The Gaming Den

Wait, TR is listed as a racist but Jackson is not?

Remember, Jackson wears tight jeans.

POPULISM, YEA! YEA!

Yeah, I'm glad it is just a joke, because "Teddy Roosevelt-Racist" is hilarious. I mean... Yeah, and also every president before him and after him to at the absolutely earliest Coolidge, and only then because he never said anything.

Eh. The President thing is kinda grasping at straws.

-Well, it was a hemp farm. I remember that. Hemp has actual use.

-Back in the day, guys sleeping in the same bed wasn't a thing. Ishmael and Queequeg shared the same bed in Moby Dick because, well, there's only one bed. It's only homosexual if man-sex ensued.

-And FDR and Elenor were, like, 5th cousins and just happened to share the same last name name. Which, if I remember the Cousin Chart correctly, means they happen to share a set of Great-Great-Great-Great Grandparents. I'm not sure what the incest laws were in the area, but I'm pretty sure they stop caring past fourth cousin. Well, unless you're a freak who gets a tingle BECAUSE the sex partner is vaguely related to you. That shit's just creepy.

As to pre-21st century Presidents being racist, remember that the Great Emancipator could say things that modern Republicans only dream of being able to admit openly:

Abraham Lincoln wrote:. I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, ---that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

Where did he say that, Josh?

Cynic wrote:Where did he say that, Josh?

The Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. It was a senate race, and a popular issue at the time was fear of miscegenation.

-Username17

Over here, no one calls marrying your cousin incest - it's totally legal and morally accepted to marry the offspring of your parents' siblings.

So why is Jefferson labeled "slave relations" rather than "racist rapist"?

CatharzGodfoot wrote:So why is Jefferson labeled "slave relations" rather than "racist rapist"?

Well... his slave that he was fucking was also his girlfriend. He like took her to France where she acted like his mistress because it was totes OK there to have a Black mistress. And she didn't leave even though France didn't recognize his ownership of her.

Jefferson's owning of slaves in general is pretty fucked up. But there isn't any solid evidence that he ever raped any of them. He did knock one of his slaves up, but the whole situation is super complicated. Sally Hemmings was also Jefferson's Wife's Half Sister (because being mixed-race meant you were a slave), and Jefferson had a relationship with her for forty years and sired six children by her.

The South was an incredibly fucked up place, where shit like that happened.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:

CatharzGodfoot wrote:So why is Jefferson labeled "slave relations" rather than "racist rapist"?

Well... his slave that he was fucking was also his girlfriend. He like took her to France where she acted like his mistress because it was totes OK there to have a Black mistress. And she didn't leave even though France didn't recognize his ownership of her.

Jefferson's owning of slaves in general is pretty fucked up. But there isn't any solid evidence that he ever raped any of them. He did knock one of his slaves up, but the whole situation is super complicated. Sally Hemmings was also Jefferson's Wife's Half Sister (because being mixed-race meant you were a slave), and Jefferson had a relationship with her for forty years and sired six children by her.

The South was an incredibly fucked up place, where shit like that happened.

-Username17

So then, what was the deal with him not freeing Sally, his children, or for that matter his slaves, even in his will? And why did he write shit like "Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous."?

Because the elite, ie, white, land owning males, thought everyone who wasn't one of them, was inferior in some way. Remember. Slaves counted as 3/4 of a person, but women hardly counted at all.

I honestly have no idea where to put this, so I decided "fuck it, I'm gonna put it here, and if they don't like it, then they can go call customer support (857-288-3500)."

It's the heartwarming tale of a leprechaun and a beautiful princess. In space.

CatharzGodfoot wrote: So then, what was the deal with him not freeing Sally, his children, or for that matter his slaves, even in his will? And why did he write shit like "Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous."?

His children were never slaves. Sally Hemmings was 3/4 White, which meant that she was a non-person even though her half-sister was fully White and Jefferson's legal wife. Sally's children were 7/8ths White, which meant that they were legally White people and could (and did) own property and vote. Jefferson never publicly admitted paternity of them, but they were nevertheless part of Jefferson's family by dint of Jefferson having owned their mother. And as such, Jefferson was able to provide them with housing, education, and such-like without it being all that weird - so long as he continued to "own" their mom.

The American South was a horrible, horrible place. And Jefferson was a coward for not standing up to its worst abuses. And he did still fucking own actual people that he used for plantation farming, and that's fucked up. But the Sally Hemmings affair did not and does not indicate that he was a rapist at any point. That's just "shadow family" stuff, which was just part of how the Antebellum South operated.

-Username17

So is there an objective ethical differentiation between an individual owning slaves and a federal or privatised institution owning slaves?

Winnah wrote:So is there an objective ethical differentiation between an individual owning slaves and a federal or privatised institution owning slaves?

Only insofar as being burned to death is worse than receiving lethal injection.

Winnah wrote:So is there an objective ethical differentiation between an individual owning slaves and a federal or privatised institution owning slaves?

Institutions are subject to oversight in a way that individuals never can be. Institutions can also have policy directives that are persistent.

In a real but frankly trivial way, everyone is a slave to their country of origin. You can only leave their lands with the government's permission, they can compel you to labor, seize your property, incarcerate you, or even end your life if they so choose. But this relationship is not terribly problematic or dehumanizing because it's not individual or arbitrary. Applying for a passport is simply procedural and wholly impersonal. Being required to fill out the same form that everyone else has to in order to travel is simply not as grave an insult as being required to abase yourself before a specific master. Not even close.

-Username17

CatharzGodfoot wrote:So then, what was the deal with him not freeing Sally, his children, or for that matter his slaves, even in his will?

Because he was such a financial cockup that he couldn't free them. Especially not all at once in his will.

FrankTrollman wrote:

CatharzGodfoot wrote: So then, what was the deal with him not freeing Sally, his children, or for that matter his slaves, even in his will? And why did he write shit like "Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous."?

His children were never slaves. Sally Hemmings was 3/4 White, which meant that she was a non-person even though her half-sister was fully White and Jefferson's legal wife. Sally's children were 7/8ths White, which meant that they were legally White people and could (and did) own property and vote. Jefferson never publicly admitted paternity of them, but they were nevertheless part of Jefferson's family by dint of Jefferson having owned their mother. And as such, Jefferson was able to provide them with housing, education, and such-like without it being all that weird - so long as he continued to "own" their mom.

The American South was a horrible, horrible place. And Jefferson was a coward for not standing up to its worst abuses. And he did still fucking own actual people that he used for plantation farming, and that's fucked up. But the Sally Hemmings affair did not and does not indicate that he was a rapist at any point. That's just "shadow family" stuff, which was just part of how the Antebellum South operated.

-Username17

If that's true, it means that Jefferson wasn't quite as terrible a person as I thought, but he allowed a former slave to fall into depression and eventually suicide by refusing to free his wife or children. And then he did it again in his will (although that time, the man in question was eventually able to purchase his family from other slave owners). Jefferson considered personal luxury to be more important than the lives of his slaves.

Finally, Jefferson had the money to free all of his slaves, and chose not to.

Not to defend Jefferson, but I was pretty much under the impression that you were a free black only if a powerful nearby landowner said you were free and continued to say so. All the writs in the world don't mean shit when a bounty is paid on escaped slaves and your writ of freedom can be torn up on the spot.

Halloween!

A little something I whipped up real quick.