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Brookline to ditch textbook that said some slaves were treated well

WBZ reports school officials took action after parents complained.

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Semantics. It could have been phrased better but the intent was to illustrate that the treatment of slaves varied widely. Removing the books just encourages the seekers of offense.

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There is never any reason to suggest that there are more kind and less kind ways to exert power over another person. This is the kind of attitude that leads to people thinking date rape isn't really rape, people making racial remarks are "only being curious," people harassing fat people are "just being concerned about their health," homophobes are "just expressing religious beliefs." Oppression is oppression, and, yes, we need to teach that it comes in all forms, but we don't need to be labeling any of those as treating people well or any other sort of excuse-making.

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This discussion is (or should be ) about history and history is complex and needs to be understood on its own terms not our terms. We here today do not represent some universal person against which all of the past should be judged.

More than 250,000 Union soldiers died to end slavery and probably an equal number were maimed. That sacrifice is a part of the history of slavery in the US.

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All of this is actually pretty interesting - it has been a long time since I've studied slavery history in depth (when my son was going through the lower grades) I'd talk about it with him and answer questions as best I could.

I do recall growing up, it was conveyed to me that some slaves were treated better than others (more domestic servants mainly) - but yes, it does not soften the blow, in my mind, that slavery was and is a terrible thing.

As someone who lives in Brookline, I have to say it is possibly due to the overwrought 'white guilt' and some public missteps on racial relations in the town the last few years that may have led to pearl clutching and the removal of a book. Keep in mind, this is the same town where people openly oppose styrofoam, plastic bags, and abortion clinics (via weekly protests) so part of me thinks, though it is a reasonable intention, maybe a medicore textbook's wording isn't something that needs to be publicized and seen as a 'racial win' in some folks eyes. I've always been a fan of the whole 'one most learn from history so as not to repeat it' but it is we as a society that keeps this alive, how can be get past it? It is like we keep reminding ourselves, and at the same time, resent the stereotypical depiction of the urban black (oppressed by whitey, on welfare, lazy) - if you really want to help the condition of the modern black, spend your time with community outreach, not banning a book.

Are we are the point of removing Huck Finn because of the name "Nigger Jim?" Are we at that point that we want to just pretend this isn't part of history, vs just try to live with it?

I mean how racist are we, that we actually refer to both 'slavery' and 'white slavery' - we even segragate the term!

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That's a cool name. I'd insist on being quoted by my full name, too, if it were something like Arthur Wellington Conquest.

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I thought the same thing when I saw the news last night. Best name ever.

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Did they complain because no slave owner treated their slaves well, or was it that the parents didn't want to admit that some slave owners might have treated their slaves well, or was it that no slave owner should have treated his slaves well?

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I think the complaint is about the non sequester combination of "well treated" and "slave." That's right up there with "happy" and "concentration camp."

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Hats off to the those parents. Brookline got it right, just like Seattle got it right by replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day.

Time for Boston to step up and do the right thing.

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How, just how?
“slaves were treated well or cruelly depending on their owners.Some planters took pride in being fair and kind to their slaves."
This in no way portrays slavery in a positive light.

History is history..... We may not like it, but we cannot change it.

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Being a slave, by definition, is a capacity in which you've been stripped of basic human rights and are bought/sold/traded/treated like property, subject entirely to the whims of an owner. To say an American slave can be "treated well" is to erase the fact that there is no "good" of being in this position; it is unimaginably cruel regardless of whether a slave owner happened to be less brutal than other slaveowners.

You are very much distorting history by trying to paint positivity into a fundamentally wretched institution.

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So not all slave owners beat and raped their slaves. Bully. They were still slaveowners and those people were still slaves. Slaves. Never forget that. They were slaves. Are we really going to get NotAllMen on one of the sadder periods of American history?

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That's a very baited comparison.

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What about historical context? In a time where society deemed it perfectly acceptable to own another human being, some slave owners did treat their slaves "well".

Obviously today we should view the practice of slavery as being inhumane and reprehensible, but to study history, you should look at events in the past both from a modern viewpoint, and from a contextual viewpoint.

But, its probably safe to say that such intricacies are well above the level of study of a 5th grade history class.

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A great many number of people recognized the horrors of slavery during the time that chattel slavery was found in the colonies/United States. To suggest otherwise is intellectual laziness at best and racist apologism at worst. Peruse wikipedia for a quick overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism

You'd also stand to remember that some of our finest Bostonians, such as Lewis Hayden and William Lloyd Garrison, were ardent abolitionists.

Also, "Society deemed it perfectly acceptable to own another human being": you seem to have a very selective view about what constitutes "society" because there sure as hell innumerable black Americans, enslaved or free, who were opposed to slavery.

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Wikipedia as a sign of intellectual laziness.

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In Wikipedia...

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Again, history is complicated. By saying "society" I was not trying to refer to the country as a whole, but rather the part of it where slavery was, for the most part, considered acceptable, say in those states that fought a war in an attempt to keep their slaves (obviously I am over simplifying the Civil War).

And if we want to further illustrate how complicated this gets, lets look at something in the very link you posted.

"The first attempts to end slavery in the British/American colonies came from Thomas Jefferson and some of his contemporaries. Despite the fact that Jefferson was a lifelong slaveholder, he included strong anti-slavery language in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, but other delegates took it out.[25] Benjamin Franklin, also a slaveholder for most of his life, was a leading member of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, the first recognized organization for abolitionists in the United States."

Try explaining to 5th graders how it makes sense that someone who owned slaves all their life was also strongly against the practice of owning slaves.

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Wait till they find out there were whole regiments of slaves that fought for the south, or that there's a large record of slave narratives in which slaves lament their freedom and claim they were better off.

The way slaves were mistreated was a symptom of the widespread use of corporal punishment at the time and the corruption that absolute power brings. British army officers in Australia ran plantations with (white) prisoner labor and had a reputation for excessive flogging that disgusted even the British Navy, who were themselves no strangers to the use of the lash.

It's certainly possible to resist the temptation to treat your fellow men with indifference, or worse, active sadistic cruelty. But it's a constant temptation when you hold absolute power of life or death over them. While some slave owners did resist this temptation, cruelty was not unusual.

The founding fathers were well aware of this, and it surely contributed to their suspicion of absolute power.

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Yes, and there were Jews and Russians who assembled munitions for the Nazis. Willingly? Ah, there's the rub.

Regardless of how corporal punishment played into it (and you'd have to show me that indentured whites in the South got the same lash), we're talking about people who were slaves. They had no free will, they were imprisoned, they were ripped from their parents/children and sold in auctions. They lived solely at the will of their slaveowners, no matter how cruel or not they were. And, yes, many were brutally beaten and raped. Again, are we really trying to gloss over this, or paint it in some more pleasing shade of horrible?

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The but Dieter was a good Natzi defense has no rational arguement. Why are conservatives afraid of our history? The zealots looking to whitewash all things perceived as negative seem to be the same folks denying science and attempting to define America as a Christian corporatist nirvanna.

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But there were some Jews involved in the slave trade.

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And Jack Abramoff is a Jew. Congratulations: You've discovered no group is perfect. But try to stay focused on why I mentioned Nazi slave workers: Because somebody brought up slave regiments in the Civil War. Gish gallop much?

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There is no defending slavery and the text book to me seems to be trying to do that in its wording. That said, slaves were treated differently in the cotton economy than in other economies. To say that isn't defending slavery. Dr. Joseph Warren of Bunker Hill fame owned a slave; as did several families who fought at Lexington & Concord.
Here's a blurb from the Mass. Historical Society web site re: slavery in Mass.

"...Slaves in Massachusetts usually lived with their owners, and had more direct contact with family members than the way of life we associate with plantation slavery in the West Indies and later in the American south. The Massachusetts courts recognized the right of slaves to hold and dispose of some property, to keep wages for work done not on their masters' time, to bring suit in court, and the right to jury trials, legal counsel, and some legal protection. While slaves were generally taxed as property, they were also considered to be persons by the legal system......."

I think non-freedom was so common in colonial days (most immigrants came as indentured servants) that most people were blind to injustice.

Slavery was still deeply immoral.

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Whipping was a pretty common punishment.

I don't know about the southern colonies, but whipping was the punishment for running away from your indenture in Massachusetts law.

I think if you look around you'll find many accounts of indentured servants (both white and black) who were so terrified of the whippings they were scheduled to receive that they committed suicide rather than endure the whipping.

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Extremely doubtful.

Now, before you get excited, keep in mind that Stauffer points out that many of these black soldiers were not accepted by the Confederate government and were not issued firearms: still more of these soldiers were coerced into joining the military, and others joined to escape miserable poverty. Professor Carol Sheriff of the College of William and Mary reinforces the notion that any blacks who fought did so somewhat involuntarily, by clarifying that some black body-servants may have taken up arms in the heat of battle to defend their masters and themselves, and even then they were sometimes forced to do so. (Article HERE.) She also makes the point that arming blacks or allowing them to fight in the military was illegal in the Confederacy. This makes it extremely difficult to claim that the Confederates used black troops, because refusing to allow them to fight and forcing them to join in the first place quashes the notion that they were soldiers. In any case, they were present in such minuscule numbers that it’s difficult to validate their presence – these “soldiers” only represented about one half of one percent of the Confederate military strength.
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I learned something today.

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Actually you didn't; you just read a website that confirms your biases.

The linked article contradicts many contemporary accounts, including those of Frederick Douglass, that asserted the existence of armed black confederate soldiers. Arming blacks was in no way a last ditch effort only halfheartedly attempted after the south had already lost; Stonewall Jackson had black gun crews firing some of his cannon at the first battle of Bull Run!

The blockquote is also out of context; the previous sentences made it clear that the author didn't consider poor black soldiers undertaking service for pay to be serving voluntarily. Given that the northern armies were manned by hordes of impoverished German and Irish immigrants, you could discount their service on the same grounds.

It is difficult for us to understand how any slave could want to join a fight on the side that would preserve slavery. Maybe its some form of Stockholm syndrome, but I suspect that it's much more complicated than that. It definitely did occur, and trying to sweep it under the rug rather than study or understand it does everyone a disservice.

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You can't treat someone we'll while depriving them of freedom and forcing them to work for free. The inlet slave owners who treated their property well are those who set them free.

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was a commonplace institution throughout the world since at least the beginning of recorded history. If you lost wars, you most likely were enslaved or killed. Native Ametican Indians in North and South America would enslave other tribes (and usually 'marry', or rather rape the women/girls), during frequent warfare between tribes, Europeans enslaved each other, Asians ditto, during the 17th, 18th centuries white slaves (mostly Irish, English, Welsh,and Scottish) were sent to especially the Caribbean plantations, where many descendants remain today, often disenfranchised and poor under, and treated badly in places like Barbados by the ruling black elite, etc.They are nicknamed redlegs. Slavery is still relatively commonplace today in many parts of the world, especially North Africa (the Middle East), and subsaharan Africa, some Africans enslaving other Africans, some Arabs enslaving others, including especially black Africans, even white slavery. Slave-like practices are relatively commonplace in parts of Asia even today.

It was mostly white Christian British and Europeans and their descendants who ended slavery, even fought battles and wars to end the practice. The British banned the practice long before most others, in the early 1800s. The US fought the most blodfy war it has ever had, which ended slavery in the US. Brazil and othet Latin American countries continued slavery well after the US civil war. Saudi Arabia didn't officially end slavery until the late 1960s-early 70s, although it is still a common practice in Middle East Muslim countries.

I was taught in school that here in the early U.S., there were mostly (but not all) black African slaves, and mostly white 'indentured servants', another word for a slave (who could legally buy their freedom). Apparently, the 'slaves' were of greater monetary value than the 'indentured servants', so were often treated and cared for better.

As an historical footnote, I believe the Massachusetts Colony was one of the first places on Earth to outlaw all forms of slavery in the early 1700s. And by far,, most black African slaves went to Spanish and Portugese colonies, especially Brazil compared to the U.S., and were still slaves in South America long after the US outlawed the practice. I would hope during discussions about slavery in schools these things are discussed.

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But let's not minimize what went on for a couple of centuries in the United States by bringing other countries into it. White Christians? Most of the white Christians in the South distorted the Bible to support the idea of enslaving their fellow man, rather than treating them as they would themselves be treated. Saying that we ended slavery before Saudi Arabia isn't really saying that much about a country with the strongest sense of exceptionalism, the city on a hill that is a shining light to the rest of the world and all that.

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we ended it well before those other 'persons of color' or 'brown people' did in Latin America.

And don't forget, slavery is still commonplace in Africa and North Africa - Middle East TODAY, THE 21st CENTURY. You seem obsessed with how bad and evil in particular 'white' people are, glossing over everyone else.

And the 'evil' British outlawed slavery and actually fought battles and wars to end it in the early 1800s...when it was perfectly acceptable and widely practiced in pretty much every part of the world and by ALL people.

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...you get held to a higher standard when you come out of the gate proclaiming how "all men are created equal"

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so everyone else is held to a lower standard than the U.S. and so-called white people in general because we are better, or because we try to be better or do the right thing? Because let's be very clear: slavery was practiced by ALL people, regardless of their skin tone. It was and is still in some cases practiced by Christians (alleged), Muslims (widespread among Muslims, renowned slave traders), Jews, Buddhist, Hindus, Atheists, Agnostics, Satanist, and so-on and so-forth.

It's indisputable that the real first and successful challenge to outlaw this barbaric practice was started and fought by primarily white, primarily Christian, British (Irish included) people. The world owes these people a thank you. They got the ball rolling. And now in the 21st century, we can try and finally eradicate this evil practice among Africans and in the Middle East and India, where it's still a pretty common practice.

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Nobody's being held to lower standards. But since the 1600s, American have professed higher standards.

As long as you bring it up, Mr. White Christian Exceptionalism, you might want to go read up on Cyrus freeing the Jews. In Persia. Roughly 540 years before Christ. And you know how swarthy those Middle Easterners got. So, yeah, your contention is pretty disputable.

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and certainly not any kind of 'exceptionalist' in the way you define it.

The modern (lets define modern as AD, not BC; and I'm not deliberately trying to offend anyone with the Christ reference), it was primarily white, avowed Christian, and mostly British (Irish included) who made the first major assault and victories against the evil practice if human slavery.

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Right.. and then the British continued on with the practice of indentured servitude, continued to tear up Africa and Asia and ship people around, hoarded food, and acted in a manner that lead to the death of millions of Indians and others. The British may not have been as physically violent as the Portuguese, but they also were are no saints.

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they certainly were not saints, and the people responsible for running their (British) empire were highly duplicitous. I didn't mean to imply otherwise, only that they were in the forefront of ending slavery as it's commonly understood.

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Cyrus didn't end slavery, he just conquered the Babylonians and sent their slaves home ... with instructions to rebuild their temple and pray for him or he would come and crucify them all. So yeah, that's just like the abolition movement.

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But, really, you should read up on it some before making bold pronouncements about the superiority of us whiteys over those ignorant brown people down south, because if you did, you'd see that Latin America after its various revolutions was largely ruled by the descendants of white Europeans, who didn't much care for the natives and black slaves and their descendants. Brazil started out independence as a breakway empire ruled over by the son of the king of Portugal.

In other words, they really weren't all that different from the US in terms of race relations.

As for slavery in Africa today, yes, that's a horrible thing. But stay focused: The issue here is a textbook on American history. If you can find a textbook that even mentions post-colonial Africa, and then find one that says something nice about the slaveholders of Sudan, by all means, let us know.

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When we are talking about US History we are talking about the enslavement of black people. Not Latin America or Africa. Not indentured servants either. The U.S. slavery industry was the US slave industry. It was built by the leaders of that time and guess what, they were white. All the laws that were written and passed were passed by the leaders of that time. Were all white people evil? No, but the society as a whole accepted and benefited from the enslavement of thousands of people. Whether they were nice to their slaves or not, they OWNED people and surely supported all moves to ensure their slaves stayed slaves.

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Your argument is 100% False Equivalency.

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Nonsense. Texas broke away from Mexico and later joined the US partly because Mexico banned slavery in 1829-1830, long before the Civil War ended slavery in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_Texas

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As regards to black African slaves, Mexico has historically had very few, and up to today still has few black people. I was referencing places like Brazil and the Caribbean nations, where black (and other) slaves were valued plantation workers.

Mexico has historically treated indigenous Indians (Mestizos) poorly, and even today the Mexican ruling classes are mostly white Spanish or European descendants.

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Slavery was effectively outlawed in Massachusetts in 1781 by a Court decision when a slave sued for his freedom under the all men are equal clause in the new 1780 Massachusetts State Constitution.

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When I learned how slavery was banned in Massachusetts from an exhibit at the John Adam's Courthouse I realized that this was an early form of Judicial Activism. The same Judicial Activism that people who complained about the Goodridge decision, and most likely are screaming about the Federal Court judges who are overturning the anti-Gay laws and amemdments passed by several states.

Sometimes a small group of people can be wiser than the larger plurality of voters. Not always of course. But that is the point of a democracy that is not frozen, whether in how power shifts or frozen in the interpretation of its Constitution, as Scalia, Federalists, et al. argue.

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When I learned how slavery was banned in Massachusetts from an exhibit at the John Adam's Courthouse I realized that this was an early form of Judicial Activism. The same Judicial Activism that people who complained about the Goodridge decision

Don't forget Loving vs. Virginia. Those crazy justices just ran roughshod over the clearly articulated will of the people in over a dozen states.

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Funny how Massachusetts banned slavery but had no problem making a FORTUNE for the next 80 years on the cotton picked by southern slaves.

Massachusetts banned slavery because they didn't need it. They had plenty of Irish to do the dirty work.

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How should her life be portrayed?

Is there a legitimate way to separate the issue of slavery from the varied living conditions they endured?

Instead of banning the textbook, I think that perhaps this exact problem could be used as a key part of the curriculum.

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When the book says "treated well", they have to know that's ambiguous.

The topic is so important that I don't see how book with that gratuitous ambiguity was approved by the district in the first place.

Everyone knows that the Texas textbook people are horrible, and this is exactly the kind of section you have to audit word-by-word after they're through with it.

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Maybe the book is poorly written, maybe the writers explicitly tried to minimize slavery, but the bottom line is that it was still slavery. Yes, maybe some slaves were treated relatively well, but they were still slaves and the book needs to emphasize that point. We're only shown a short snippet, but judging from the anger about the book, I'm guessing the book seems to gloss over the concept of slavery.

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Adam, I love you.

Seriously, thank you for your on point responses. It's time for this country to stop acting like this was anything other than an absolutely brutal degrading inhumane time in our country's history. The result which are still manifested today.

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I think this is a case of tone for the audience more than anything. The textbook is for fifth graders and has to be on their reading comprehension level. Should the text be eliminated? No, but it could be worded in a more nuanced manner to get the message across for the target audience.

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I was just talking to a five-year-old with physical disabilities about the stupid patronizing "compliments" random strangers give, and about people insisting on helping with tasks this child can do just fine, then becoming insistent and defending themselves when child or parent says that help is not needed or welcome. This child seems to have a full understanding of the nuance of someone being "nice," but in fact asserting that they know someone else's needs and skills better than the person does, and sending the message that this person isn't on equal footing with other people who get to determine what is and is not helpful.

I do agree that many children and adults who have only been in majority groups don't have as much experience with this nuance, because they've likely mostly been treated as equals. But shouldn't they learn, instead of having things dumbed down? A good lesson on slavery and other types of oppression should build empathy, not build self-righteousness that *I* would never do something like *that* (followed by said infallible person going out and insisting that a child with a disability sitting there putting on a backpack next to the child's parent clearly needs a random stranger to do it, because the stranger knows better than the child or parent ).

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to lecture other adults ir children who aren't your own about this subject, or you think others should, to 'build empathy'? By far, most people who are naturally empathetic would not require lecturing to know the practice of slavery was and is wrong.

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He nailed my head to the coffee table, too!

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The language of "well treated" does suggest that the writer was not thinking about how that would be understood. So perhaps lessons here are 1) to recognize what is potentially controversial and 2) to be sensitive to how language addresses that controversy. Not that slavery by itself is controversial in the sense that anyone would argue that slavery was good. But the controversy is whether the enslavement of human beings is fully acknowedged and incorporated into the identification of U.S. Americans.

I believe that slavery has not been fully acknowledged and incorporated as a part of our collective identity. Is there a significant public memorial acknowledging slavery in Boston? We have one acknowledging and memorializing the Nazi holocaust against Jews, Gays, Gypsies, disable ("retarded" or "defective"). There is a memorial to what is called the Armenian Genocide. There are memorials to events that didn't happen in the United States. So why isn't there a memorial that tries to convey one of the greatest sins of U.S. culture?

Memorials to the Civil War don't quality. They memorialize a war that was fought to stop a cultural earthquake that was splitting two different cultures into two different nations, where slavery was the major fault line. But the memorials are nevertheless to remember a nation at war with itself rather than an institution that dehumanized and enslaved human beings.

But then the U.S., not unlike any other nation, carries plenty of sin in how various out groups are treated, especially Native Americans. Is the issue in this nation that slavery is still too recent and too close for the general public to be willing to address slavery via public memorials?

In the 80s a minor (in size) sculpture of Billie Holiday was erected in an African-American neighborhood. At the base were small reliefs. One of the reliefs depicted a lynching. The lynching relief elicited enough controversy that the relief was not installed. People wanted to memorialize a daughter of the city but, pardon the pun, wanted to whitewash much of the less than ideal aspects of both Ms. Holiday's life (e.g., the racism that contributed to her early death) as well as the larger culture of violence against Blacks especially in the South (which, for y'all Northerners, includes Maryalnd).

However at the rededication of the sculture the relief was included: "The other depicts a man — nude, castrated and with his eyes bulging — hanging from a tree. Below are the words “Strange Fruit,” the title of a ballad condemning lynching that Holiday recorded in 1939." http://entertainment.gaeatimes.com/2009/07/17/statue-of-jazz-legend-bill...

Hopefully this poorly written book opens a book to better integration of both the good and the bad of U.S. history.

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I think the U.S. is obsessed with the subject. On the other hand, places like Brazil and other parts of Latin America, along with the Spanish and Portuguese, most definitely have not adequately acknowledged their past and even attempt to blatantly whitewash (excuse the expression) by creating what is a myth that they were and are less 'racist' than the U.S. I would argue they are actually more genuinely racist, as are many parts of the world outside the U.S. Political correctness and walking on eggshells around these issues are almost entirely a western, first world phenomena. But since the U.S. is considered the most influential, 'powerful' nation, it is regularly singled out for special scrutiny the way other places aren't.

And I'm well aware the mostly white Spanish, Portuguese and European ruling classes in Latin America are no joke, and have historically and still today treated indigenous Mestizos and blacks, in some places, poorly.

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The Quock Walker cases in 1783: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h38.html

Another good source is information from the Royall House, which has an intact slave quarters: http://www.royallhouse.org/slavery/belindas-petition

Belinda was a slave of the Royall Family in Medford. Isaac Royall died in exile, and his estate specified that Belinda could choose her freedom with a stipend. She petitioned for her stipend, and prevailed in court.

Note that slavery continued into the 1800s in other New England states. Also note that slavery was legal in Massachusetts (1641-1783) for a longer period of time than it was in Georgia (1735/1751-1865).

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I think the number of slaves in Georgia and Massachusetts matters more than the length of time when it was legal. It was all about economics and in Massachusetts, slavery never really made economic sense.

And Georgia wasn't colonized until the 1730s--it's not that it was illegal then became legal.

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... (using Afrrican slaves) in the colony he started, largely for pragmatic reasons -- but the ban was eventually overruled after Oglethorpe defeated the Spanish in Florida (who promised freedom to fleeing slaves) and returned to England (having mostly lost interest in "his" experiment). By 1750, influential Georgia planters prevailed in getting the ban lifted.

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on the date slavery officially started in Georgia. Thanks.

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... for almost 8 years, I learned this sort of thing. It's a state with a very interesting history. ;-}

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The census of 1850 & 1860 included counts of slaves by state. There were no slaves counted in Mass in either census. Georgia has around 385,000 slaves. There is no equivalency between the two states in terms of slavery.

That said, in Georgia slavery was concentrated in the southern part of the state. Mid & northern Georgia had few slaves and at the Georgia secession convention many of the representatives from non-slave areas opposed secession; I can't off the top of my head remember the actual vote but it was something like 55% in favor of the confederacy 45% in supporting remaining in the Union.

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As a teacher of forty years' experience, I'd like to weigh in on this controversy about Brookline's fifth grade history textbook, as there seems to be a central point missing in the discussion--the extent of the focus it provides on the issue of slavery. Of course, slave owners treated their slaves differently, but that just doesn't have anything to do with the institution of slavery itself--that human beings were bought and sold as chattel. The history textbooks that are being used in this country's public schools are not all that different from those used in this country's public schools 50 or even 100 years ago (except that they may have another 50 to 100 years' worth of "factoids" to present). The publishers of these "texts" do not try to provide students with a narrative focused on a nation struggling with deep and complex issues over time--rather, they present a sort of "patriotic display" of "facts" taken out of context. They don't "teach history." They encourage "civic pride." A great many teachers are quick to condemn Wikipedia as a worthy source of information; they would do well to take a closer look at the textbooks sitting in their own classrooms.

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