Reply #93: The stain of racism & slavery lingers on everyone, North and South

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I am white and from NC, grew up under segregation in the 1950's, and have tried to deal with my "inherited guilt" in several ways. First, in my personal and political actions to do what I can to end segregation, discrimination, poverty, hate, and bigotry; I can't change the past, but I can change my present and maybe the future. I helped integrate my school, worked for civil rights and human rights in various ways, but I have made less of a difference than I had hoped.

Second, I have tried to understand my family's part in all this, from when they first arrived up until today. Good, bad; slave owner, abolishionist, or both; some of almost everything you can think of, plus things I had not imagined and did not understand. The more I learned the less I knew, and the more questions I had. As a child I rejected the "states rights" and other Southern explanations for the Civil War because they were being used to defend segregation. By high school, I had realized that the textbook/Northern version was no better.

News is what is in newspapers. History is what is in history books.

And the winners get to write the history books, always good over evi.

Their cause was noble, their hands clean, their actions honorable. The losers were evil, their actions immoral, their cruelty an affront to all humanity, their defeat and destruction God's will.

Each of us needs to approach history with the same scrutiny DUers give to current events. DUers are great when collectively digging out the back stories, finding the connections among the players, the corruption, the motivations, following the money, moving past the talking.

The South can not get over the Civil War until the rest of you can.

Look at the posts in this thread. The taunting, blanket statements about groups and regions, pointing out how many posts someone has, abusive language, and slurs in this thread would not be tolerate at DU when directed at some other group.

As a small first step, search on the "DeWolf slave trade" which has yielded a book, movie, and a lot of discussion.