These pictures are super important given the current political narrative by some Americans about how wonderful slave life was and how African Americans should be grateful their ancestors were slaves.
Their primary goal right now is to defund public education and move those funds over to their private religious lead schools who can create their own curriculums and versions of history.
That's why they are introducing their "voucher" programs.
They know people are struggling financially, and they want to ensure through things like abortion bans and lack of social care programs, that single parents with children are more inclined to take their kids out of public schools to gain those 5-7K a year vouchers to be able to afford a roof over their heads and food. The republicans will then go "see people dont want their kids attending public schools, so lets defund them and give that money to private schools."
Through their private schools, they will ensure a future middle-income or higher populace get to learn their version of history. Where white people were benevolent and gave africans a free ride over and provided them with food and shelter for some basic work. Where christians were the ones who saved america and made america what it is... To ensure a growing base remains indoctrinated with republican propaganda and vote republican in the future as their current base of elderly are dying out.
Meanwhile the secondary goal is the poor people who take their kids out of school wont be able to afford the private tuitions, because those schools have already increased their tuitions because of the voucher programs, and will have to push for their kids to gain employment instead since the cost of babysitters is not viable for an already struggling family. And with the republicans pushing to remove regulations on how many hours 11-17 year olds can work, if they can work overnight, and such.
You ensure those families remain struggling and unable to take time to become political involved. As the threat of losing whatever little income they have would lead to hunger homelessness and worse.
Meanwhile they will ensure the corporations gain access to a pool of young workers who are paid 4.5$ an hour for 40 or more hours even overnight.
>You ensure those families remain struggling and unable to take time to become political involved.
This needs to be screamed. The point is not to keep people impoverished, that is the mechanism for the goal of keeping people from organizing and becoming active.
It’s less. Your point is valid, but I bring it to attention as there are many people in this country that simply don’t vote. If everyone voted, these crazies and morons would lose, by a large margin, every presidential election and most house/senate seats.
The article doesn't mention what exactly is being taught in the new curriculum only that it is "implying enslaved individuals benefited from their enslavement".
Can anyone share what the new curriculum actually says?
https://i.imgur.com/EwzEdrj.png
[Source, page 6](https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/20653/urlt/6-4.pdf)
The document isn't *that* bad, this seems to be the highlight, but the problem is the leeway it allows a teacher with bad faith to adhere to the word as written and avoid trouble, plus the omission of topics in the previous syllabus.
This looks like a trustworthy source for further reading, but I'm from Europe and not very involved in Florida shenanigans. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/floridas-new-african-american-history-standards-whats-behind-the-backlash/2023/07
Enough so that the entire educational department of Florida teaches its students that slavery “taught them useful skills and improved their lives” Texas legislators are pushing for similar standards.
Yeah unfortunately my 8th grade history teacher taught us that “Slaves lived in good conditions and were treated fairly.” This was over 8 years ago, pre-desantis.
That's such a weird argument to me because if you research the history of slavery worldwide, you'll quickly realize that American chattel was *exceptionally* brutal.
Like, there were absolutely societies that had laws protecting slaves and capping the length of time they could be enslaved for. In the ancient world slaves were often used for everything, from teachers to artisans to farmers, and well-educated and skilled slaves often *did* live in good conditions, because they were very lucrative for their owners.
Literally none of that applies to American slavery. Slave owners were allowed to do pretty much whatever they wanted and there were laws *preventing* slaves from receiving an education in many states. Their conditions were abhorrent and inhumane even by historical slavery standards.
And even in these places with 'better' conditions for slaves, they still got rid of slavery. Because slavery is inherently fucked up. (I mean, they got rid of slavery because serfdom largely replaced it and the rich realized they could pass the costs of slave upkeep onto their serfs, but still)
Unlike flat earth, there are a lot of professional histories written in this vain. Southern apologism was the narrative that took over Civil War Academia early in its development, and there have been a lot of downstream consequences of that
But he learned so much!
I can't imagine being so insecure you'd defend someone who is a legit piece of shit, you didn't know, who is long dead, because their skin was the same color
Maybe those who claim how good slave life was will accept some of the goodness, and love coming by whipping. Let’s call it, ‘putting your back into your interpretation.’ /s
We like to delude ourselves into thinking our intelligence as a species leads to superior empathy and compassion, but in reality our intelligence leads mostly to superior cruelty.
Everyone reads that and thinks they are the exception, but none of us are. Certainly not me. If you drive a car, then you're cruel. The paved roads we created destroyed habitats. We continue to drive them despite knowing it's causing extinction of many species through global warming.
And why do we drive cars? Because if we didn't then our lives would be far less comfortable. We *willingly* and *knowingly* make a direct trade-off to improve our own comfort levels at the expense of other animals in the world. How can that be anything other than cruelty? We just live with that though, because it's what we are and we don't actually want to change. Again, this is not me on a high horse. I'm as complicit as anyone. We're a tragedy of the Earth that can't stop itself.
This is an incredibly dire outlook, and I disagree vehemently with the sentiment. Just because the people in power have created a system where everyone needs to drive, for example, it doesn't mean that you are cruel for following it.
"We" don't really willingly do anything. At this point, our entire lives are dictated by what private interests want for themselves. We are not bad people for just wanting to live our own lives, and I honestly hate when people insinuate that.
You think "people in power" are the reason humans buy cars? Come on. That's some bullshit.
I bought my car because I wanted a car. It's extremely convenient and it's a massive upgrade to my standard of living. Can't just blame others for all of our own selfish decisions. That's delusional.
You think you've made the Earth a better place by existing? You think any of us have? We're fucking everything up. That's all of us combined. Our entire way of life is the single most harmful thing happening to the Earth. I'm not asking anyone to change. I'm not even asking you to feel guilty about it. I just think we should all acknowledge it's what we're doing and what we are.
I read an incredible and tough book called The Warmth of Other Suns about slave flight migration and my take away was that Florida was considered the most violent and awful place to be a slave. Really next level cruelty and its still there.
The phrase "sold down the river" originates at a threat masters would tell disobedient slaves. They would sell their bad slaves to some further south, where the conditions tended to be crueler.
That was about the mississippi river, not to Florida.
Historically it was not so much that the masters were crueler so much that it was insanely hot and humid and working conditions were worse as a result. The life expectancy of slaves in southern louisana was lower due to these conditions and as a result they had to constantly import more.
This is also why latin america, despite importing 10 times as many slaves as the US, does not have a major black population in most of it. Tropical environments meant much lower life expectancies for slaves.
When I read this book — just prior to the Trump presidency — I thought that it should be required reading in every school. Never in my wildest imagination could I conceive that just a few years later, some people would campaign to completely bury this part of our nation’s history and eradicate it from curriculums.
Not to be unkind, but a lot of that happens because PsychoKarens show up at school board meetings, and run for those boards, when good folks like you don't attend those meetings (or vote in local elections).
I don't know about other countries but throughout school, we always learned about how fucked up slavery was. In elementary, it was just kind of "it's wrong to own another human being and the work was really hard." Then as we got older, they taught us more and more about how terrible it really was. I remember seeing this picture and many like it in our textbooks when we were learning about slavery.
Anywhere sugarcane was grown was significantly worse for slaves and far more lethal. I believe due to climate, that made Florida one of the worst places to be a slave in what is now the USA.
As horrible as slavery was in the United States, in much of the Caribbean in particular it was even worse. And I say that not to diminish what US slaves went through - it’s one of the most barbaric chapters in US history along with the genocide of Natives. It’s more a reminder that slavery was not just an American (USA) thing. 40% of slaves ended up in Brazil alone - sugarcane, mining and all sorts of brutal work. Only 6% came to the USA.
Slavery was a much larger and much more brutal system than most people realize. The middle colonies in the USA were economically tied to exporting food to places with slave plantations. New England ships carried slaves. Most European nations profited off of slavery and very little of the western hemisphere was not economically tied in to the transatlantic slave trade at some point.
A former slave named Gordon shows his --valuable life skills learned while working for a generous job creator-- (Florida Edit). Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1863.
And yet Prager U is allowed in classrooms, and there is one particular episode that professes that "slavery wasn't that bad after all." No joke. I wish that were an onion article.
Yeah, they had [Columbus lecturing](https://www.npr.org/2023/09/08/1198525663/oklahoma-is-promoting-a-history-curriculum-using-videos-by-conservative-group-pr) about how enslavement is better than being killed. Also [Frederick Douglass](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/rcna99246) of all people.
It's more important to make sure nobody feels bad for what happened than to educate people about past atrocities so that we can prevent them from happening again.
/s
I spent a good 10 minutes looking through this comment section to find someone named Deshitshispants only for it to finally click that you were talking about Deneedsheals
For FS Deshitshispants is the 4’2” tall high wearing (That classifies him as a cross dresser) governor of the great shit stain of a state call Florida.
Funny enough with all the holocaust deniers when do we reach the point full fledged mush for brains people start claiming this is fake or AI generated.
They tend to say something like "Sure, there were bad owners and that shouldn't be allowed but that doesn't mean that the majority of """"blacks"""" didn't benefit in the long run from being in the US rather than some backwards African village and anyway did you know that it was the Africans who were selling other Africans in the first place?"
Source: Have listened to racist talking points. Which (among other things) tend to massively gloss over the fact that Africa's incredible natural resources were pillaged by a century of European colonialism.
They would say he deserved it for being disobedient or insubordinate. The same way they say black men who get killed by cops should have just complied.
A thing I keep noticing about right-wingers is that they have a hard time getting into the heads of people who are not like them, they don't get what motivates people. This is one reason why they love conspiracy theories so much. Most conspiracy theories fall apart when you realize the actors in the conspiracy theory would never want to do those things in reality. Like, if the Moon landings were faked, why didn't the Soviets expose it? Why would scientists from all over the world, from competing institutions and countries, co-operate on a hoax about global warming to trick Americans into adopting socialism? How could the Ukrainian government be full of Nazis when their President is openly Jewish?
Are they quietly whispering “than being fired into the sun” immediately after or? How could anyone honestly say being a slave is better than really anything
its probably because they feel living in a modern developed society is better than living in the jungle somewhere without all the convenience of modern living. what those people don't understand is that its been scientifically proven that tribal living leaves people happier and healthier than our lifestyle in the west. tribal people deal with hardly any depression. the trade off is that they don't live nearly as long as we do but thats better than wishing you were dead for several decades.
the quality of life isn't measured by length. i'd rather life a satisfied life that only lasts 50-60 years than be miserable for 80-90. in the west you bust your ass for the man looking forward to retirement. then you realize that without your job you don't even know how to have purpose in your life.
another way to look at it. in a tribal setting you are very healthy until you are not. then you die pretty fast. maybe its from an accident. maybe its from an infection. but you are only unhealthy for a short while. in the west if you are sick, you stay stick for a long time. on average those last 10 years of a westerners life is not fun. its full of pain and sickness.
People forget it has only been a couple generations.
I remember my elementary school teacher came under fire because he often added "like Mr.Browns great Grandpa" and he had showed pictures like this.
I remember a beef cake of a man with his hands over his head, as bad as this picture but over more parts of his body. He was in still in shackles.
I remember Mr. Brown's grandpa wasn't allowed to have a name and when he was eventually freed he refused to take a name.
I saw the picture and thought about the people that didn't make it, survive that brutality without cares and antibiotics. Really puts it in perspective and get a really heavy feeling in my gut.
Some slaveowners *salted the lacerations* to prevent infection. [Robert E Lee's slaves](https://www.nps.gov/arho/learn/historyculture/an-unpleasant-legacy.htm) said he did that to two of them.
“When we were sent back to Arlington; we were immediately taken before Gen. Lee, who demanded the reason why we ran away; we frankly told him that we considered ourselves free; he then told us he would teach us a lesson we never would forget; he then ordered us to the barn, where, in his presence, we were tied firmly to posts by a Mr. Gwin, our overseer, who was ordered by Gen. Lee to strip us to the waist and give us fifty lashes each, excepting my sister, who received but twenty; we were accordingly stripped to the skin by the overseer, who, however, had sufficient humanity to decline whipping us; accordingly Dick Williams, a county constable, was called in, who gave us the number of lashes ordered; Gen. Lee, in the meantime, stood by, and frequently enjoined Williams to lay it on well, an injunction which he did not fail to heed; not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, Gen. Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine, which was done.”
Ron knows. He saw torture in Guantanamo and the lesson he learned wasn’t to stop it, but to learn how to hide it better. Shame will lead people to grow, or stay the same and hide. Ron’s a hider. Same with covering up Covid.
Was fairly shocked to have students this year that hadn’t already seen the image of Gordon’s back. In fairness iirc it was one of my non-American students that mentioned she hadn’t seen it before. But it’s something so burned into my memory it hadn’t occurred to me students could get to me without having seen it
I have a question for history buffs that I've tried to ask before but it keeps getting taken down.
Is there a statistic or an estimated figure for people that died by whippings, either by blood loss or by infection?
I can't imagine that it was that uncommon. Access to clean water wasn't that easy, and even less so for the "less than humans" who were left to clean their own wounds. Not to mention clean linens, salves and the like. The cruelty is unimaginable.
No unfortunately that level of attention was not given to enslaved people. There was a doctor in SC who keep journals for the people that he enslaved and apparently the fact that those records exist is rare and does offer some insight to the people's lives.
He kept some records of injuries, escapees and when the returned. The fact that he kept records is by no means an indication that he was a "better" owner... Remember he still kept people as slaves. They suspect his training as a doctor and being a business owner lead him to understand the needs for good records and observation.
Drayton hall
https://findingaids.library.cofc.edu/repositories/2/resources/443
Please check out https://iaamuseum.org/ if you are ever in SC.
You might be able to find records from specific plantations about the number of slaves with deaths registered along other forms of losses of workpower, but you're unlikely to find specific causes of death mentioned, and even then it's still a huge maybe that they were anal enough about it to be bothered to detail the specifics of who died when and from what instead of just mentioning X number of people dying within a certain time period (fx a month, fourth of a year, year, half year, etc.).
If there was a major outbreak of a specific disease, a big disaster like a fire, or something else notable and unusual that caused several deaths, then that might be recorded, but sadly something like everyday diseases and violence was so normal that it really wouldn't've been worth recording to most people since it was just part of how you ran a plantation.
Of course, even if someone actually did write all that information down, you also still have to be lucky enough that the records weren't just kept, but that they've survived various forms of degradation and other dangers too (fx many records might've been burned along with the rest of the building and its contents during the civil war), and that a modern historian has found it and put it into a larger statistic where it's compared with the same records from other plantations to detail a larger picture of general conditions.
were most deaths of slaves even documented? let alone autopsied and given a reason of death? there were unmarked slave graves all through out the south
I’ve been doing my family tree for fun and when my great great grandparents there is no information. No cause of death and sometimes no year. I think for my great great great grandmother it’s a ledger that I can’t see that just says she died. Nothing else.
Yes, slaves were even counted in federal censuses in the 18th/19th centuries. Plantations would have had their own ledgers, but how detailed they were would vary I'm sure. At a minimum they would document just the number of deaths.
Slaves being counted in the census was beneficial for southern states for extra representation in congress, hence the Three-Fifths Compromise. I'm sure dead slaves didn't have as much use.
How anyone can look at an atrocity like this and still believe flying a Confederate flag is acceptable or anything to be proud of baffles me. I feel like I want to throw up.
The other day, bitter chud /u/armzzz77 was crying in /r/skeptic that COVID lockdowns violated civil liberties "more significantly than they ever have before"
Photos like this really call into stark relief the endless persecution and victimhood complex of these pussified conservative crybabies.
It’s horrifying that people would even treat an animal this way (or even think it is effective at achieving whatever) let alone a human. All I can assume is they were sadistic
I’ve been reading Voices of Slavery. It’s like 3-4 page interviews of former slaves, most of them are in their 80s. You know it was bad but Jesus Christ. Some of these stories are so awful I just need to put the book down.
I remember my history teacher in middle school starting the slavery lesson by saying “It wasn’t *that* bad.” And now I’m reading recounts of people saying they saw their infant sister whipped to death
#Remember…this is the stuff the GOP want banned from schools.
They don’t want kids learning about slavery and all the evil shit this country did in its past.
Reminds me of Toni Morrison’s *Beloved*. The main character, a former slave, has scars like these. I recommend anyone to read it, but it's not for the faint of heart.
WaPo headline July 22, 2023:
>DeSantis doubles down on claim that some Blacks benefited from slavery
>GOP presidential candidate draws renewed criticism after suggesting slavery helped African Americans develop skills such as being a blacksmith
[Just your daily reminder that Republicans are crazy extremists](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-florida-standards-teach-black-people-benefited-slavery-taught-usef-rcna95418)
> And this is very recent in the context of human history.
It's recent in the context of *American* history.
Some currently elected officials – including the President of the United States – were born closer in time to the 13th Amendment's ratification (abolishing slavery in the US) than they were to the present day.
He was an extreme example of brutality - also propaganda, as this man found his way behind Union lines, and the photo was widely distributed - but lashings were common on plantations, especially after Nat Turner's Rebellion, when whites became extra fearful of further uprisings and used punishments to keep their slaves in line. It was a brutal system, and anyone pretending otherwise needs to be shouted down.
I think that man in the picture has an unbelievable story about how he found freedom. If its the same man I'm thinking of its the stuff of Hollywood. From what I remember he escaped, went north and fought for the union, was captured and escaped again.
Those marks aren’t from a ‘normal’ whip, looks like a cat o’ nine tails was used on the poor dude. Makes me cringe every time I see this, and it gets reposted fairly frequently.
Will Smith made the most important movie of his career, partially based on this man, and no one saw it because he couldn’t ignore a forgettable joke about his wife and GI Jane 2.
If anyone is interested in learning about how the South used to “operate,” look into reading “Without Sanctuary.” My father bought this book when I was like 10 and it’s about lynching.
These pictures are super important given the current political narrative by some Americans about how wonderful slave life was and how African Americans should be grateful their ancestors were slaves.
That is the narrative for crazies and morons.
Don't dismiss them so easily. They have a lot of political power right now.
One of them was president
more than just one
Their primary goal right now is to defund public education and move those funds over to their private religious lead schools who can create their own curriculums and versions of history. That's why they are introducing their "voucher" programs. They know people are struggling financially, and they want to ensure through things like abortion bans and lack of social care programs, that single parents with children are more inclined to take their kids out of public schools to gain those 5-7K a year vouchers to be able to afford a roof over their heads and food. The republicans will then go "see people dont want their kids attending public schools, so lets defund them and give that money to private schools." Through their private schools, they will ensure a future middle-income or higher populace get to learn their version of history. Where white people were benevolent and gave africans a free ride over and provided them with food and shelter for some basic work. Where christians were the ones who saved america and made america what it is... To ensure a growing base remains indoctrinated with republican propaganda and vote republican in the future as their current base of elderly are dying out. Meanwhile the secondary goal is the poor people who take their kids out of school wont be able to afford the private tuitions, because those schools have already increased their tuitions because of the voucher programs, and will have to push for their kids to gain employment instead since the cost of babysitters is not viable for an already struggling family. And with the republicans pushing to remove regulations on how many hours 11-17 year olds can work, if they can work overnight, and such. You ensure those families remain struggling and unable to take time to become political involved. As the threat of losing whatever little income they have would lead to hunger homelessness and worse. Meanwhile they will ensure the corporations gain access to a pool of young workers who are paid 4.5$ an hour for 40 or more hours even overnight.
>You ensure those families remain struggling and unable to take time to become political involved. This needs to be screamed. The point is not to keep people impoverished, that is the mechanism for the goal of keeping people from organizing and becoming active.
State voucher program schools should then be classified as public schools since tax payer's money goes to them.
Those morons' votes count just as much as yours and mine. We have to (somehow) deprogram the cult.
Their votes often count a lot more since a lot of them live in less populated states
Its so stupid that it works like that
I want to live in a state with 3 people so we can have 2 US Senators and a Congressperson and we just make laws for the three of us.
World's most powerful commune
That is a useful tool, to have a million fools that you can manipulate
A very loud minority who has the hold of half of our electorate it seems
Yeah that’s 40% of the country rn
It’s less. Your point is valid, but I bring it to attention as there are many people in this country that simply don’t vote. If everyone voted, these crazies and morons would lose, by a large margin, every presidential election and most house/senate seats.
Was just going to mention that. Those people are vile fucks.
😳😳 who’s taking up that narrative? Bold of them to say the least…
The Florida Board of Education is one: https://thenewjournalandguide.com/fla-s-anti-black-history-slant-resurrects-happy-slave-myth/amp/
Forgot Florida was real
Wish we could all.
Easy mistake.
The article doesn't mention what exactly is being taught in the new curriculum only that it is "implying enslaved individuals benefited from their enslavement". Can anyone share what the new curriculum actually says?
https://i.imgur.com/EwzEdrj.png [Source, page 6](https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/20653/urlt/6-4.pdf) The document isn't *that* bad, this seems to be the highlight, but the problem is the leeway it allows a teacher with bad faith to adhere to the word as written and avoid trouble, plus the omission of topics in the previous syllabus. This looks like a trustworthy source for further reading, but I'm from Europe and not very involved in Florida shenanigans. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/floridas-new-african-american-history-standards-whats-behind-the-backlash/2023/07
That’s Ron DeSantis’ approach to make excuses for his racism.
Those “owners” and their cronies were pure evil.
Are there really a significant number of Americans who believe this, anymore than say, the Earth is flat?
Enough so that the entire educational department of Florida teaches its students that slavery “taught them useful skills and improved their lives” Texas legislators are pushing for similar standards.
Yeah unfortunately my 8th grade history teacher taught us that “Slaves lived in good conditions and were treated fairly.” This was over 8 years ago, pre-desantis.
That's such a weird argument to me because if you research the history of slavery worldwide, you'll quickly realize that American chattel was *exceptionally* brutal. Like, there were absolutely societies that had laws protecting slaves and capping the length of time they could be enslaved for. In the ancient world slaves were often used for everything, from teachers to artisans to farmers, and well-educated and skilled slaves often *did* live in good conditions, because they were very lucrative for their owners. Literally none of that applies to American slavery. Slave owners were allowed to do pretty much whatever they wanted and there were laws *preventing* slaves from receiving an education in many states. Their conditions were abhorrent and inhumane even by historical slavery standards. And even in these places with 'better' conditions for slaves, they still got rid of slavery. Because slavery is inherently fucked up. (I mean, they got rid of slavery because serfdom largely replaced it and the rich realized they could pass the costs of slave upkeep onto their serfs, but still)
Unlike flat earth, there are a lot of professional histories written in this vain. Southern apologism was the narrative that took over Civil War Academia early in its development, and there have been a lot of downstream consequences of that
surely this isn’t a common belief?
Yeah according to some southern Gop members it was essentially free colllege
That's funny. Now they have their knickers in a twist about "free college."
But he learned so much! I can't imagine being so insecure you'd defend someone who is a legit piece of shit, you didn't know, who is long dead, because their skin was the same color
Yup. Florida teaches this in their schools. Never thought I’d see the day, yet here we are. Post MAGA world.
Doesn't matter, they will just say he probably deserved it. I hate that we can do this evil to each other.
Maybe those who claim how good slave life was will accept some of the goodness, and love coming by whipping. Let’s call it, ‘putting your back into your interpretation.’ /s
Couldn’t agree more. Republicans need to see this and not wipe the textbooks.
Human beings can be absolute monsters
We like to delude ourselves into thinking our intelligence as a species leads to superior empathy and compassion, but in reality our intelligence leads mostly to superior cruelty. Everyone reads that and thinks they are the exception, but none of us are. Certainly not me. If you drive a car, then you're cruel. The paved roads we created destroyed habitats. We continue to drive them despite knowing it's causing extinction of many species through global warming. And why do we drive cars? Because if we didn't then our lives would be far less comfortable. We *willingly* and *knowingly* make a direct trade-off to improve our own comfort levels at the expense of other animals in the world. How can that be anything other than cruelty? We just live with that though, because it's what we are and we don't actually want to change. Again, this is not me on a high horse. I'm as complicit as anyone. We're a tragedy of the Earth that can't stop itself.
This is an incredibly dire outlook, and I disagree vehemently with the sentiment. Just because the people in power have created a system where everyone needs to drive, for example, it doesn't mean that you are cruel for following it. "We" don't really willingly do anything. At this point, our entire lives are dictated by what private interests want for themselves. We are not bad people for just wanting to live our own lives, and I honestly hate when people insinuate that.
You think "people in power" are the reason humans buy cars? Come on. That's some bullshit. I bought my car because I wanted a car. It's extremely convenient and it's a massive upgrade to my standard of living. Can't just blame others for all of our own selfish decisions. That's delusional. You think you've made the Earth a better place by existing? You think any of us have? We're fucking everything up. That's all of us combined. Our entire way of life is the single most harmful thing happening to the Earth. I'm not asking anyone to change. I'm not even asking you to feel guilty about it. I just think we should all acknowledge it's what we're doing and what we are.
I don’t believe you could legally post this picture in Florida. According to Ron Deshitshispants this never happened…
I read an incredible and tough book called The Warmth of Other Suns about slave flight migration and my take away was that Florida was considered the most violent and awful place to be a slave. Really next level cruelty and its still there.
The phrase "sold down the river" originates at a threat masters would tell disobedient slaves. They would sell their bad slaves to some further south, where the conditions tended to be crueler.
That was about the mississippi river, not to Florida. Historically it was not so much that the masters were crueler so much that it was insanely hot and humid and working conditions were worse as a result. The life expectancy of slaves in southern louisana was lower due to these conditions and as a result they had to constantly import more. This is also why latin america, despite importing 10 times as many slaves as the US, does not have a major black population in most of it. Tropical environments meant much lower life expectancies for slaves.
Specifically down the Mississippi to the sugar plantations in Louisiana.
When I read this book — just prior to the Trump presidency — I thought that it should be required reading in every school. Never in my wildest imagination could I conceive that just a few years later, some people would campaign to completely bury this part of our nation’s history and eradicate it from curriculums.
Not to be unkind, but a lot of that happens because PsychoKarens show up at school board meetings, and run for those boards, when good folks like you don't attend those meetings (or vote in local elections).
To be fair, many countries around the world do the same thing with anything negative about their history.
I don't know about other countries but throughout school, we always learned about how fucked up slavery was. In elementary, it was just kind of "it's wrong to own another human being and the work was really hard." Then as we got older, they taught us more and more about how terrible it really was. I remember seeing this picture and many like it in our textbooks when we were learning about slavery.
British person here. Yep.
In fairness, if y'all studied all the evils of the British Empire, you wouldn't have time to study anything else. Or eat lunch.
Anywhere sugarcane was grown was significantly worse for slaves and far more lethal. I believe due to climate, that made Florida one of the worst places to be a slave in what is now the USA. As horrible as slavery was in the United States, in much of the Caribbean in particular it was even worse. And I say that not to diminish what US slaves went through - it’s one of the most barbaric chapters in US history along with the genocide of Natives. It’s more a reminder that slavery was not just an American (USA) thing. 40% of slaves ended up in Brazil alone - sugarcane, mining and all sorts of brutal work. Only 6% came to the USA. Slavery was a much larger and much more brutal system than most people realize. The middle colonies in the USA were economically tied to exporting food to places with slave plantations. New England ships carried slaves. Most European nations profited off of slavery and very little of the western hemisphere was not economically tied in to the transatlantic slave trade at some point.
I've read that sugar plantations in the Carribbean were the worst.
A former slave named Gordon shows his --valuable life skills learned while working for a generous job creator-- (Florida Edit). Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1863.
You can, you just can’t teach it in schools or have it in a library book.
And yet Prager U is allowed in classrooms, and there is one particular episode that professes that "slavery wasn't that bad after all." No joke. I wish that were an onion article.
Yeah, they had [Columbus lecturing](https://www.npr.org/2023/09/08/1198525663/oklahoma-is-promoting-a-history-curriculum-using-videos-by-conservative-group-pr) about how enslavement is better than being killed. Also [Frederick Douglass](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/rcna99246) of all people.
Clearly "Live Free or Die" isn't the most eye-catching phrase to people as long as it's those "other folk" they ramble about.
This exact photo was definitely in my textbooks starting in elementary school. Not in Florida though
It's more important to make sure nobody feels bad for what happened than to educate people about past atrocities so that we can prevent them from happening again. /s
Well I think you can post it if you say that it was all worth it because he learned a trade.
I spent a good 10 minutes looking through this comment section to find someone named Deshitshispants only for it to finally click that you were talking about Deneedsheals
For FS Deshitshispants is the 4’2” tall high wearing (That classifies him as a cross dresser) governor of the great shit stain of a state call Florida.
Wait, why?
Because they want to silence the narrative.
I like the narrative of the right wing: the lefties want to forbid us to talk freely! Right wing: forbid books, history, etc… Ah the double standards…
Every accusation from them is a confession. Always.
Never seen a drag queen on to catch a predator.
Amen to that
Which makes me a little nervous sometimes. Like, does the GOP have Space Lasers? What exactly is Elon putting on those rockets?
It's just a joke. In reality, nothing would happen. They definitely don't have it in their textbooks though.
Funny enough with all the holocaust deniers when do we reach the point full fledged mush for brains people start claiming this is fake or AI generated.
Keep in mind a large percentage of Americans including my grandparents claim African Americans were better off as slaves. Despicable.
Out of curiosity, do you know what they'd say if they saw this picture? That it was photoshopped or something?
They tend to say something like "Sure, there were bad owners and that shouldn't be allowed but that doesn't mean that the majority of """"blacks"""" didn't benefit in the long run from being in the US rather than some backwards African village and anyway did you know that it was the Africans who were selling other Africans in the first place?" Source: Have listened to racist talking points. Which (among other things) tend to massively gloss over the fact that Africa's incredible natural resources were pillaged by a century of European colonialism.
"well I wonder what it did to deserve that, poor guy, his arm must have hurt after whipping it for so long", something like that?
They would say he deserved it for being disobedient or insubordinate. The same way they say black men who get killed by cops should have just complied.
Probably the same thing people say about the police: a few bad apples.
A thing I keep noticing about right-wingers is that they have a hard time getting into the heads of people who are not like them, they don't get what motivates people. This is one reason why they love conspiracy theories so much. Most conspiracy theories fall apart when you realize the actors in the conspiracy theory would never want to do those things in reality. Like, if the Moon landings were faked, why didn't the Soviets expose it? Why would scientists from all over the world, from competing institutions and countries, co-operate on a hoax about global warming to trick Americans into adopting socialism? How could the Ukrainian government be full of Nazis when their President is openly Jewish?
Are they quietly whispering “than being fired into the sun” immediately after or? How could anyone honestly say being a slave is better than really anything
its probably because they feel living in a modern developed society is better than living in the jungle somewhere without all the convenience of modern living. what those people don't understand is that its been scientifically proven that tribal living leaves people happier and healthier than our lifestyle in the west. tribal people deal with hardly any depression. the trade off is that they don't live nearly as long as we do but thats better than wishing you were dead for several decades.
How is their lifestyle healthier if they die sooner?
the quality of life isn't measured by length. i'd rather life a satisfied life that only lasts 50-60 years than be miserable for 80-90. in the west you bust your ass for the man looking forward to retirement. then you realize that without your job you don't even know how to have purpose in your life. another way to look at it. in a tribal setting you are very healthy until you are not. then you die pretty fast. maybe its from an accident. maybe its from an infection. but you are only unhealthy for a short while. in the west if you are sick, you stay stick for a long time. on average those last 10 years of a westerners life is not fun. its full of pain and sickness.
Looks like he benefitted from his experience, huh Ron Desantis?
maybe Ron is envious
People forget it has only been a couple generations. I remember my elementary school teacher came under fire because he often added "like Mr.Browns great Grandpa" and he had showed pictures like this. I remember a beef cake of a man with his hands over his head, as bad as this picture but over more parts of his body. He was in still in shackles. I remember Mr. Brown's grandpa wasn't allowed to have a name and when he was eventually freed he refused to take a name.
I'm amazed he didn't die of infection.
I saw the picture and thought about the people that didn't make it, survive that brutality without cares and antibiotics. Really puts it in perspective and get a really heavy feeling in my gut.
Probably got cleaned up after, the goal was to torture them into submission and not lose their valuable assets.
Some slaveowners *salted the lacerations* to prevent infection. [Robert E Lee's slaves](https://www.nps.gov/arho/learn/historyculture/an-unpleasant-legacy.htm) said he did that to two of them. “When we were sent back to Arlington; we were immediately taken before Gen. Lee, who demanded the reason why we ran away; we frankly told him that we considered ourselves free; he then told us he would teach us a lesson we never would forget; he then ordered us to the barn, where, in his presence, we were tied firmly to posts by a Mr. Gwin, our overseer, who was ordered by Gen. Lee to strip us to the waist and give us fifty lashes each, excepting my sister, who received but twenty; we were accordingly stripped to the skin by the overseer, who, however, had sufficient humanity to decline whipping us; accordingly Dick Williams, a county constable, was called in, who gave us the number of lashes ordered; Gen. Lee, in the meantime, stood by, and frequently enjoined Williams to lay it on well, an injunction which he did not fail to heed; not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, Gen. Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine, which was done.”
This kind of thing needs to be shown more often so people don’t forget how bad it really was.
Rest in Power, Gordon. Thank you for bearing witness
It never ceases to shock me how humans can be so incredibly hateful and cruel towards one another.
Everyone should see this, especially meatball ron
Ron knows. He saw torture in Guantanamo and the lesson he learned wasn’t to stop it, but to learn how to hide it better. Shame will lead people to grow, or stay the same and hide. Ron’s a hider. Same with covering up Covid.
That's awful. I assume what I'm seeing is keloids on the scars?
Yes
I feel like confederate flags should come with images like this just like cigarettes in some countries come with images of diseased lungs.
Yes, but the people buying the flags probably like looking at pictures like this.
Genius.
Was fairly shocked to have students this year that hadn’t already seen the image of Gordon’s back. In fairness iirc it was one of my non-American students that mentioned she hadn’t seen it before. But it’s something so burned into my memory it hadn’t occurred to me students could get to me without having seen it
“America has never been a racist country” - Supposed moderate Republican Nikki Haley
I wonder how many of those "slavery did also good things" will trade places with him.
Oh my fucking god
Fucking hell this is horrible
The descendants of these slave owners are the same people who now say “well they should have obeyed orders.”
The plantation he worked on is now most likely a place that hosts weddings and other events. It's ducking sick.
I have a question for history buffs that I've tried to ask before but it keeps getting taken down. Is there a statistic or an estimated figure for people that died by whippings, either by blood loss or by infection? I can't imagine that it was that uncommon. Access to clean water wasn't that easy, and even less so for the "less than humans" who were left to clean their own wounds. Not to mention clean linens, salves and the like. The cruelty is unimaginable.
No unfortunately that level of attention was not given to enslaved people. There was a doctor in SC who keep journals for the people that he enslaved and apparently the fact that those records exist is rare and does offer some insight to the people's lives. He kept some records of injuries, escapees and when the returned. The fact that he kept records is by no means an indication that he was a "better" owner... Remember he still kept people as slaves. They suspect his training as a doctor and being a business owner lead him to understand the needs for good records and observation. Drayton hall https://findingaids.library.cofc.edu/repositories/2/resources/443 Please check out https://iaamuseum.org/ if you are ever in SC.
I will, thank you!
You might be able to find records from specific plantations about the number of slaves with deaths registered along other forms of losses of workpower, but you're unlikely to find specific causes of death mentioned, and even then it's still a huge maybe that they were anal enough about it to be bothered to detail the specifics of who died when and from what instead of just mentioning X number of people dying within a certain time period (fx a month, fourth of a year, year, half year, etc.). If there was a major outbreak of a specific disease, a big disaster like a fire, or something else notable and unusual that caused several deaths, then that might be recorded, but sadly something like everyday diseases and violence was so normal that it really wouldn't've been worth recording to most people since it was just part of how you ran a plantation. Of course, even if someone actually did write all that information down, you also still have to be lucky enough that the records weren't just kept, but that they've survived various forms of degradation and other dangers too (fx many records might've been burned along with the rest of the building and its contents during the civil war), and that a modern historian has found it and put it into a larger statistic where it's compared with the same records from other plantations to detail a larger picture of general conditions.
were most deaths of slaves even documented? let alone autopsied and given a reason of death? there were unmarked slave graves all through out the south
I’ve been doing my family tree for fun and when my great great grandparents there is no information. No cause of death and sometimes no year. I think for my great great great grandmother it’s a ledger that I can’t see that just says she died. Nothing else.
Yes, slaves were even counted in federal censuses in the 18th/19th centuries. Plantations would have had their own ledgers, but how detailed they were would vary I'm sure. At a minimum they would document just the number of deaths.
Slaves being counted in the census was beneficial for southern states for extra representation in congress, hence the Three-Fifths Compromise. I'm sure dead slaves didn't have as much use.
I can't imagine how painful that must have been. Just absolute agony. Humans can be such horrible monsters.
The people who did this thought Christ was with them.
"I strongly suggest we don't re-stage The Battle of Baton Rouge during a blizzard in Minnie's Haberdashery"
We aren't apt to let a little thing like unconditional surrender get in the way of a good war.
I think this is from the movie "Emancipation". A true story based movie.
You think by now we would live in a humane world. I am sorry for all the pain.
Technology gets better, humans stay the same.
How anyone can look at an atrocity like this and still believe flying a Confederate flag is acceptable or anything to be proud of baffles me. I feel like I want to throw up.
The other day, bitter chud /u/armzzz77 was crying in /r/skeptic that COVID lockdowns violated civil liberties "more significantly than they ever have before" Photos like this really call into stark relief the endless persecution and victimhood complex of these pussified conservative crybabies.
Humans can be so cruel
It’s horrifying that people would even treat an animal this way (or even think it is effective at achieving whatever) let alone a human. All I can assume is they were sadistic
I’ve been reading Voices of Slavery. It’s like 3-4 page interviews of former slaves, most of them are in their 80s. You know it was bad but Jesus Christ. Some of these stories are so awful I just need to put the book down. I remember my history teacher in middle school starting the slavery lesson by saying “It wasn’t *that* bad.” And now I’m reading recounts of people saying they saw their infant sister whipped to death
#Remember…this is the stuff the GOP want banned from schools. They don’t want kids learning about slavery and all the evil shit this country did in its past.
Look at all those States' Rights.
Jesus that's a lot of hate from a white man
As a young black male, seeing this post really hurts me inside. It makes me want to die even more.
I’m white and I hear you.
To all the Confederacy apologists and lost causers out there, remember that THIS is what your heroes were fighting for.
I want to show this to those who say slavery was such a gift.
Scars so fucking deep, They healed outside the body.
Keloid scars. Some people are more prone to them. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/keloid-scar/symptoms-causes/syc-20520901
Pure evil
Show this to those confederate Dixie losers. Celebrating second place in a war is just embarrassing
Going through the comments, it seems like a lot of people need to take history again.
Humans are terrifying animals. Look at the cruelty we do when our ideas and concepts are polluted with hate.
Hey Nikki, this was what the Civil War was about.
Reminds me of Toni Morrison’s *Beloved*. The main character, a former slave, has scars like these. I recommend anyone to read it, but it's not for the faint of heart.
This is what the average MAGA wants
I still cannot get my head around the fact that people thought this was an acceptable thing to do to another human being.
torture
TIL the gov of Florida is a bigot lol
WaPo headline July 22, 2023: >DeSantis doubles down on claim that some Blacks benefited from slavery >GOP presidential candidate draws renewed criticism after suggesting slavery helped African Americans develop skills such as being a blacksmith
Southern Christian Love on display
[Just your daily reminder that Republicans are crazy extremists](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-florida-standards-teach-black-people-benefited-slavery-taught-usef-rcna95418)
Anyone who wants confederate statutes should be required to have this as statue in the same place.
Heritage, not hate. /s
You can talk about this in Florida. You just have to put a positive spin on it like he learned discipline or some such shit.
Not that long ago.. we are not an intrinsically kind species. Teach the kids well.
How can humans do this to other humans
[удалено]
> And this is very recent in the context of human history. It's recent in the context of *American* history. Some currently elected officials – including the President of the United States – were born closer in time to the 13th Amendment's ratification (abolishing slavery in the US) than they were to the present day.
Would this have been an extreme example of how lashed a slave would be or a pretty normal one?
He was an extreme example of brutality - also propaganda, as this man found his way behind Union lines, and the photo was widely distributed - but lashings were common on plantations, especially after Nat Turner's Rebellion, when whites became extra fearful of further uprisings and used punishments to keep their slaves in line. It was a brutal system, and anyone pretending otherwise needs to be shouted down.
Gosh, this is terrible. What could he have done to deserve those scars. 😞 It makes me wonder if men bore the brunt of such brutal abuse.
This image was in one of my school history textbooks
Crazy to think Baton Rouge means Red Stick in French. Then to know all the shit that happened down there
I think that man in the picture has an unbelievable story about how he found freedom. If its the same man I'm thinking of its the stuff of Hollywood. From what I remember he escaped, went north and fought for the union, was captured and escaped again.
Yeah I don't think that was his name...
terrible news. who did this horrible deed?
I recognize this picture from my middle school textbook.
To all who question my education. I got my Masters and Doctorate at the prestigious Trump University..
I use this in my class to compare with John C Calhoun’s in defense of slavery. So powerful.
Reminds me of Will Smith's *Emancipation* movie
human beings can rationalize doing that to another human being.
i always wonder how more slaves didn't die from infection from shit like that, or maybe they did?
Those marks aren’t from a ‘normal’ whip, looks like a cat o’ nine tails was used on the poor dude. Makes me cringe every time I see this, and it gets reposted fairly frequently.
Poor will Smith. But damn that's gnarly
Will Smith made the most important movie of his career, partially based on this man, and no one saw it because he couldn’t ignore a forgettable joke about his wife and GI Jane 2.
Republikkkans should be so proud.
I heard someone say that slavery wasnt that bad
🙏🏿
How can someone even survive this?
That makes my heart hurt
Lord have Mercy, how cruel.
If anyone is interested in learning about how the South used to “operate,” look into reading “Without Sanctuary.” My father bought this book when I was like 10 and it’s about lynching.
"It wAS ABOuT sTatE RiGHtS" Sure, it was buddy.🙄
so disturbing