he did not thereafter emancipate the mother, as so many such husbands failed to do, his own children were born his slaves and were thus reported to the numerators."
Moreover, Woodson explains, "Benevolent Negroes often purchased slaves to make their lot easier by granting them their freedom for a nominal sum, or by permitting them to work it out on liberal terms." In other words, these black slave-owners, the clear majority, cleverly used the system of slavery to protect their loved ones. That's the good news.
And for a time, free black people could even "own" the services of white indentured servants in Virginia as well. Free blacks owned slaves in Boston by 1724 and in Connecticut by 1783; by 1790, 48 black people in Maryland owned 143 slaves. One particularly notorious black Maryland farmer named Nat Butler "regularly purchased and sold Negroes for the Southern trade," Halliburton wrote.
Perhaps the most insidious or desperate attempt to defend the right of black people to own slaves was the statement made on the eve of the Civil War by a group of free people of color in New Orleans, offering their services to the Confederacy, in part because they were fearful for their own enslavement: "The free colored population [native] of Louisiana … own slaves, and they are dearly attached to their native land … and they are ready to shed their blood for her defense. They have no sympathy for abolitionism; no love for the North, but they have plenty for Louisiana … They will fight for her in 1861 as they fought [to defend New Orleans from the British] in 1814-1815."
These guys were, to put it bluntly, opportunists par excellence: As Noah Andre Trudeau and James G. Hollandsworth Jr. explain, once the war broke out, some of these same black men formed 14 companies of a militia composed of 440 men and were organized by the governor in May 1861 into "the Native Guards, Louisiana," swearing to fight to defend the Confederacy. Although given no combat role, the Guards — reaching a peak of 1,000 volunteers — became the first Civil War unit to appoint black officers.
deadspin-quote-carrot-aligned-w-bgr-2<\/title><path d="M10,3.5l3-3,3,3Z" style="fill:%23fff;stroke:%23fff"/><path d="M0,3.5H10l3-3,3,3H26" style="fill:none;stroke:%231b3a4d"/><\/svg>')}.f_branding_on.blog-group-deadspin .editor-inner.post-content .pu
Yeah, heritage
Oh well, them that are innocent, throw the first stone.
BTW
Injns had slaves too...it was regular practice.
Last edited:
Four out of five doctors agree speaking to me is bad for your health.
Meh, I'm on a bit of a "heritage not hate" tear at the moment. Don't mean to spill none of it on you.
BTW
Injns had slaves too...it was regular practice.
1842 Slave Revolt in the Cherokee Nation
The 1842 Slave Revolt in the Cherokee Nation, then located in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) west of the Mississippi River, was the largest escape of a group of slaves to occur among the Cherokee. The slave revolt started on November 15, 1842, when a group of 20 African-American slaves owned by the Cherokee escaped and tried to reach Mexico, where slavery had been abolished in 1836. Along their way south, they were joined by 15 slaves escaping from the Creek in Indian Territory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1842_Slave_Revolt_in_the_Cherokee_Nation
Hmmm....Cherokee eh?
Yeah heritage
"hypocrisy" might to be more the correct word
Injns had slaves too...it was regular practice.
1842 Slave Revolt in the Cherokee Nation
The 1842 Slave Revolt in the Cherokee Nation, then located in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) west of the Mississippi River, was the largest escape of a group of slaves to occur among the Cherokee. The slave revolt started on November 15, 1842, when a group of 20 African-American slaves owned by the Cherokee escaped and tried to reach Mexico, where slavery had been abolished in 1836. Along their way south, they were joined by 15 slaves escaping from the Creek in Indian Territory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1842_Slave_Revolt_in_the_Cherokee_Nation
Hmmm....Cherokee eh?
Yeah heritage
"hypocrisy" might to be more the correct word
You obviously hate white people
You obviously hate white people if you condemn white people for the same actions that others do, and give others a pass.
You should face the fact that you obviously hate white people mentalflake
When your best argument is written by communazi propaganda flakes I guess you could say the same
No need to shout. And I don't quite get the "fake reasons." Are you claiming that defending Nazis is appropriate?
Trump's biggest detriment is his mouth. As I've said before he'd do well to read up on Calvin Coolidge!
'Sein Kampf': German magazine Stern's controversial cover
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First posted: Friday, August 25, 2017 08:39 AM EDT | Updated: Friday, August 25, 2017 08:57 AM EDT
BERLIN — This week’s cover of a popular German news magazine depicting U.S. President Donald Trump draped in the American flag while giving a stiff-armed Nazi salute is drawing sharp criticism from a prominent Jewish group.
Stern magazine’s illustration is part of a cover story headlined “Sein Kampf,” which translates as “His Struggle” and is a play on Adolf Hitler’s infamous “Mein Kampf.”
Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center says it’s been “outspoken in criticizing President Trump for failing to make a distinction between Nazis and KKK protesters and those who opposed them” but “the depiction of the president as a latter-day Hitler by a major German publication is untrue and beyond the pale.”
It says “Germans must surely know that by misappropriating” Nazi symbols, “they belittle and becloud” past crimes.
The cover of the August 24, 2017 issue of German magazine Stern shows President Donald Trump performing a Nazi salute with the caption "Sein Kampf" in reference to Adolf Hitler's notorious manifesto. (Facebook/Stern)
Home | Simon Wiesenthal Center
'Sein Kampf': German magazine Stern's controversial cover | World | News | Toron
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First posted: Friday, August 25, 2017 08:39 AM EDT | Updated: Friday, August 25, 2017 08:57 AM EDT
BERLIN — This week’s cover of a popular German news magazine depicting U.S. President Donald Trump draped in the American flag while giving a stiff-armed Nazi salute is drawing sharp criticism from a prominent Jewish group.
Stern magazine’s illustration is part of a cover story headlined “Sein Kampf,” which translates as “His Struggle” and is a play on Adolf Hitler’s infamous “Mein Kampf.”
Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center says it’s been “outspoken in criticizing President Trump for failing to make a distinction between Nazis and KKK protesters and those who opposed them” but “the depiction of the president as a latter-day Hitler by a major German publication is untrue and beyond the pale.”
It says “Germans must surely know that by misappropriating” Nazi symbols, “they belittle and becloud” past crimes.
The cover of the August 24, 2017 issue of German magazine Stern shows President Donald Trump performing a Nazi salute with the caption "Sein Kampf" in reference to Adolf Hitler's notorious manifesto. (Facebook/Stern)
Home | Simon Wiesenthal Center
'Sein Kampf': German magazine Stern's controversial cover | World | News | Toron
Maryland marching band not allowed to play pro-Confederate state song
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First posted: Monday, August 28, 2017 06:23 PM EDT | Updated: Monday, August 28, 2017 06:33 PM EDT
COLLLEGE PARK, Md. — The University of Maryland marching band will at least temporarily stop playing the state’s official song, which includes a reference to “Northern scum” and other pro-Confederate lyrics.
University spokeswoman Katie Lawson tells news media outlets that school officials are suspending the playing of “Maryland, My Maryland” to “evaluate if it is consistent with the values” of the school. The marching band played the song during football pregame shows.
“Maryland, My Maryland” was written in 1861 by James Ryder Randall, who was despondent about the death of a friend shot while protesting Union troops in Baltimore.
It refers to President Abraham Lincoln as a “despot.”
Drum major Brian Starace tells The Baltimore Sun he supports the move, saying the song was never something he was “too proud to be playing.”
[youtube]GZzUD0jx0iY[/youtube]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland,_My_Maryland
University of Maryland band nixes Confederate state song, could lawmakers be next? - Baltimore Sun
Maryland marching band not allowed to play pro-Confederate state song | Home | T
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First posted: Monday, August 28, 2017 06:23 PM EDT | Updated: Monday, August 28, 2017 06:33 PM EDT
COLLLEGE PARK, Md. — The University of Maryland marching band will at least temporarily stop playing the state’s official song, which includes a reference to “Northern scum” and other pro-Confederate lyrics.
University spokeswoman Katie Lawson tells news media outlets that school officials are suspending the playing of “Maryland, My Maryland” to “evaluate if it is consistent with the values” of the school. The marching band played the song during football pregame shows.
“Maryland, My Maryland” was written in 1861 by James Ryder Randall, who was despondent about the death of a friend shot while protesting Union troops in Baltimore.
It refers to President Abraham Lincoln as a “despot.”
Drum major Brian Starace tells The Baltimore Sun he supports the move, saying the song was never something he was “too proud to be playing.”
[youtube]GZzUD0jx0iY[/youtube]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland,_My_Maryland
University of Maryland band nixes Confederate state song, could lawmakers be next? - Baltimore Sun
Maryland marching band not allowed to play pro-Confederate state song | Home | T
Memphis theatre's pulling of 'Gone with the Wind' viewed as 'cultural cleansing' by critics
Travis M. Andrews, THE WASHINGTON POST
First posted: Tuesday, August 29, 2017 10:05 AM EDT | Updated: Tuesday, August 29, 2017 10:28 AM EDT
A Memphis, Tennessee, theatre has ended its 34-year tradition of screening the 1939 Oscar-winning-film "Gone With the Wind" at least once a year. The Orpheum Theatre dropped the movie from its programming after several patrons complained about an Aug. 11 screening, saying the film was "racially insensitive," USA Today reported.
"While title selections for the series are typically made in the spring of each year, the Orpheum has made this determination early in response to specific inquiries from patrons," Brett Batterson, president of the Orpheum Theatre Group, said in a statement obtained by Entertainment Weekly.
"As an organization whose stated mission is to 'entertain, educate and enlighten the communities it serves,' the Orpheum cannot show a film that is insensitive to a large segment of its local population," Batterson added.
Taking inflation into account, the Civil War epic "Gone With the Wind" is the highest grossing film of all time, according to Box Office Mojo. Even so, its treatment of black characters - referred to as "darkies" throughout the film - has been at the center of an increasingly heated debate.
The movie follows the life of Southern belle Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh), who grows up on a plantation and eventually falls in love with former blockade runner for the South Rhett Butler (Clark Gable). To many, the film depicts the Confederacy in a nostalgic, loving way while drawing its black characters in broad and demeaning stereotypes.
In 2015, film critic Lou Lumenick wrote that the film "buys heavily into the idea that the Civil War was a noble lost cause and casts Yankees and Yankee sympathizers as the villains, both during the war and during Reconstruction." He suggested it should "go the way of the Confederate flag" and be phased out of American culture.
Outraged defenders of the movie, though, seemed to feel otherwise and quickly vocalized their objections. The loudest voice belonged to Fox News commentator and Memphis native Todd Starnes.
In two different tweets linking to a commentary he wrote on the theatre's decision, Starnes said, "Common sense has gone with the wind in my hometown of Memphis" and said the movie "has been done-in by a bunch of meddling, no-account, liberal Yankee carpetbaggers."
"The cultural cleansing of my hometown has gone too far," Starnes wrote on his blog, calling those who complained "culture jihadists."
"And now our beloved film is gone with the wind - done in by a bunch of meddling, no-account thespian carpetbaggers," he continued. "Many Memphians must be wondering what has come over this here town. To borrow a phrase from 'Gone With the Wind,' Liberals have come over it. Same as they've come over all of us."
Starnes concluded:
"But there's no use crying in our sweet tea, Southerners," he wrote. "We must stand up to the scourge of the Yankee liberals. We must stand up and fight. In the words of Scarlett O'Hara, as God is my witness - we're not gonna let them lick us."
Some people who had seen the movie in Memphis agreed with Starnes.
"My grown daughter and I went together to see this movie during the summer screening 5 years ago. It is an Epic Movie that no one should miss on the big screen," wrote Sherrye Britt, who said there was nothing racist about the movie. "Stop trying to rewrite history. The next thing you know they will ban To Kill a Mockingbird, Driving Ms Daisy, and other iconic movies."
"I was fortunate enough to go and see GWTW last year at the Orpheum," wrote Vickie Lewis. "I can say without a doubt that I will never give this theatre my money again."
"Shame on the Orpheum," wrote Sherry Fullbright Fowler, who complained that the move was "helping" to destroy history.
But others, such as Erin Maher, supported the theatre.
"Agree with this decision," Maher wrote. "This is no time to be romanticizing the Confederacy and slave-owners. People who want to watch it can still watch it. They're not burning the only print."
For all the outrage, though, the Orpheum Theatre hasn't backed down. Batterson told the Commercial Appeal this isn't the first time the theatre considered pulling the movie from its annual schedule, but the decision has finally been made.
"This is something that's been questioned every year," he said. "This is about the Orpheum wanting to be inclusive and welcoming to all of Memphis."
http://usatoday.com/story/life/2017...ough-social-media-shame-ban-memphis/608546001
Gone With the Wind: Theater cancels screening
Gone with the Wind (1939) - Box Office Mojo
‘Gone with the Wind’ should go the way of the Confederate flag | New York Post
http://toddstarnes.com/column/common-sense-is-gone-with-the-wind-in-memphis
Memphis theatre's pulling of 'Gone with the Wind' viewed as 'cultural cleansing'
Travis M. Andrews, THE WASHINGTON POST
First posted: Tuesday, August 29, 2017 10:05 AM EDT | Updated: Tuesday, August 29, 2017 10:28 AM EDT
A Memphis, Tennessee, theatre has ended its 34-year tradition of screening the 1939 Oscar-winning-film "Gone With the Wind" at least once a year. The Orpheum Theatre dropped the movie from its programming after several patrons complained about an Aug. 11 screening, saying the film was "racially insensitive," USA Today reported.
"While title selections for the series are typically made in the spring of each year, the Orpheum has made this determination early in response to specific inquiries from patrons," Brett Batterson, president of the Orpheum Theatre Group, said in a statement obtained by Entertainment Weekly.
"As an organization whose stated mission is to 'entertain, educate and enlighten the communities it serves,' the Orpheum cannot show a film that is insensitive to a large segment of its local population," Batterson added.
Taking inflation into account, the Civil War epic "Gone With the Wind" is the highest grossing film of all time, according to Box Office Mojo. Even so, its treatment of black characters - referred to as "darkies" throughout the film - has been at the center of an increasingly heated debate.
The movie follows the life of Southern belle Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh), who grows up on a plantation and eventually falls in love with former blockade runner for the South Rhett Butler (Clark Gable). To many, the film depicts the Confederacy in a nostalgic, loving way while drawing its black characters in broad and demeaning stereotypes.
In 2015, film critic Lou Lumenick wrote that the film "buys heavily into the idea that the Civil War was a noble lost cause and casts Yankees and Yankee sympathizers as the villains, both during the war and during Reconstruction." He suggested it should "go the way of the Confederate flag" and be phased out of American culture.
Outraged defenders of the movie, though, seemed to feel otherwise and quickly vocalized their objections. The loudest voice belonged to Fox News commentator and Memphis native Todd Starnes.
In two different tweets linking to a commentary he wrote on the theatre's decision, Starnes said, "Common sense has gone with the wind in my hometown of Memphis" and said the movie "has been done-in by a bunch of meddling, no-account, liberal Yankee carpetbaggers."
"The cultural cleansing of my hometown has gone too far," Starnes wrote on his blog, calling those who complained "culture jihadists."
"And now our beloved film is gone with the wind - done in by a bunch of meddling, no-account thespian carpetbaggers," he continued. "Many Memphians must be wondering what has come over this here town. To borrow a phrase from 'Gone With the Wind,' Liberals have come over it. Same as they've come over all of us."
Starnes concluded:
"But there's no use crying in our sweet tea, Southerners," he wrote. "We must stand up to the scourge of the Yankee liberals. We must stand up and fight. In the words of Scarlett O'Hara, as God is my witness - we're not gonna let them lick us."
Some people who had seen the movie in Memphis agreed with Starnes.
"My grown daughter and I went together to see this movie during the summer screening 5 years ago. It is an Epic Movie that no one should miss on the big screen," wrote Sherrye Britt, who said there was nothing racist about the movie. "Stop trying to rewrite history. The next thing you know they will ban To Kill a Mockingbird, Driving Ms Daisy, and other iconic movies."
"I was fortunate enough to go and see GWTW last year at the Orpheum," wrote Vickie Lewis. "I can say without a doubt that I will never give this theatre my money again."
"Shame on the Orpheum," wrote Sherry Fullbright Fowler, who complained that the move was "helping" to destroy history.
But others, such as Erin Maher, supported the theatre.
"Agree with this decision," Maher wrote. "This is no time to be romanticizing the Confederacy and slave-owners. People who want to watch it can still watch it. They're not burning the only print."
For all the outrage, though, the Orpheum Theatre hasn't backed down. Batterson told the Commercial Appeal this isn't the first time the theatre considered pulling the movie from its annual schedule, but the decision has finally been made.
"This is something that's been questioned every year," he said. "This is about the Orpheum wanting to be inclusive and welcoming to all of Memphis."
http://usatoday.com/story/life/2017...ough-social-media-shame-ban-memphis/608546001
Gone With the Wind: Theater cancels screening
Gone with the Wind (1939) - Box Office Mojo
‘Gone with the Wind’ should go the way of the Confederate flag | New York Post
http://toddstarnes.com/column/common-sense-is-gone-with-the-wind-in-memphis
Memphis theatre's pulling of 'Gone with the Wind' viewed as 'cultural cleansing'
Rewriting history to mollify any who may be offended by human savagery does nothing to promote luv, consequence itself be an expert teacher. Sugar coating scalping, skull duggery and brutalty makes it no less lethal only easier for apologists to swallow. Rejigging history as a lie serves only apologist dweebs bent on enshrining their agenda overwriting the true picture of history that was written in blood.
All historical tales involving less than puritanical characters will hafta be burned, men of all races are and always were doves, ask any bleeding heart lib.
Pulling down inanimate statues is eezy for lefties but when faced with live folk demanding justice, um, uh, well, uh, obfuscation rules, dealing with consequence(s) is nay a component in lefties whitewash agenda.
https://www.rt.com/usa/400573-indigenous-tribe-reclaims-land-rights.
All historical tales involving less than puritanical characters will hafta be burned, men of all races are and always were doves, ask any bleeding heart lib.
Pulling down inanimate statues is eezy for lefties but when faced with live folk demanding justice, um, uh, well, uh, obfuscation rules, dealing with consequence(s) is nay a component in lefties whitewash agenda.
https://www.rt.com/usa/400573-indigenous-tribe-reclaims-land-rights.
Quebec activist Jaggi Singh, who identified himself as former NHL star Michel Goulet, arraigned on obstruction, impersonation charges
THE CANADIAN PRESS
First posted: Wednesday, August 30, 2017 11:35 AM EDT | Updated: Wednesday, August 30, 2017 11:43 AM EDT
QUEBEC — A well-known left-wing activist has pleaded not guilty to a charge of obstructing justice and one of impersonation that was filed after he identified himself as former NHL star Michel Goulet.
Jaggi Singh was arrested at a Quebec City demonstration on Aug. 20 and then released.
The 46-year-old Singh was rearrested Tuesday and entered the plea in municipal court in Quebec City this morning.
The Crown opposed his release and he is expected to return to court this afternoon.
In a statement today, a group supporting Singh says the impersonation charge is related to Singh jokingly telling police on Aug. 20 his name was Michel Goulet, the ex-Quebec Nordiques left-winger.
Quebec City police say two distinct groups took part in demonstrations that day and that a third group was involved in another protest, which was declared illegal and broken up by the anti-riot squad.
Police specify that criminal acts took place during that protest and add there could be more arrests.
Several hundred people had gathered to oppose a demonstration planned by La Meute, a far right group.
The counter-protest was organized by anti-fascist and pro-refugee groups after at least two Quebecers were identified participating in a white supremacist rally earlier this month in Charlottesville, Va.
Activist Jaggi Singh is arrested during an anti-racism demonstration in Quebec City on Aug. 20, 2017. (Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press)
Quebec activist Jaggi Singh, who identified himself as former NHL star Michel Go
THE CANADIAN PRESS
First posted: Wednesday, August 30, 2017 11:35 AM EDT | Updated: Wednesday, August 30, 2017 11:43 AM EDT
QUEBEC — A well-known left-wing activist has pleaded not guilty to a charge of obstructing justice and one of impersonation that was filed after he identified himself as former NHL star Michel Goulet.
Jaggi Singh was arrested at a Quebec City demonstration on Aug. 20 and then released.
The 46-year-old Singh was rearrested Tuesday and entered the plea in municipal court in Quebec City this morning.
The Crown opposed his release and he is expected to return to court this afternoon.
In a statement today, a group supporting Singh says the impersonation charge is related to Singh jokingly telling police on Aug. 20 his name was Michel Goulet, the ex-Quebec Nordiques left-winger.
Quebec City police say two distinct groups took part in demonstrations that day and that a third group was involved in another protest, which was declared illegal and broken up by the anti-riot squad.
Police specify that criminal acts took place during that protest and add there could be more arrests.
Several hundred people had gathered to oppose a demonstration planned by La Meute, a far right group.
The counter-protest was organized by anti-fascist and pro-refugee groups after at least two Quebecers were identified participating in a white supremacist rally earlier this month in Charlottesville, Va.
Activist Jaggi Singh is arrested during an anti-racism demonstration in Quebec City on Aug. 20, 2017. (Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press)
Quebec activist Jaggi Singh, who identified himself as former NHL star Michel Go
Why can't you Canadians have white supremacist hate rallies worshipping enemies of your country in Canada?
This black musician befriends white supremacists
Rachel Chason, The Washington Post
First posted: Wednesday, August 30, 2017 02:38 PM EDT | Updated: Wednesday, August 30, 2017 02:55 PM EDT
Scott Shepherd is a former grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. Daryl Davis is a black R&B and blues musician who has been befriending white supremacists for 30 years, trying to convert them.
When Shepherd first heard about Davis five years ago, he was dumbfounded.
"I thought he was nuts," said Shepherd, 58, of South Haven, Mississippi. "I told him he was a total crackpot."
But over the course of dozens of phone calls, several visits and countless conversations about music, the two became friends - so much so that Shepherd now proudly calls himself a "reformed racist" and says Davis is a brother to him.
Davis, 59, has met and befriended many Klan members over the years, connecting over subjects such as family and music. Davis, an R&B musician who played the piano for Chuck Berry, also uses a combination of logic and history to try to persuade them to reconsider their racist beliefs.
Between 40 and 50 Klan members, he claims, have renounced their membership because of his intervention, and many have handed over their robes, which he keeps in his home in Silver Spring, Maryland.
One day, he said, he hopes to open a museum.
Davis, who was featured in a PBS documentary released in February that screened at South by Southwest last year, has gained a measure of fame over the past 30 years for his seemingly far-fetched mission. Following the violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Aug. 12, The Washington Post asked Davis whether his mission or optimistic outlook had changed.
His resounding answer: No.
"I don't think my job has gotten any harder. They are human beings," he said, speaking about the white supremacists he has met over the years. "Many are good, hard-working people with a skewed perception of life and reality."
Davis said President Donald Trump - who was widely criticized for equivocating before eventually denouncing white supremacists - can't be blamed for the deadly violence in Virginia.
"He fans a lot of flames the wrong way," Davis said. "But the racist culture that allowed Charlottesville to happen was in place long before Trump ran for president."
The silver lining of tragic events like Charlottesville, Davis said, is that they foster conversations about race that he feels are crucial to ending racism.
"Talking about race in this country has been taboo for way too long," Davis said.
Davis faces a lot of skepticism.
Mark Potok, an expert on extremism formerly with the Southern Poverty Law Center, said in the PBS documentary that Davis' strategy may or may not end up working in the long run. But he said, "We can't wait around. ... There is a larger poison at work here."
Davis' approach, which takes him to Klan rallies and members' homes across the country, has also made him distinctly unpopular among some black activists, who suggest his time would be better spent engaging in the communities affected by racism as opposed to befriending those who perpetuate it.
Kwame Rose, a prominent activist in Baltimore, told The Washington Post that when Davis makes friends with avowed racists, he validates their racism.
"What happened in Charlottesville is why we don't need people collecting KKK robes," Rose said. "We do not need to give anyone ammunition to celebrate their racist past."
During a heated exchange in the PBS documentary, called "Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America," Rose told Davis, "Stop wasting your time going into people's houses that don't love you."
Davis fired back: "So you believe no one can change?"
"No," Rose retorted. "I believe you believe the wrong people can change."
Rose, who led protests following the death of Freddie Gray and is featured in a new HBO documentary, "Baltimore Rising," said Davis is "uneducated about the reality of most of the people who look like" him.
Davis readily acknowledges that his upbringing - his father was in the Foreign Service so he spent much of his childhood abroad - gives him a perspective that is different from that of many African-Americans his age.
When most schools in America were largely black or largely white, Davis was attending international schools that he remembers looking like "a little Model United Nations."
He said he was a fourth-grader in a Boston suburb when he first encountered racism.
It was 1968, and he was one of two black students in his elementary school in Belmont, Massachusetts. He had joined the Cub Scouts and was marching in a parade from Lexington to Concord when a group that had gathered on the side of the road began pelting rocks and soda cans at him. He remembered he was carrying an American flag.
Davis said he was "so naive" at the time that he didn't realize he - the only black Cub Scout in the parade - was being targeted until his friends, troop leaders and grandmother formed a protective ring around him.
"The race thing didn't even occur to me," Davis said.
As his parents tended to his bruises and scrapes at home, they told Davis what racism meant. At first, he didn't accept the notion that such hatred could be generated by "something as stupid as the color of skin."
But when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated that spring, he came around to his parents' point of view.
With that realization, he formed a question: "How can you hate me if you don't even know me?"
It's that question that drove Davis to begin researching the Klan and other hate groups when he was in high school. And it's that question that led him to become friends with his first Klan member in a bar when he was 25.
It was 1983, and Davis was playing the piano with a country band at the Silver Dollar Lounge in Frederick, Maryland. He was the only black musician in the band and the only black person in the bar.
After the band finished its set, a white man approached Davis. He told him it was the first time he had heard a black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis.
Amused, Davis told the man that he knew Lewis and that Lewis was influenced by black blues musicians.
The man didn't believe Davis on either count at first, but he did buy him a cranberry juice - Davis doesn't drink alcohol. He then confessed that Davis was the first black man with whom he had shared a drink.
"I asked him why," remembered Davis. "I wasn't trying to be facetious or anything - I just didn't understand."
That's when the man, with prompting from his friend, told Davis he was in the KKK.
"I was still naive, so I just laughed at first," Davis said. "I didn't believe him until he showed me his Klan card."
But, after bonding over their shared taste in music, the man asked Davis to let him know the next time he played at the bar. And so he did, and Davis' first unlikely friendship was formed.
The man, as Davis tells it, eventually left the Klan because of the friendship he'd formed with Davis.
"Klansmen and Klanswomen aren't cut from the same cloth," he said. "They have different stories, though they have the same underlying theme where they feel like they've been marginalized by people who are inferior to them."
Davis, who wrote a book in 1998 called "Klan-destine Relationships: A Black Man's Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan," was featured in stories on CNN and in the The Washington Post in the 1990s.
In 1996, KKK Imperial Wizard Roger Kelly expressed his respect for Davis even while speaking at a Klan rally in Clairmont, Maryland, according to CNN.
"I would follow that man to hell and back because I believe in what he stands for," Kelly said at the time about Davis. "We don't agree on everything, but at least he respects me to sit down and listen and I respect him."
Three years later, Kelly quit the Klan and gave Davis his robe.
Shepherd, the former Klansman from Mississippi, said he joined the Klan when he was 17 to find a community after a difficult childhood with his abusive father.
For years, he said, he secluded himself, ashamed of his past. Then he saw Davis in a segment on Discovery Channel and reached out.
"He offered his hand and opened it," he said. "He was willing to be there for me, and so I started to see that the problem wasn't color. The problem I had was myself."
Now, Shepherd, too, is on a mission to educate Klan members, especially young people, and persuade them to renounce their membership.
"I think I'm getting close with two," he said.
Daryl Davis stands with the robe of a former KKK member in his home in Silver Spring, Maryland. (Rachel Chason, The Washington Post)
This black musician befriends white supremacists | World | News | Toronto Sun
Rachel Chason, The Washington Post
First posted: Wednesday, August 30, 2017 02:38 PM EDT | Updated: Wednesday, August 30, 2017 02:55 PM EDT
Scott Shepherd is a former grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. Daryl Davis is a black R&B and blues musician who has been befriending white supremacists for 30 years, trying to convert them.
When Shepherd first heard about Davis five years ago, he was dumbfounded.
"I thought he was nuts," said Shepherd, 58, of South Haven, Mississippi. "I told him he was a total crackpot."
But over the course of dozens of phone calls, several visits and countless conversations about music, the two became friends - so much so that Shepherd now proudly calls himself a "reformed racist" and says Davis is a brother to him.
Davis, 59, has met and befriended many Klan members over the years, connecting over subjects such as family and music. Davis, an R&B musician who played the piano for Chuck Berry, also uses a combination of logic and history to try to persuade them to reconsider their racist beliefs.
Between 40 and 50 Klan members, he claims, have renounced their membership because of his intervention, and many have handed over their robes, which he keeps in his home in Silver Spring, Maryland.
One day, he said, he hopes to open a museum.
Davis, who was featured in a PBS documentary released in February that screened at South by Southwest last year, has gained a measure of fame over the past 30 years for his seemingly far-fetched mission. Following the violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Aug. 12, The Washington Post asked Davis whether his mission or optimistic outlook had changed.
His resounding answer: No.
"I don't think my job has gotten any harder. They are human beings," he said, speaking about the white supremacists he has met over the years. "Many are good, hard-working people with a skewed perception of life and reality."
Davis said President Donald Trump - who was widely criticized for equivocating before eventually denouncing white supremacists - can't be blamed for the deadly violence in Virginia.
"He fans a lot of flames the wrong way," Davis said. "But the racist culture that allowed Charlottesville to happen was in place long before Trump ran for president."
The silver lining of tragic events like Charlottesville, Davis said, is that they foster conversations about race that he feels are crucial to ending racism.
"Talking about race in this country has been taboo for way too long," Davis said.
Davis faces a lot of skepticism.
Mark Potok, an expert on extremism formerly with the Southern Poverty Law Center, said in the PBS documentary that Davis' strategy may or may not end up working in the long run. But he said, "We can't wait around. ... There is a larger poison at work here."
Davis' approach, which takes him to Klan rallies and members' homes across the country, has also made him distinctly unpopular among some black activists, who suggest his time would be better spent engaging in the communities affected by racism as opposed to befriending those who perpetuate it.
Kwame Rose, a prominent activist in Baltimore, told The Washington Post that when Davis makes friends with avowed racists, he validates their racism.
"What happened in Charlottesville is why we don't need people collecting KKK robes," Rose said. "We do not need to give anyone ammunition to celebrate their racist past."
During a heated exchange in the PBS documentary, called "Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America," Rose told Davis, "Stop wasting your time going into people's houses that don't love you."
Davis fired back: "So you believe no one can change?"
"No," Rose retorted. "I believe you believe the wrong people can change."
Rose, who led protests following the death of Freddie Gray and is featured in a new HBO documentary, "Baltimore Rising," said Davis is "uneducated about the reality of most of the people who look like" him.
Davis readily acknowledges that his upbringing - his father was in the Foreign Service so he spent much of his childhood abroad - gives him a perspective that is different from that of many African-Americans his age.
When most schools in America were largely black or largely white, Davis was attending international schools that he remembers looking like "a little Model United Nations."
He said he was a fourth-grader in a Boston suburb when he first encountered racism.
It was 1968, and he was one of two black students in his elementary school in Belmont, Massachusetts. He had joined the Cub Scouts and was marching in a parade from Lexington to Concord when a group that had gathered on the side of the road began pelting rocks and soda cans at him. He remembered he was carrying an American flag.
Davis said he was "so naive" at the time that he didn't realize he - the only black Cub Scout in the parade - was being targeted until his friends, troop leaders and grandmother formed a protective ring around him.
"The race thing didn't even occur to me," Davis said.
As his parents tended to his bruises and scrapes at home, they told Davis what racism meant. At first, he didn't accept the notion that such hatred could be generated by "something as stupid as the color of skin."
But when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated that spring, he came around to his parents' point of view.
With that realization, he formed a question: "How can you hate me if you don't even know me?"
It's that question that drove Davis to begin researching the Klan and other hate groups when he was in high school. And it's that question that led him to become friends with his first Klan member in a bar when he was 25.
It was 1983, and Davis was playing the piano with a country band at the Silver Dollar Lounge in Frederick, Maryland. He was the only black musician in the band and the only black person in the bar.
After the band finished its set, a white man approached Davis. He told him it was the first time he had heard a black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis.
Amused, Davis told the man that he knew Lewis and that Lewis was influenced by black blues musicians.
The man didn't believe Davis on either count at first, but he did buy him a cranberry juice - Davis doesn't drink alcohol. He then confessed that Davis was the first black man with whom he had shared a drink.
"I asked him why," remembered Davis. "I wasn't trying to be facetious or anything - I just didn't understand."
That's when the man, with prompting from his friend, told Davis he was in the KKK.
"I was still naive, so I just laughed at first," Davis said. "I didn't believe him until he showed me his Klan card."
But, after bonding over their shared taste in music, the man asked Davis to let him know the next time he played at the bar. And so he did, and Davis' first unlikely friendship was formed.
The man, as Davis tells it, eventually left the Klan because of the friendship he'd formed with Davis.
"Klansmen and Klanswomen aren't cut from the same cloth," he said. "They have different stories, though they have the same underlying theme where they feel like they've been marginalized by people who are inferior to them."
Davis, who wrote a book in 1998 called "Klan-destine Relationships: A Black Man's Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan," was featured in stories on CNN and in the The Washington Post in the 1990s.
In 1996, KKK Imperial Wizard Roger Kelly expressed his respect for Davis even while speaking at a Klan rally in Clairmont, Maryland, according to CNN.
"I would follow that man to hell and back because I believe in what he stands for," Kelly said at the time about Davis. "We don't agree on everything, but at least he respects me to sit down and listen and I respect him."
Three years later, Kelly quit the Klan and gave Davis his robe.
Shepherd, the former Klansman from Mississippi, said he joined the Klan when he was 17 to find a community after a difficult childhood with his abusive father.
For years, he said, he secluded himself, ashamed of his past. Then he saw Davis in a segment on Discovery Channel and reached out.
"He offered his hand and opened it," he said. "He was willing to be there for me, and so I started to see that the problem wasn't color. The problem I had was myself."
Now, Shepherd, too, is on a mission to educate Klan members, especially young people, and persuade them to renounce their membership.
"I think I'm getting close with two," he said.
Daryl Davis stands with the robe of a former KKK member in his home in Silver Spring, Maryland. (Rachel Chason, The Washington Post)
This black musician befriends white supremacists | World | News | Toronto Sun
Because we canucks are an obedient group, our pm sez our strength lies in diversity so we embrace everybody and everything, we don't buy into fake news, fake statues or history books that depict anything uncivilized.
It's sorta like printing fiat currency, mask soaring debt by papering it over, ignorance is bliss....sunny ways!