This post doesn’t live here anymore. It migrated to my other blog:
The Big No-No: An Outsider on American Fascism, where it resides under the title:
“The Reconstruction: Federal Army, Carpetbaggers, and Blacks in Office”
What Folks Have Been Reading
WHAT I HAVE BEEN READING
In the late 60s Richard Proenneke built his own cabin in the Alaskan wilderness with only a few simple tools. He spent most of the rest of his life there. Sam Keith fleshed out Proenneke's diary of his first 16 months, when he was making his home by a lake. I love these kinds of books!
An old Oji-Cree healer and her nephew canoe down a river in Canada, away from the world of white people. They both have to come to terms with their past. The woman has lost most of her tribe and the young man is traumatized from his recent experience in the Belgian trenches of World War One. My second book by Boyden. Can't say enough about him.
An incredibly comprehensive history of everything related to slavery in the Southern United States, from the beginning of the colonies to the end of the Civil War. Over 700 pages and I took over 30 pages of notes. I will be sharing over many posts to come!
Hamid's debut novel. I love this author. A young man in Lahore, Pakistan, is the victim of love, drugs, obsession, the class system and his complete lack of self-awareness.
A golem, created in Poland and brought to life on a ship to America, and a jinni who was trapped in a flask a thousand years ago and released in New York -- the most unusual immigrants you'll ever meet.
The only part of her life a Korean woman can control is her body, so she withdraws into it. Harrowing.
Autobiography lightly disguised as a novel about the son of Southern migrants growing up on the streets of Harlem, New York City, in the 1940s and 50s. Written like you're hearing the whole story in a bar. Quite a feat.
The story of a man struggling to make a living in Morocco. No plot, no clearly defined characters, but fascinating in its authenticity.
Pakistani man tells an American about his experience as a college student and employee of an assessment firm in America years ago. Smart, nuanced and pretty darn honest considering the unreliable narrator.
Wow! The answer to the inane platitudes about how all parents love their children and how children should always respect their parents. The protagonist must come to terms with his deeply flawed immigrant parents in order to change himself.
Seven short stories about life during the Kim Il-sung regime, by a writer who still lives and works in North Korea, were smuggled out of the country and translated. Mind-boggling stuff.
A 15-year-old autistic narrator wants to know who killed a neighbor's dog, and ends up much further out of his comfort zone than he planned. Wonderful read!
In politics, education, religion, agriculture, business--it turns out that dumbing down has been here from the start.
Fifty years of Istanbul seen through the eyes of a street vendor who migrates to the city as a young boy. It's also a window into the complicated dance between men and women in Turkey.
Hey, don't laugh, at least I'm trying.
A Norwegian immigrant is cooped up with six other people on a tiny island off the coast of Maine all winter in 1873. A woman in the present researching the Norwegian immigrant is cooped up with three other people on a tiny sailboat. What could possibly go wrong?
A man stuck between two worlds in more ways than one. Fascinating!
Historical novel about early contacts between first nations and the French in Canada. Beautifully written story that doesn't pull any punches. I bought his other two novels right away.
Beautifully written. By my children's favorite English and Creative Writing teacher! It's got rave reviews and we're all very proud of her.
Suki Kim is a Korean-American journalist. She poses as an evangelical Christian posing as an English teacher at a school for the sons of North Korea's elite. Her experience and the information she manages to get via writing assignments are incredible. Definitely a lot more eye-opening that any CNN special.
This. Explains. Everything!!!
Why has Islam not undergone a reformation like Christianity? Why is it so easy for Islamic extremist groups like IS to recruit young muslims? What would it take for Islam in fundamentalist Islamic countries to enter modernity? Does the West have a role to play?
Amazing! A man wanders endlessly through a dreamscape, becoming other people, himself in the past, everything is fluid. Kafkaesque disconnect between people and their different needs.
A multi-layered novel about the history of Libya. A fast read, but one you can repeat and find something new each time.
Twelve Americans go missing in Burma/Myanmar during a tour. Touching and hilarious, but mostly hilarious.
The most unusual murder mystery I've ever read. Incredible writing. It haunted me for days.
The quote on the front mentions that these stories are exhilerating. I couldn't disagree more. They are almost unbearably painful to read, and yet I couldn't put them down. Very well done, apart from the third story, which is written in the second tense. Please let me know if you know of ONE story that works in second tense.
Resident Alien -- Being Dutch in America 
If I may.. I think you can walk away from “slavery in America” and the Civil War, and Reconstruction with some 4 basic points.
1. Slavery, forced servitude, whatever label you put on it, is a human trait and not just limited to kings, queens, dictators, Caesars, czars, presidents, or nasty potentates. Also, in the history of man those being forced into slavery have not always been blacks. In fact, wholesale black slavery is a relative newcomer. The first slaves were peoples from territories conquered by other warring territories (war also being a trait of man)… slavery being part of the spoils of war and less about being an economic asset. Subsequently enslavement has also included those of a particular race, religion, or even gender. The concept of slavery was interwoven into many societies as natural to the status quo. So.. there’s no real need to assign some collective level of guilt to the Dutch, or whomever brought the first slaves into the pristine and virgin New World… nor to the Americans of the Civil War era who, by our contemporary standards, we consider narrow-minded and morally incompetent. Now.. this does not mean we just sit back and let slavery happen, but we can look back and understand that human enslavement is part of being human unless we decide for ourselves, within our societies, to change it.
2. Because you might have been considered an Abolitionist in your circa 1800 ideals that slavery in any form is wrong, it did NOT mean you were into black social equality. As I mentioned before in another post, the average 19th century person thought that blacks either wanted to go “home” (meaning, return to Africa) or should be sent “home”. Most Americans thought blacks were an inferior race and if anything they needed “parenting” by whites to survive because of their seemingly intellectual inferiority. Even Abe Lincoln had a level of this same feeling.
3. Again, as I blurbed in an earlier post, the Emancipation Proclamation remains one of the most incorrectly interpreted American historical documents. Whether you went to a one room schoolhouse in America or in the Netherlands, or in Timbiktu, it has been acclaimed as the document that “freed the slaves in America” by Abraham Lincoln, who thought of it from some divine moral inspiration one day while pondering the fate of the country in front of the evening fireplace. Um.. no. The document was a presidential decree proclaiming slaves being free in only ten states, and it was a timed political move at a critical juncture of the War. An important document to be sure, as it led in part to the culmination of the 13th Amendment, which did free the slaves everywhere (but did not establish social freedoms).
4. The American Civil War was NOT about slavery. It was essentially about states’ rights. In other words, the southern states were feeling imposed upon by the northern states in that Congress was favoring certain social controls and regulations that would have had an impact on southern businesses, especially agriculture. Among this was a rising public groundswell against slavery in general. Slave laws were decided at the state level and were very confusing… especially when non-slave states had laws to return escaped slaves to their southern owners. When southern states started to secede from the Union the war was about keeping the states together… preserving the Union… not about freeing slaves. The southern states were seceding in order to determine their own way of life and not live to the dictates of a northern Congress, which they perceived as bullying them.
Anyway.. just thought I’d summarize a bit. Sorry for such large posts! 🙂
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Hi Doug,
Thanks for the long comment! I’m not sure we share the same definition of a summary, though.
Your point 1: Sure, many civilizations, countries, races, etc. had slavery, but I find it a bit hard to let the South off that easily.First of all, I bet your mother told you that just because some other kids did something, that didn’t mean you should. I know mine did. And I tell my kids the same thing. Second, I don’t buy it that the slaveholders were simply being men of their times who didn’t know any better. If slavery was still considered completely normal and they weren’t able to see past their time, then how did the Northerners manage to feel differently? They lived in the same time and the same country, after all. No, I think the slaveholders knew it was wrong and inhuman, and that’s why so many pro-slavery folks went to enormous lengths with their scientific racism to rationalize that blacks weren’t actually human like you and me.
As for point 2: I completely agree. I make the same point in my post Freedom: Some Qualifications.
Point 3: No, Lincoln didn’t think it up one fine evening. That’s not what I learned, either, in my quite sizable high school, thank you very much :-). My high school history teacher actually pooh-poohed Lincoln’s freeing of the slaves, claiming he was completely opportunistic in regards to the issue. Be that as it may, after much back and forth and a lot of pressure and convincing by free men of color and Radical Republicans and other abolitionists, he came to the conclusion that the slaves should be freed. And he freed them. He did. The 13th Amendment was adopted in January of 1865. Lincoln was also going to give them the vote, but then he was assassinated in April. That the amendment wasn’t adopted until December is hardly reason to say Lincoln didn’t free the slaves.
Point 4: Yes, the Civil War was fought because the Southern states didn’t want the federal government in their lives, telling them what to do, like, well, ABOLISH SLAVERY, for instance, and so they wanted to secede, which the North would not allow. Keeping the freedom to have slaves and thus keep their economic status quo was definitely a big reason for the South to want to secede.
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I appreciate your sentiment and anti-slavery zeal. But I’m not really setting the South apart from some blame for slavery. I think we can agree that slavery was (and still is, regarding human trafficking) all about economics. Someone in the American South didn’t one day wake up and decide to oppress blacks simply for house servants. The hugely agricultural South depended a lot on the human effort.. planting, harvesting, processing, and the distribution of consumable crops and cotton to the rest of the country and for export to Europe, especially in the case of cotton. Slaves from Africa, from the founding of our country, were a source of cheap labor. They became an economic asset, hence property… and EVERYONE, North, South, Europe, benefited from from this system (one can compare to us buying from Wal-Mart products made in Pacific Rim sweathouses). There’s enough so-called guilt to go around for everyone back then. The reason those in the North became sensitive to slavery was in large part attributed to the success of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which depicted contemporary slave life. Also, the North was not agricultrally dominated and hence did not feel any kinship economically (although incorrectly) and could afford more progressive moral ideas because the average worker was tied to heavier industry.
A smart plantation owner might be more benevolent toward their slaves given they were an asset… a business investment to protect. Also, some plantation owners were indeed human enough for more moral treatment of their slaves beyond being just property. But in the end, whether you beat and tortured your slaves into submission or included them as a plantation “equal”, slavery was (and is) still slavery. But there was no question… slavery made business profitable and everyone purchased and consumed products harvested by slave labor… and yes, you can say that America was built on the ideals of freedom, liberty and equality for all… and slave labor. But.. we are who we are today because we had to travel that road. We may not be the best place in the world to live in but our form of government and the spirit in which is was founded surely is passing the test of time.
Nice debate, by the way. 🙂
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I like your comparison to us buying at Wal-Mart nowadays. Very true.
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Whenever I hear Southerners/textbooks say the war was about “states’ rights” I can only think that the phrase is an example of dog whistle politics because really it was specifically about landowners’ right to make money using slave labor. The current textbooks which come out of Texas make a big deal of emphasizing this point (i.e. that it was states’ rights rather than slavery). I can only assume that if George Orwell was still around he would be rolling his eyes.
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Agreed. And we can all roll our eyes for him.
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I cringe every time I hear the phrase “states’ rights”. It always seems to be trotted out when states are trying to do (or keep doing) something awful, be it slavery, death penalty, resisting equal marriage rights, or lack of regulation of big business. We’re a nation, first and foremost, so shouldn’t everyone in the nation have the same rights and rules? Especially in today’s world when so many people do move from state to state (I lived in four), I don’t understand why more emphasis should be put on individual states than on national rights. Times have changed, and states have changed (or at least they need to).
And now with states like Texas and North Carolina jumping on the opportunity to make voting more difficult (which ultimately targets certain groups and demographics), it feels like we’ve taken the proverbial two steps back after our one step forward.
(This is early morning ramblings on topics that frustrate me. More coffee and more words are probably needed to really make my point.)
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I agree. It’s inconsistent and impractical. And yes, look what (part of) the South does again to limit the black (and Hispanic) vote the moment they get the chance.
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ddddddd
You ladies make a sound point that even 150 years later there’s still some regional vestiges of the Old South. But it might be worthy to keep in mind that the American Civil War was a deciding point as to whether, as a nation, we held to preserving states rights over preserving the Union. We are in fact a mobile society more than ever and as time passes the lines get more blurry between what the federal government mandates through legislation and what an individual state might call their own domain. As a nation we were founded on the precept of individual free and independent states forming a union with a centralized government. The individual states represented residents who had specific economic and moral differences. Remember the melting pot idea? We always have been a diverse population made up of people who tend to live with others of similar culture and ideology. People in the east pass laws prohibiting making a U-turn at stop lights; in the west it’s permissible. Is there a right or wrong either way? Nope (although one could argue anything). In the east it seems you can barely own a firearm.. while in the west one is permitted to carry the damn things around in public without a permit. A guy from Arizona re-locating to Chicago is wondering why the Second Amendment that protected his right to own and carry and fire his guns in AZ doesn’t seem to work all that well in Illinois… even worse in Chicago… and even worse than that in a couple suburbs of Chicago. I’m not wanting to get into the gun debate but I am simply using the idea to illustrate how We, the People, like to impose our own regional level of morality.
Here’s my particular gripe since we are all lamenting over our morning coffee. As a nation we are so consumed with personal liberty and freedom and it’s reflected in our laws, as it should be. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as guaranteed by the Constitution. Yet when someone murders someone else is that not the ultimate denial of personal freedom? How can the same crime of murder in Texas end up with the death penalty for the murderer yet in Ohio that murderer could end up with a jail sentence of 10 years? It seems to me that murder should be a federal offense (with federal punishment) given it’s the ultimate denial of personal freedom for any victim. Now reality steps in and given all the murder cases in this country, from city, to county, to state, the government bureaucracy to handle all that would be huge to be sure, and we are nowhere ready for that grand debate as a nation. But here again, regional morality dictates the diversity in punishment. Some states have a death penalty and other states don’t. Makes one wonder that with our mobile society that we are less about the “United States” of America, and more toward just plain “America”.
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Hm. I suppose you have a point that at least different states can pass different laws, so that there’s always a state you can move to if you don’t agree with the one you live in. Is that what you are saying? Texas wants the right to have the death penalty, but what if it was the federal government that wanted the death penalty. Then I’d suddenly be all for states’ rights not to have it. But it does seem, though, that the folks calling for states’ rights in general are more conservative, wanting the right to bear arms anywhere, the right to limit voting of the poor (because they’d vote progressive, is the thought behind it), the right to pay women less, the right not to have universal healthcare.
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Barbara… you sound like a fervent liberal! 🙂
I gotta admit I’m more a liberal conservative these days. But I would agree with you that it seems conservatives are more for the idea of states rights, but I think it depends more on the issue than just plain across-the-board. Yet very generally speaking, conservative core values favor less governmental control of our lives, hence a greater shove toward states rights. But here’s the interesting thing provided by our Constitution… checks & balances. Some maverick state could end up passing some seemingly rediculous law… but that law can be challenged through the Supreme Court. True.. it’s not an “every citizen” path given the lawyer expense, but not every legal challenge begins with the average person. The government can bring a case against a state, or even vice versa. Right now the political environment is in such a mess between the two parties, especially the republicans. Congress is non-effective, republicans have no one to toss into the next election that could beat Hillary… worse yet, they have no platform to engage the national debate. Most disconcerting for an old fart like myself. 🙂
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You’re only just now realizing that I’m pretty liberal, Doug? 😉 I am most of the time, though there are some issues where I’m amazed that I find myself standing with conservative Christians. You never know with me.
Yes, checks and balances … at least you’ve got that, but wouldn’t it be better if stupid laws weren’t enacted in the first place? That’s where a multi-party system helps. Then you don’t have to wait for decades before someone successfully brings something to the attention of the Supreme Court. But we digress.If you want, we can have that discussion over at my series of posts about the parliamentary system vs the American system of government.
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I agree about the stupid laws. But then that begs the question… who judges whether or not a law is “stupid” (once we have defined universally exactly what “stupid” is)? One person’s common sense is another person’s sheer idiocy. Ahh.. the diversity of the human kind! But yes.. we digress from the post theme… kinda sorta. 🙂
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Well, that’s easy: I do. Because I’m always right. 🙂
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