Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions!

[izzybeans]

whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is American slavery. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Standing there identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America.is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery Ñ the great sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate; I will not excuse"; I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.

-end snip

more anti-american drivel? And I bet he even gyrated his hips when he said it. perhaps even saying "Excuse me while I whip this out." How dare he?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2927t.html

[ebdarcy]

1. Thanks for posting this.

It was nice to see David Gergen reference this last night on CNN. I first read this speech a few years ago in a freshman composition course. It's one of the most powerful things I've ever read. I think it should be required reading.

[izzybeans]

2. I agree.

I first read it in high school. I'm glad it came up last night. It's one of the more important speeches in our history.

[rucky]

3. I don't remember that part from Blazing Saddles.

[izzybeans]

4. I never thought I'd believe Blazing Saddles

could be true-to-life.

[suston96]

5. Question. What would have happened if there been no slavery in the US?

No slave trade. No slave ships. Just regular immigration.

[izzybeans]

6. Interesting counterfactual question

There is no way to really answer it.

Though it's fairly safe to speculate that the productivity of the slave economy would of been non existent. The colonists were widely known to be lazy nobles who never worked a day in their life.

[suston96]

7. Counterfactual? All theoreticals are "counterfactual". Give it a try.

There are some 40 million blacks in this country, many, and maybe mostly descendants of those slaves. What would that demographic be if there was no slave trade, no slavery in the United States?

[izzybeans]

8. Counterfactual reasoning is a style of causal explanation

where one must, in order to argue that X is the cause of Y, create a plausible argument must be made that says that in the absence of X then Y would have turned out different. Since the absence of X will not be factual, because we know X is a historical fact, the style of reasoning is counterfactual.


Theories aren't counterfactual, technically. Some must use counterfactual reasoning to justify themselves.

We know what the demographics would look like. Imagine if there was no European colonialism what that world would look like.

I'm not sure what the point is. There is no going back on what happened.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[izzybeans]

10. Wow that's pretty fucked up.

You can't possible believe that shit. Try reading some history that includes the slave experience.

Opportunity. That's pretty fucking sickening what you just said. Worse than anything I've ever seen on this site.

Why don't read the words in the speech above. You might learn something.

[suston96]

14. "Believe" something that is "counterfactual"? It's a theoretical. Argue it. Don't ridicule it.

I watched something on the History Channel, or Discover....."What would happen if humans disappeared". Pretty fucking ridiculous and "contrafactual", eh?

But an interesting "contrafact" that showed the deterioration of eveything humans had done on the planet and how long it would take for human traces to disappear. All gone after thousands of years, except maybe for Hoover Dam.

[izzybeans]

16. .

Sure if you start from facts, you get a horribly brutal nation of lazy white people who made fortunes off of forced labor, mostly because they couldn't get their manicured hands dirty. This country would of had no opportunities if it wasn't built by slaves and indentured servants. So take away the slaves, you are left with incompetent bigots who couldn't sow a seed if their life depended on it. Africa would probably be a much more thriving continent.

You expect them to be thankful. Don't ridicule it. I've never heard something more out of touch with history than what you said.

You might want to reconsider your definition of theory.

[ebdarcy]

15. You have some fucking nerve. That's disgusting.

So, you're basically saying that slavery was beneficial? I can't believe you actually compared immigration with the slave trade. Have you ever studied history. And what do you know about "opportunity that would never have existed for millions of blacks in Africa". How the fuck do you know what Africa would like if colonialism had never happened. Your post is extremely ignorant and disgusting.

And, certainly you must have agreed with Barbara Bush's quote about the Katrina refugees. Let me remind you of it. "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them." Because you just said the same fucking thing.

[suston96]

17. Slavery was beneficial? I am basically asking a simple "what if" - what if there was no slavery?

[tishaLA]

20. Yes, slavery created opportunity

As Thoreau and Emerson wrote, it made the entire nation complicit in the process of dehumanization. It meant that people in Boston and Concord were as culpable as those in Mississippi and Georgia for destroying human life, because those in Boston and Concord lived off the economic benefits of whipping, rape, and treating others as chattel.

This is a far different experience, you will admit, from your father's emigration, which he did freely, in his search for opportunity. The fact that some African Americans have succeeded is based less on an "opportunity" afforded them under slavery than on their own drive and intellect. They could have used that drive and intellect, i hope you realize, in a country that hadn't turned them, as a race, into property.

[NMMNG]

21. OMFG, no you didn't

Don't you belong over on some RW revisionist board? That's one of the most fucked up things I've ever read. How do you spin the Holocaust? Never mind, I don't want to know.

[superduperfarleft]

23. Kick for one of the most disgusting comments I've ever seen on DU. n/t

[NOLALady]

24. America would probably be equivalent to a third world country.

This country was built on free labor.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

11. Why does Frederick Douglas hate America?

/s

[Not the Only One]

22. Zombie Frederick Douglass '08

I'd vote for that angry black man.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

12. Funny. I See No Mention In There Of Blaming Us For 9/11 Or Purposely Infecting Blacks With Aids.

See, some of you want to turn this into a black church thing and as if the passionate preaching itself is what is at issue. That's why you just posted what you did, as this totally false comparison trying to minimize the situation as if Wright's words were honorable and comparable to that which you put above. But that's just disingenuous and wildly ignorant in concept. What is at issue here, are the revolting statements that Wright said, in THIS current day and time, that stand on their own merit as disgusting regardless of color. So stop the disingenuous bullshit. This isn't about motivational black leaders. This is about someone saying the white man purposely infected blacks with aids and that we are responsible for 9/11. And yeah, I'd say I can understand why such things would piss a lot of people off.

[izzybeans]

13. Why don't you get the quotes right?

and move on.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

18. Funny. I Don't See Any Quotes.

Your OP is disingenuous in intent, and it's quite obvious that your comparison is bunk.

[izzybeans]

19. My comparison is to how the message is received.

Quite literally the same.

You can cherrypick a few quotes all you like, but you disrespect an entire progressive church when you do so. And I might add, you disrespect a large % of Chicago southsiders who have to deal with real racism on a daily basis, not some boohoo story about words a preacher said.

You might look above and see what type of person is pushing this b.s. smear.