4 ms·

This is certainly not true! Many, many people from more than a century ago opposed racism and bigotry. It's just that many powerful people in recent years suppo

by geofft 5y ago

This is certainly not true! Many, many people from more than a century ago opposed racism and bigotry. It's just that many powerful people in recent years supported it and want you to believe that racism and bigotry was (and still is) a normal and defensible thing. Most obviously - there were a lot of people from non-dominant races (in various times and places) in history! We have writings from Olaudah Equiano, for instance, that confirm that he did not believe in the common racism and bigotry of his time, and there were many thousands like him that didn't write anything down either. But even among the races benefiting from racism, we have writings of people opposing it, too. Here, for instance, are excerpts from journal entries of Bp. Thomas Coke, one of the founders of Methodism in the US, written in 1785: > At night I lodged at the house of Captain Dillard, a most hospitable man, and as kind to his negroes as if they were white servants. It was quite pleasing to see them so decently and comfortably clothed. And yet I could not beat into the head of that poor man the evil of keeping them in slavery, although he has read Mr. Wesley's thoughts on slavery, (I think he said) three times over, : but his good wife is strongly on our side.) > I preached the late Colonel Bedford's funeral sermon. But I said nothing good of him, for he was a violent friend of slavery, and his interest being great among the Methodists in these parts, he would have been a dreadful thorn in our sides, if the Lord had not in mercy taken him away. And here is Gouverneur Morris, one of the Founding Father, debating in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention the merits of the Three-Fifths Compromise, as recorded in James Madison's notes: > Upon what principle is it that the slaves shall be computed in the representation? Are they men? Then make them Citizens and let them vote. Are they property? Why then is no other property included? [...] The admission of slaves into the Representation when fairly explained comes to this: that the inhabitant of Georgia and S. C. who goes to the Coast of Africa, and in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity tears away his fellow creatures from their dearest connections & damns them to the most cruel bondages, shall have more votes in a Govt. instituted for protection of the rights of mankind, than the Citizen of Pa. or N. Jersey who views with a laudable horror, so nefarious a practice. What you see in these writings is a belief that there is no moral distinction to be made between white and black, that slavery is in fact an outrage, and no defense of it can be made based on race. What you see, simply, is opposition to racism. This is what some successful and powerful and praiseworthy people - bishops and founding fathers - believed in the 1700s. You don't know this, of course, because the people who make statues and stained glass windows aren't excited about sharing that history.

kurthr 5y ago
Thank you for quoting these. I don't really like a quest for ideological purity, but this shows that both times and people have ideological nuance.
Veen 5y ago
What do the people you have quoted think about gender equality, gay rights, and trans issues? I was careful to say very few people were not bigots by modern standards, not that no one opposed racism and slavery. > You don't know this, of course, because the people who make statues and stained glass windows aren't excited about sharing that history. I mostly don’t know about these people because I’m not American and have very little interest in American history.
- bilirubin 5y ago
  "my ignorance is a feature not a bug"
- geofft 5y ago
  I don't know what their views are on those matters - I don't think there's a lot of documentary evidence. (I also picked those two people because I'm American and I grew up Methodist and I happened to have read about both of them recently; my point is very much that it wasn't only these two people who were the only non-bigots of the 1700s, and I'm sure we can find similar stories from whatever segment of history you're interested in, too.) I also think the question here isn't really about bigots by modern standards. Bp. Coke makes it clear that Col. Bedford was a terrible man by the standards of the time, so much so that he didn't say a single positive thing about him at his funeral and he was quite glad that God had killed him off. Morris thinks the slavers of his era were working "in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity" and the slaveholders of the south were putting people in "the most cruel bondages". Ronald Fisher died in 1962. He was a contemporary of such people as MLK and Rosa Parks, just as much as he was a contemporary of Josef Mengele. He was one of many participated in the drafting of the 1950 UNESCO statement on "The Race Question," and out of those, he was one of very few who insisted on the reasonableness of dividing up the human population by race, both in terms of biological nature and in terms of moral worth. The article is not asking about modern standards of bigotry; his colleagues in 1950 would have called him a bigot. Nobody is trying to cancel Herod for not being a fan of neopronouns. There were enough reasons for Herod's own contemporaries to call him evil. That said, since you mention trans issues - you might be interested in the story of the Public Universal Friend (1752-1819), who among other things insisted on being referred to in a gender-neutral manner and generally had that wish honored. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Universal_Friend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Universal_Friend I think people were much less concerned about this sort of thing in the past when they were not told to be concerned about it. See also the 1952 New York Daily News headline, "Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty," subtitled "Bronx Youth Is a Happy Woman After 2 Years, 6 Operations." https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bronx-army-vet-ground-breaking-sex-change-1952-article-1.2198836 https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bronx-army-vet-ground-b... (see the original headline at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/25375703/ex-gi-becomes-blonde-beauty/ https://www.newspapers.com/clip/25375703/ex-gi-becomes-blond...) The article straightforwardly refers to her as "she" and a "new woman" and says the conversion was "successfully completed," noting also that her military and immigration records were changed. To be abundantly clear, I am sure that Christine Jorgensen would have been much happier to have been alive today and going through transition today instead of seventy years ago - but I also think the anti-trans bigotry that we see today from certain corners is not the remnant of a universal worldview of seventy years ago. Some fraction of people were bigots in the past, as they are today; many people weren't and aren't. (Of course, also, part of this is that scientific studies of gay rights and trans issues at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft were burned by the same folks that Fisher decided to defend in 1950.)

by geofft 5y ago

kurthr 5y ago

Thank you for quoting these. I don't really like a quest for ideological purity, but this shows that both times and people have ideological nuance.

Veen 5y ago

What do the people you have quoted think about gender equality, gay rights, and trans issues? I was careful to say very few people were not bigots by modern standards, not that no one opposed racism and slavery. > You don't know this, of course, because the people who make statues and stained glass windows aren't excited about sharing that history. I mostly don’t know about these people because I’m not American and have very little interest in American history.

bilirubin 5y ago
"my ignorance is a feature not a bug"
geofft 5y ago
I don't know what their views are on those matters - I don't think there's a lot of documentary evidence. (I also picked those two people because I'm American and I grew up Methodist and I happened to have read about both of them recently; my point is very much that it wasn't only these two people who were the only non-bigots of the 1700s, and I'm sure we can find similar stories from whatever segment of history you're interested in, too.) I also think the question here isn't really about bigots by modern standards. Bp. Coke makes it clear that Col. Bedford was a terrible man by the standards of the time, so much so that he didn't say a single positive thing about him at his funeral and he was quite glad that God had killed him off. Morris thinks the slavers of his era were working "in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity" and the slaveholders of the south were putting people in "the most cruel bondages". Ronald Fisher died in 1962. He was a contemporary of such people as MLK and Rosa Parks, just as much as he was a contemporary of Josef Mengele. He was one of many participated in the drafting of the 1950 UNESCO statement on "The Race Question," and out of those, he was one of very few who insisted on the reasonableness of dividing up the human population by race, both in terms of biological nature and in terms of moral worth. The article is not asking about modern standards of bigotry; his colleagues in 1950 would have called him a bigot. Nobody is trying to cancel Herod for not being a fan of neopronouns. There were enough reasons for Herod's own contemporaries to call him evil. That said, since you mention trans issues - you might be interested in the story of the Public Universal Friend (1752-1819), who among other things insisted on being referred to in a gender-neutral manner and generally had that wish honored. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Universal_Friend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Universal_Friend I think people were much less concerned about this sort of thing in the past when they were not told to be concerned about it. See also the 1952 New York Daily News headline, "Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty," subtitled "Bronx Youth Is a Happy Woman After 2 Years, 6 Operations." https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bronx-army-vet-ground-breaking-sex-change-1952-article-1.2198836 https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bronx-army-vet-ground-b... (see the original headline at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/25375703/ex-gi-becomes-blonde-beauty/ https://www.newspapers.com/clip/25375703/ex-gi-becomes-blond...) The article straightforwardly refers to her as "she" and a "new woman" and says the conversion was "successfully completed," noting also that her military and immigration records were changed. To be abundantly clear, I am sure that Christine Jorgensen would have been much happier to have been alive today and going through transition today instead of seventy years ago - but I also think the anti-trans bigotry that we see today from certain corners is not the remnant of a universal worldview of seventy years ago. Some fraction of people were bigots in the past, as they are today; many people weren't and aren't. (Of course, also, part of this is that scientific studies of gay rights and trans issues at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft were burned by the same folks that Fisher decided to defend in 1950.)