OT: Black Missouri players threatening to strike from football activities of demands aren't met.
November 8th, 2015 at 2:02 PM ^
Not that it'll work, but protesting against unfair treatment is the only true legacy we have to those who actually fought for our freedom and independence.
But even if it has only a slim chance of ending racism, hopefully it'll bring us one giant step closer to the end of the NCAA.
November 8th, 2015 at 2:07 PM ^
Jefferson's statue from campus. The man without whom neither Mizzou or the US would exist.
Yes, he was a racist and a slaveowner, but he is of central importance to the creation of this country and the laws that govern it. Unfortunately, nuance is lost on fanatics who want to scrub American life free of everyone who does not meet their ethical standards.
November 8th, 2015 at 2:23 PM ^
November 8th, 2015 at 2:31 PM ^
.....and unfortunately what he wrote, even if they were his true beliefs, won't change what he did.
However, the real tragedy is that the most central concepts of what he wrote were immediately and completely discarded by the illegitimate government that has been in place.
The insult is that our white guilt is soothed by admiring a man who wrote "All men are created equal..." but the society we created treats all men unequally.
November 8th, 2015 at 2:56 PM ^
November 8th, 2015 at 3:56 PM ^
'society treats everyone equal'"
Yup, it's true, this society sure has proven how difficult implementation can be of a rather simple concept that everyone "SAYS" they agree on.
But "yes" to answer your question I do have a childlike wish that one day understanding all men are created equal will lead to a society that treats all people equally especially since we should all be unique.
November 8th, 2015 at 3:00 PM ^
November 8th, 2015 at 3:21 PM ^
...you're excusing 200 year old immorality that we purpetuate even though Jefferson and our founding fathers knew it was wrong.
But I think you miss my point Jefferson was great man, especially for his time, it is the rest of us who suck because we haven't done enough with the groundwork he layed.
November 8th, 2015 at 3:14 PM ^
November 8th, 2015 at 3:32 PM ^
as written by Jefferson:
http://www.history.org/almanack/resources/jeffersondeclaration.cfm
"he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.
November 8th, 2015 at 2:56 PM ^
He was also a rapist.
It's possible to recognize Jefferson's contribution to US society without glorifying him with a statue. This is not dissimilar from the Joe Paterno situation, in which a man who did a lot of good stuff also did a lot of really, really bad stuff and as we grapple with that bad stuff we realize that we should reevaluate how we remember their legacy. Removing Jefferson's statue doesn't magically fix racial tension in the United States, but it's an important symbolic gesture, because it's almost literally the easiest thing possible to do. I mean, if we can't solve problems around a statue that basically nobody actually cares about, how do we deal with issues like racial injustice in mandatory minimum drug sentencing laws?
November 8th, 2015 at 3:08 PM ^
November 8th, 2015 at 3:23 PM ^
The man who wrote the Declaration of Independence is a rapist?
What does Thomas Jefferson have to say? Oh he is dead and has been dead for nearly 200 years.
November 8th, 2015 at 4:55 PM ^
Jefferson fathered multiple children with Sally Hemmings, his slave. It is impossible to consent to have sex with someone who can legally kill you whenever he wants. Any sexual contact between a slave and a master is rape. Jefferson raped Hemmings for years.
November 8th, 2015 at 5:07 PM ^
Or is that your interpretation? Do we know what Hemmings did or did not feel about Jefferson?
Hemmings could have been set free when she and Jefferson were living in Paris. She did not apply for manumissiong and went back to the US with Jefferson. She did learn to speak French in France.
November 8th, 2015 at 3:24 PM ^
You're right. No one thought he was a racist back then. Moral evolution has brought us to this place where racism and slavery is a bad thing. How could we all have missed this fact of life?
November 8th, 2015 at 3:27 PM ^
November 8th, 2015 at 3:40 PM ^
someday we'll be looked upon with jaundiced eyes.What we see as moral in the future will be anathema.
November 8th, 2015 at 5:05 PM ^
Of course people thought he was a racist back then. The moral case among enlightenment thinkers (with which Jefferson was well-familiar) for abolition was well established by the 18th century. Jefferson chose to ignore those arguments because it was socially acceptable and economically advantageous for him to do so. Giving him a pass because it was a long time ago ignores that there were lots of people who recognized that black people were persons and not property for a lot longer than most people seem to think.
November 8th, 2015 at 4:59 PM ^
It's a good thing you didn't intend to make a pun, because you didn't make a pun. You also don't seem understand what white washing history means. Removing Jefferson's statue at Mizzou is the direct opposite of white washing history - it's accepting Jefferson's full role in society and refusing to glorify him while ignoring the unsavory things he did.
November 8th, 2015 at 5:33 PM ^
importance to US history whilst focusing on the sins he committed. Yours is dishonesty history and you need to be called out on that.History is complicated and that needs to be taught. What you are doing is anything but.
November 8th, 2015 at 3:11 PM ^
and divide the people.Surely, we can admit to the flawed nature of the man whilst also honoring his central importance to this country? What you suggest makes things worse and pushes to the backpages the truth of Thomas Jefferson. We should not do that. We should leave the statue there and use it as a teaching point about the complex reality of history.
It's symbolic meaning is what gives it's importance. By eliminating it you are telling whites that they should be ashamed of their history. That won't win people over.
It astounds me that you can't see this. How can you not understand how this would alienate people?
You don't win people over by angering them. You do so be establishing bonds of understanding. You don't achieve that by scrubbing history, but by telling it openly and honestly.
The removal of the statue is only going to make things worse.
November 8th, 2015 at 5:10 PM ^
Of course this would alienate people. Leaving the statue up also alienates people. Almost everything you do within society will alienate *someone*, which is why we can't worry about divisiveness as a primary concern when we're looking to remove opression within society.
Ending slavery alienated people. Ending Jim Crow alienated people. Ending racial segregation in schooling alienated people. There are going to be lots more things which we have to do in order to build a more just society which will alienate people. Eventually, those people will get over it or die, and our society will be better for it in the long run. If we waited until everyone promoting the oppression of racial minorities in our world was comfortable with the changes we were making, no changes would ever be made.
November 8th, 2015 at 5:26 PM ^
you are attempting to cleanse history of an extremely important person. It's grotesque really. You are perverting history for reasons of fantasy.You can't run away from history and you should not simplify it.Both of which is what you are doing.
November 8th, 2015 at 8:24 PM ^
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November 8th, 2015 at 3:28 PM ^
just wow.
God save our country if there are people out there thinking like this.
November 8th, 2015 at 3:02 PM ^
November 8th, 2015 at 8:36 PM ^
that Thomas Jefferson was a racist and told him so...in so many words.
November 8th, 2015 at 3:17 PM ^
"Yes, he was a racist and a slaveowner, but"
the fact that there's a "but" after that statement is hilarious.
November 8th, 2015 at 3:34 PM ^
Founders of nation's and even religions are often men with morally repugnant backgrounds. That's reality.
Nations are not build by morallt pure human beings. They are built by the brutal, ambitious, ingenuous, and ruthless.
Americans as a whole don't quite seem to understand that much that is good or noteworth in the world occurred because of the acts of such men.
Someday Americans will develop the intellectual maturity to grasp this and see the past appropriately.
November 8th, 2015 at 3:38 PM ^
November 8th, 2015 at 3:44 PM ^
Well according to this logic Bill Cosby isn't all that bad of a guy. I mean sure he drugged and raped a dozen women but hey, most of the great ones did. We musn't dishonor his jello pudding legacy by ridiculing his shitty past. This intellectual maturity thing isn't so bad after all.
November 8th, 2015 at 3:44 PM ^
November 8th, 2015 at 3:57 PM ^
The irony here is fantastic.
November 8th, 2015 at 3:49 PM ^
I am laughing at how poor of a comparison you have chosen. You could, at the very least, chose someone who contributed to the construction of a nation(like Napoleon). But no, you went with a comedian.
Anyways, your analogy fails because without Jefferson the US does not exist just like without Mohammed Islam does not exist. Both did terrible things. Both did great things. Both are revered. Such is the nature of the history of the world.
Yours is an exceedingly simplistic and self-righteous worldview. I think you need to read more about history.
November 8th, 2015 at 3:56 PM ^
My bad, I have this tendency to not put shitty people on a pedestal. They're all the same to me. I lack that intellectual maturity thing you mentioned.
November 8th, 2015 at 4:00 PM ^
November 8th, 2015 at 4:07 PM ^
Anything for you.
November 8th, 2015 at 4:11 PM ^
In fact, you probably would still be a caveman.
I'm not asking you to put anyone on a pedestal, but to acknowledge the importance of a person to the creation of the nation we all live in.
Our words, ideas, philosophies...all of these have their origins in someone else. Acknowleding that and giving thanks is not the same as apoethesizing someone.
I think egotism is what drives your opinion. You want to appear as a moral marbleman demanding moral perfection. That that is impossible does not concern you.
November 8th, 2015 at 4:20 PM ^
November 8th, 2015 at 4:23 PM ^
The difference here is that I can acknowledge someone's accomplishments without dismissing their faults and how it affects others. Your opinion on my opinion is neither here nor there because you do not know me.
You don't have to be a moral marbleman to call bullshit when you see it. You want to dismiss racism and slavery like it's the same as stealing from the corner store. It isn't and I don't have to ignore it because they contributed to the current state of being. Which was the point of the Bill Cosby comparison, people like to argue the media ruined his image and he was a positive black figure. I CALL BULLSHIT! Bill Cosby ruined Bill Cosby's image. Did he contribute to the black community? Sure. Cosby show was very influential far beyond the humor. Does he get a pass for being a shitty person? Hell no. Not from me. You just chose to focus on the comparison rather than the point.
November 8th, 2015 at 4:42 PM ^
Your strawman is burning. I do not dismiss racism or slavery. What I am doing is correcting you, a typically blinkered American, on the harsh truth of human existence. All that we have seen in this states-cruetly, tribalism(or racism as we call it) ingenuity, hard work, oppression--has been down elsewhere and way before anyone even conceived of a United States of America.
You don't seem to be aware of that. You seem to think that ONLY black people have faced oppression and slavery. Well, they haven't. Not by a longshot. It's the very banality of the evil that makes it so depressing.
American exceptionalism was based on America being different from the Old World. It wasn't. Slavery, racism, and the forcible expropriation of the land is proof enough. The latter imperialism was simply the cherry on top.
I'm trying to get you and others to see that the problem is much simpler than systems or nations or cultures. It's humans doing what humans do. It's part of who we are.
You really need to learn to look beyond your own experience.
November 8th, 2015 at 11:58 PM ^
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November 8th, 2015 at 2:50 PM ^
November 8th, 2015 at 3:15 PM ^
November 8th, 2015 at 4:34 PM ^
It's only the torn vaginas and cracked skulls that are real, eh?
And fuck these malcontents who can't handle a little rape and some "your kind" cleansing, it's not like they have "real" problems, I mean the British Empire was TAXING OUR FUCKING TEA!
/s
British citizen's dumping tea into bay cuz they needed the $$$$ =
greatest act of civil disobedience eva;
actual American citizen's refusing to play a dangerous sport for amusement, when they don't even get fairely compensated, all because they don't feel safe to walk on their own university's campus =
"pull they scholly, they don't know how goods they got it"
Cognitive Dissonance? Don't you wish you was missing it?
November 8th, 2015 at 6:35 PM ^
November 8th, 2015 at 7:13 PM ^
.......telling me they ARE REAL, as soon as you drop this proof of a negative on me.
3,2,1
November 8th, 2015 at 8:00 PM ^
November 8th, 2015 at 2:49 PM ^