But what about Abraham Lincoln's legacy?
With statues of slaveholders and obvious racists being toppled all over the world, can we talk about this man who is still credited with freeing all the slaves in the U.S., but was ultimately a champion of white supremacy and the man who ordered the largest mass execution of Indigenous people in the U.S. history?
Also: Indigenous people are also frequent victims of police brutality. With the BLM protests finally bringing awareness to many white people that racism is still a thing, should the movement be expanded to include justice for non-white people who aren't black, or will that be taking more things away from black people? Are we still standing in solidarity if we move in parallel for our own personal causes?
funeralxempire
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BLM recognizes this and has been pretty consistent in their support for indigenous concerns. Have you seen anything from them to suggest otherwise?
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I was ashamed of myself when I realised life was a costume party and I attended with my real face
"Many of us like to ask ourselves, What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?' The answer is, you're doing it. Right now." —Former U.S. Airman (Air Force) Aaron Bushnell
First, google "Steamboat Sultana".
Sultana was a Mississippi River side-wheel steamboat, which exploded on April 27, 1865, in the worst inland maritime disaster in United States history.
Constructed of wood in 1863 by the John Litherbury Boatyard in Cincinnati, she was intended for the lower Mississippi cotton trade. The steamer registered 1,719 tons and normally carried a crew of 85. For two years, she ran a regular route between St. Louis and New Orleans, and was frequently commissioned to carry troops.
Although designed with a capacity of only 376 passengers, she was carrying 2,137 when three of the boat's four boilers exploded and she burned to the waterline and sank near Memphis, Tennessee. The disaster was overshadowed in the press by events surrounding the end of the American Civil War, including the killing of President Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth just the day before, and no one was ever held accountable for the tragedy.
An episode of History Detectives that aired on July 2, 2014 reviewed the known evidence, and then focused on the question of why the steamboat was allowed to be crowded to several times its normal capacity before departure. The report blamed quartermaster Hatch, an individual with a long history of corruption and incompetence, who was able to keep his job due to political connections: he was the younger brother of Illinois politician Ozias M. Hatch, an advisor and close friend of President Lincoln. Throughout the war, Reuben Hatch had shown incompetence as a quartermaster and competence as a thief, bilking the government out of thousands of dollars. Although brought up on courts-martial charges, Hatch managed to get letters of recommendation from such noted authorities as President Abraham Lincoln and General of the Army Ulysses S. Grant. The letters reside in the National Archives in Washington DC. After the disaster, Hatch refused three separate subpoenas to appear before Sultana Captain Speed's trial and give testimony. Hatch died in 1871, having escaped justice due to his numerous highly placed patrons -- including two presidents.
Yes, the "Great Emancipator" is very likely guilty of complicit action in the deaths of over a thousand wounded and disabled American veterans in the worst inland maritime disaster in United States history.
As a side note, both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, and Theodore Roosevelt was a notorious racist. With Lincoln's complicity in the Sultana murders, I would not shed a single tear if the Mount Rushmore National Memorial was to suddenly be demolished.
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Also: Indigenous people are also frequent victims of police brutality. With the BLM protests finally bringing awareness to many white people that racism is still a thing, should the movement be expanded to include justice for non-white people who aren't black, or will that be taking more things away from black people? Are we still standing in solidarity if we move in parallel for our own personal causes?
What it does is to reaffirm Lincoln's legacy.
The Army was set to execute over 300 Sioux warriors after crushing the Minnesota uprising of 1862. Lincoln commuted the executions of 265, and allowed the Army to only hang 38. And he took an interest and thwarted the military's revenge while he had the bigger "uprising" of one forth of the White population of the Nation seceding from the Union to worry about. Saving the lives of 265 Indians from the vengeful Army, is reason enough to put Lincoln's face on Mt. Rushmore.
Lincoln is "credited" with freeing the slaves because he DID free the slaves.
Since John Wilkes Boothe killed him in 1865 Lincoln was no longer around to manage the postwar reconstruction. So the ultimate failure of the Reconstruction, and the descent of the South into Jim Crow was hardly Lincoln's fault.
ASPartOfMe
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Lincoln was a politician.
Politicians, in order to get things done, have to make deals with bad people. These deals even to get the best of things often involves being unfair and even killing people.
Besides making deals with other politicians they have to make deals with voters who don't want change in order to get reelected. No slaves would have been freed if the Union was not preserved. In order to preserve the Union, he had keep the far from united north in line. There were Copperheads, business people pissed off their trade with the south was cut off, and just the plain war weary he had to deal with. These historical figures need to be judged in their entirety and their era and not just by purity tests based on 2020 woke thinking.
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“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
Lincoln's criminal legacy is not about anyone else being "Woke"; it's about historical facts coming to light.
Sure, he did a lot of good, but that does not make him a saint. To say otherwise would be like those Christian Fundamentalists saying that DJT is the greatest president in history because he's come out against abortion -- completely disregarding all of the treasonous activity he's been involved with and all the lies he's told.
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There is no doubt Lincoln was no saint and his emancipation was a political move intended to weaken the south and preserve a Union.There is no evidence Lincoln was any type of serious abolitionist.Lincoln is purported to have given speeches that included the N word and other slurs.
However from an existential point of view,he got important thing done and those acomplishments still have value because they changed lives even if Lincoln was not as tender hearted as history portrays him.
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ASPartOfMe
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Sure, he did a lot of good, but that does not make him a saint. To say otherwise would be like those Christian Fundamentalists saying that DJT is the greatest president in history because he's come out against abortion -- completely disregarding all of the treasonous activity he's been involved with and all the lies he's told.
There are no saints in history only humans.
There is the ”woke” version of Lincoln that judges him as a racist murderer that should be erased, there is the equally simplistic ”myth” version of Lincoln that I and probably you were taught in school ”Honest Abe” ”freed the slaves” and there was real Lincoln. This country is unable to go beyond these two extremes to our detriment.
With credit cards there is no need to use cash that idolizes these historical figures.
A lot of these facts have been known to historians, they did not come to light, we did not want to see them. Now a lot of people don’t want to see anything but the racism in historical people. Overcorrection.
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“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
I have no interest in promoting Lincoln's "erasure", but only in getting people to learn the full story about him. There is only one hero in all of history in whom I can find no fault, and he was executed by occupying forces at the urging of the religious right as the howling mobs looked on.
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CockneyRebel
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Another question is when will it end.
Example:Martin Luther King,he was known as being by today's standard attitudes on women,to have been very sexist.It wasn't recognized in his era but in our era MLK was very sexist.
Should we take down his statues for having the attitudes about women most men then had.
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All statues of specific historical people should be taken down, and more memorials to general classes of real heroes -- first responders and other essential workers, for example -- should be erected.
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There is a particularly poignant memorial to the nurses who served in Viet Nam. Here is an image of it:
No one hero's name appears on the plaque. There is only the wounded soldier, the woman comforting him, and the other woman searching the sky for the rescue chopper. Dwell on it. Think about the soldiers who fell and the women who tried to save them. If it brings no tear to your eye, then I would suspect that you also feel no compassion for the class of people and their heroism the memorial represents.
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FROM Professors Wiki:
"Matthew 18:21-35: Jesus' Parable of the Unmerciful Servant,
wherein Jesus compares the relationship between God and humankind
to that of a master and his slaves. Jesus offers the story of a master selling
a slave along with his wife and children.
Matthew 20:20-28: A series of remarks wherein Jesus recognizes it is
necessary to be a slave to be "first" among the deceased entering heaven.
Matthew 24:36-51: Jesus' Parable of the Faithful Servant, wherein Jesus
again compares the relationship between God and humankind to that of a master and his slaves."
-And Now me:
It's 'Time' For A Freer God;
What About Love And Not
Worshipping The Dead and Slavery
With Even A Desire to Cannibalize the Dead.
'Statues, Bibles', Words, And Other Idols Away From Essence of Love's Freedom NOW NAKED WITHOUT FEAR
Have Always Been A Problem In Limiting Human Potential to the Past of Ignorance in ALL THOSE IDOLS OF FORMS.
i am Not Afraid of 'Statues', Anymore than a 'Grain of Sand'; As indeed 'they' are Less than a 'Living Grain of Sand';
However, Art That Brings Life In Statues Over Suffering And Slavery is surely worth Seeing More Than Death Living.
The Story of Jesus And Muhammad Has Been Used to Keep Humans In Slavery for Centuries FOR REAL Justifying IT.
i don't need to take the Statues down to see; or Even Breathe Love For Real; Common Sense and Feel of Humanity
Dictates This Free without Any Limitation of Human Cultural Clothes, Including Still the Slavery of Religion
And Iconic Figures that Still Support That
Practice in the Literature/ART that exists.
If We aRe to be TOTALLY 'Politically Correct';
All The Bibles Should Be Burned now too For not
Condemning Slavery; Along with all Qurans too;
But What then; How To Control the Masses who
No Longer Find Meaning and Purpose and Social
Roles in These Imperfect Works of Human Arts that
only Represent the Human Condition; Shadow and Light.
Jesus is no more to be
Respected Per Stories of
Slavery than Imperfections
of Lincoln, Muhammad, Jefferson,
Washington; and ALL the Rest, Including US.
There is a Deeper way to Solve these issues
That has nothing to Do With Statues at all; What about Love;
What About Gardening Empathy, Sympathy, And Compassion for
All; Instead of Fearing the Differences Among US; Voila: Human Nature
Imperfect away From FEARLESS FREE LOVE FOR ALL WITHOUT HARM NOW;
Even the So-called
'Saintly' story of 'Jesus'
TaKinG Veneration then in
Slavery to so-call tell a story
of Love; Guess What, There is No Slavery in Love.
Yet, The Essence of the Bible And the Quran is still
Forcing Others to Love And Worship Statues of Words;
By Fear of Illusory Punishments in Sticks
And Same With Rewards of Carrots, Now.
Are We To Destroy All Words, Now For Real;
In A Word, No; But Understanding Brings
Greater Peace; For Without Both Freedom
And Understanding, There is No Love; Hiding
Shadows by Destroying The Truth of Human Shadows;
Is No Real Answer to the Overall Human Disease Away
from Love that is Real; Unafraid that desires to Harm
no other Part of Nature
not Required for Survival.
Meanwhile, The Snake
of God As Nature Will
Continue to Consume
Itself in this Way We All
Are Cannibals of Both Nature
And Us Same As Essence of Breathing Now.
It's True Even 'We' Will Do Better Than
Lincoln And Greater Works of Love Than
'Jesus'; Even John 14:12 States Clearly that
If Jesus is God; We Will Do Greater Works than God;
IN Other
Words,
Jesus
is Just
Another Slob
With God's Face;
No Different Than
Lincoln, Jefferson,
Washington, Muhammad, T. Roosevelt,
Buddha, Lao Tzu; and 'You' and Me too...
No doubt one day someone will do more
than me too... But i'm not waiting to find
out; as i am Breathing this Life Free without Fear (Love) NOW.
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