American slavery: Hypocrisy and the confederate flag

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Written By William Kaliher

The flow of politically correct human history over the past forty years makes one laugh at the currently popular media view of American slavery and the Confederate flag. Not a single anti-flag commentator can factually support their position on either issue, and many are hypocritical on the issues. They distort history and understanding with their propaganda. Worse yet, in their ignorance the media harms and smears people’s ancestry by their ill conceived beliefs more than anything their ancestors did whether slave or master.

The first thing to do is obtain an accurate view of slavery. It is popular for some blacks to say, “I am owed restitution for my ancestors having been slaves,” and it is common for some blacks to be ashamed of their heritage concerning slavery. White liberal idealists foster this misunderstanding and sense of shame by subliminally saying, “The conditions had to be horrible and why didn’t you revolt;” providing a burden no one should have to carry regarding their ancestry; and especially when the burden is false, unwarranted and based entirely on a wanna-be history. The fact is, slavery was legal everywhere well into the seventeen hundreds, if not the eighteen hundreds.

Tomorrow, look at everyone you see, watch all the people you see on television. All of them had ancestors, regardless of their color who were slaves in recent centuries; all of them also probably had ancestors who were masters in recent centuries; again regardless of their color. A white person can ask, “Where do I get in line to collect from the descendants of people who owned my ancestors?” Do Italians owe Northern Europeans because their ancestors died on Roman galleys?

We must look at “black” American slavery accurately. Let’s get rid of the fallacies and look at it in it’s ugliness but with honesty. The slave traders were called slave traders because that is what they did. They went to Africa and traded among black kingdoms for slaves. They did not go to Africa and carry out raids to capture slaves, not because they were too nice to do such a thing, but because it was not economically feasible. If they carried both sailors on their small ships and an army of raiders to capture slaves, there would have been little room to transport their human cargo. To have done that would have made the cost of each slave prohibitive. The white traders had to deal with black slave owners to obtain the slaves transported, meaning– if one is gullible enough to feel guilty concerning their ancestors actions– there is enough guilt to go around for all races concerning slavery.

Economics also played another role in keeping the slave trade going. The African fit perfectly with the climate of the south. Had it been a glacial region during that period you can be certain another color, or race would have been chosen and Eskimos imported. Remember, slavery disappeared from the northern United States, as well as, other areas of the world because of cost, not because of the goodness of anyone’s heart.

Slavery is practiced today in several African and Asian countries because of economics, and will stop when the cost of slavery becomes prohibitive. Then those former slave holders, like self-righteous abolitionists, can react from their super guilt trips and frown on the institution with a properly scowled brow. Slavery in all forms was (considered) right in past centuries and race was not a factor. Ability and economics were the criteria.

The hypocrisy is overwhelming when listening to some blacks discuss slavery in the United States. It is reasonable for blacks to join the Moslem religion if those same converts don’t whine about slavery. The Moslems raided overland and captured and brought black slaves out of Africa. They did not buy black slaves from black owners but actually raided for slaves. Increasing the hypocritical position of many on this issue is the fact slave trading from these countries continued into this half century, with proven cases today in the Sudan and as late as 1957 in Saudi Arabia. (1992 if you consider the purchase of a Pakistani girl-child for a bride as slavery) So, if you are black and convert to Islam, please don’t complain about your ancestors being slaves. The hypocrisy or ignorance is too much to bear.

Next, we come to the American South and find many oddities concerning this form of slavery. In all of world history, over all time there was slavery, but all slave groups, except one, declined and died out. Nowhere did the slave population expand except in the American South. It is a unique situation among all slave societies. The answer to that enigma was the most benign form of slavery ever designed. Surely, horrible laws bound innocent people, but the reality could range from the most brutal forms of a master, to caring love. An area where slaves were allowed fire arms, where laws had to be passed to prevent slaves from dueling, and slaves actually appearing in court. Insane yes, but overall, benign and in that very benignity, the worst of all slave societies. The slave society that grew and expanded, the one that made slaves so valuable, Irishmen had to be hired to do dangerous work. It was a society where slaves virtually never revolted. It was a slave society where the owners knew slavery was wrong. It was a society that didn’t treat slaves as a disposable unit such as electricity but as a valuable and irreplaceable resource. This was the slavery of the American South.

I can’t explain the paradoxes of that slavery from 135 years distance. If I were there I would be confused, but I know its’ strength was also its’ greatest evil; its’ benignity. If it were not benign there would have been constant revolts and chains would have been common. There would have either quickly been no masters or no slaves. The Romans put 10,000 slaves to death in a single day for a revolt and the Romans suffered thousands of dangerous slave revolts. In two hundred years of American slavery there were few revolts and no where near 10,000 slaves were killed for revolts. The figure appears to have been less than a hundred. If a Roman slave killed a master on their form of a plantation every slave was killed. Such abuse did not occur in the American South.

Now the hard part is putting yourself back in time. You’re a black slave in the South. Your population is almost as large as the free population. You lack most rights but for the most part are treated well and eat well. You grow up knowing the rules, you know the white people around you, you know your masters and have great loyalty to them and they to you. Possibly you sense slavery is bad but it’s the only existence you know. If you’re the master and you know slavery’s bad you have a problem. How do you get out of it without destroying your wealth? Many people today consider pollution by automobiles and machinery harmful but for economic reasons do nothing and continue harming the planet by using oil. They are economically caught and dependent as was even the most enlightened slave holder. Ask yourself how Vice President Gore can think pollution from oil use is threatening the existence of the planet and still ride in automobiles and air planes. His actions, or non-actions, explain why a slave owner would not change despite knowing slavery was wrong. Even a Robert E. Lee who freed his slaves, later inherited other slaves. They couldn’t be freed until he figured out how they would live once they were liberated. Two peoples trapped in an economic condition. Cruelty, to be sure here and there, but not enough to force change, as slave owners on the border of free states didn’t have to build fences or put chains on their slaves to keep them from walking fifty yards to freedom. Today we would revolt because we know better, but who would, had they been born to that society in 1830 regardless of their color? How could a slave think his treatment bad when free white men suffered the same punishments? A reading of “Two Years Before the Mast” will provide details of an 1840’s whipping of a white freeman and keel hauling.

Now, we come to the final black and liberal hypocrisy over the Confederate flag. The most insulting thing possible about slavery is for a black politician to rant and rave over the Confederate flag. Did the guy’s parents get off the boat this century? Were his forefather’s hands free of the slave trade? Is he directly from Africa and his ancestors were never slaves here or there? Why doesn’t he mind insulting every black person in America? The facts are:

A. the flag of the United States flew over slave states,

B. slavery was legal in every state of the United States in the 1800’s,

C. Connecticut outlawed slavery in 1858,

D. Lincoln stated the war was over preserving the Union, not ending slavery, E. Lincoln did not end slavery until well into the war,

F. the only reason he issued the Emancipation Proclamation was to stir a slave revolt to collapse the south.

The slave had a choice during the civil war. The slave could work and produce and allow Southern armies to fight or the slave could quit producing and collapse the South economically. Secondly, the slave could revolt and collapse the war effort overnight. The majority and best trained Southern troops were on or near the front. No soldier could stay at the front and allow women, children and old people to face a revolt. Right or wrong by today’s standards the Southern Slave by consensus decided to stand for and with the Confederate Flag, to support the South, to allow the South to divide the union. There is no other interpretation. For a black today to attack the Confederate flag, is to attack his ancestors in a way far more insulting than the KKK does with it’s misuse of the American flag, Confederate flag, Jesus Christ or any other symbol. Nothing compares with the self inflicted insult many blacks, with liberal help, inflict on their ancestors.

The sad truth is cowardly liberals (forgive the oxymoron) who hate themselves and the United States, despise the American flag and use the Confederate flag, past injustices, and a few black political leeches to promote hate and distort history. The easiest way to take the Confederate flag from the hands of the Ku Klux Klan and other race haters is for black America to actually look at their family history and see how many of their ancestors were named for Robert E. Lee and other confederate heros during the first ninety years after the war. That would accurately reflect what slaves, and their first descendents thought of the Confederacy and the Confederate flag. If they understood the truth they would know the Confederate flag represents them and belongs as strongly to them as it does to any white Southerner. It won’t take false history or trying to dishonor honorable men to correct the flag situation. All American blacks have to do is wave that flag, their flag, proudly to remove it from the hands of the Klan.

When the NAACP leadership quits making money through hate, and when the media stops publishing propaganda and presents factual material black Americans can rediscover their history. Then and only then should a white Southerner lower the Confederate flag and a black Southerner should then raise it up that same flag pole, not in honor of their white and black ancestors splitting the union but of their ancestors having united to fight what they commonly saw as a foreign influence.

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