Why this black defender of the Confederate flag says slavery was ‘a choice’

[Liberal_in_LA]

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=1484

Cooper is a member of the Virginia Flaggers, an activist group that rejects the idea that the Confederate flag is a symbol of racism and hate.

The group was formed in response to a decision to remove Confederate flags from public view in several locations, including a Confederate memorial chapel on the grounds of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond and city light poles in Lexington, The Washington Post’s Susan Svrluga reported last year.

Like the rest of the Flaggers’ 40 or so members, Cooper feels pride and reverence each time she displays the flag in public.

If the flag was a racist symbol, Cooper argues in the video, she wouldn’t be an accepted member of a group composed primarily of white Southerners.

“I’m not advocating slavery or think that, you know, it was right,” she says. “It wasn’t, and none of my friends think it was. It was just something that happened. It didn’t just happen in the South, it happened worldwide.”

Besides, she adds, slavery is “a choice.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/06/30/why-some-black-defenders-of-the-confederate-flag-believe-slavery-was-a-choice/?tid=pm_national_pop_b

[WinkyDink]

1. Ignorance is bliss.

[JaneyVee]

2. "Slavery happened worldwide"

Yes, but only the south chooses to celebrate it as "heritage, not hate".

[Drahthaardogs]

43. The Saxon version of slavery is something quite different.

In north America, compare slaves in New Spain to slaves in the south. The Spaniard version of slavery was NOTHING like the Saxon's.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

3. Well

is she getting paid for doing that?

[malaise]

7. Duh!!!! n/t

[randys1]

51. Like Clarence Thomas is paid very handsomely to attack all Americans, not just the Black ones

But, having not walked in his shoes, I dont want to judge him.

[Blue_Tires]

44. +1

[bravenak]

4. She is stupid. I've met her type. Choice?

Being owned, beaten, sold and raped is a choice? See what happens when we let idiots write our childrens' textbooks?

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. " It was just something that happened."

[bravenak]

6. Living in a bubble.

Poor thang...

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

12. Maybe she reads '50 Shades of Grey' type of books.

And has no real notion of what 'slavery' actually was.

[bravenak]

13. .

Eww.

[Oilwellian]

31. She needs to see...

Django Unchained. One of the better films I've seen that depicted the true nature of slavery in the South. This girl has no clue.

[csziggy]

45. Or 12 Years a Slave

Based on a true story of Solomon Northup, a free black man who was abducted and sold into slavery. I haven't had the opportunity to see it, but the reviews said it was the greatest movie you would only want to see once. The story is that horrific.

[LordGlenconner]

53. It delivers, believe that

It's a deeply troubling movie but one that everyone who has any intellectual curiosity on the issue should see.

And the acting is of course quite good as well.

[csziggy]

56. I've read that it is excellent

But over the last few years my life has been grim enough without watching a very serious movie. I have to admit I have been intellectually lazy, only seeking entertainment that is unrealistic or amusing.

I hope to eventually feel that I can handle "12 Years A Slave" and get the full meaning out of it, but just knowing what the historic background story is and what Mr. Northrup suffered is wearing enough for now.

[LordGlenconner]

60. I haven't read his book

So not sure what liberties the film makers took (if any), but the ending is rather uplifting, without giving too much away.

But yes, there are some examples of graphic violence. Ironically it wasn't that which bothered me the most, it was watching mothers being torn away from their children when they were sold off. I found that to be pretty hard to watch, more so than the lashings dished out which were obviously quite bad as well.

But yes, it's very much a movie that you shouldn't watch if you're in the mood for something lighter or have difficulty watching others suffer violently.

I have the same problem with animal cruelty which is why I haven't been able to watch Blackfish yet.

[csziggy]

64. I did watch Blackfish - it was horrible

I won't watch it again.

While doing genealogy I get enough of the graphic nature of slavery. My mother's family was from Alabama and the Carolinas before that. They had slaves and too many of their wills and other documents involve taking children away from their parents and separating couples. A very few of my ancestors made provisions for keeping families together, but far more disposed of humans the same way they disposed of livestock.

I wish I could change that history but I can't.

[Oilwellian]

63. I saw that one as well

and yes, it's another excellent piece of work to use as an example. I'd like to see it again just for a refresher. The older I get, the more refreshers I need. lol

[Logical]

32. +1000 nt

[Solly Mack]

8. Slavery a choice?

I'm having a hard time with that one.

[Gore1FL]

52. She explained int he article that they could have died instead.

She used Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death" quote to justify it.

Great choice to make....

[Solly Mack]

61. The mind wobbles.

[Gore1FL]

65. Today I made the choice to breathe!

[mythology]

66. A quote which is most likely apocryphal

Slavery wasn't a choice.

Her stupidity on the other hand, is a choice.

[Jamastiene]

9. That is the first time I have heard it

being touted as a choice. I knew it was glossed over by a lot of people who claim slaves just loooved being slaves, and they do always seem to find that one black person that will hang out with them to give them cover, but I have never heard anyone say slavery was a choice. It was a choice for those who owned slaves, but not for the slaves themselves. are these people smoking?

[Liberal_in_LA]

14. her reasoning from the article... She would die rather than be a slave... read below

“I say that because of what Patrick Henry said: ‘Give me liberty or give me death.’ To me, if we had went back to that kind of slavery, no I couldn’t do it. Give me death.”

[immoderate]

59. Perhaps the method of execution would be another choice she would be offered.

Choice is good!

--imm

[Bad Thoughts]

10. Slavery in the South was more virulent and more violent than in most oft he world

Apologists keep missing this point. Slavery is a tragedy for abridging the movement of the individual and the ability to dispose of one's labor, but in the South, it was met with greater racism and greater violence.

[Igel]

30. Yes, and no.

In other parts of the world slaves were property. Killing them was like killing a dog. They were for serving their masters in the kitchen, in the field, in the bedroom.

One rather large group--larger than the entire trans-Atlantic slave trade--had many or most of their males castrated. This isn't just removal of testicles but also of most of the penis. That made them safe to be around the owner's women.

In parts of the world slavery might not be as bad. In general. But the conditions that made slavery horrible in the American South continued in Louisiana (which was a slave-owning territory, but not American when most of the slaves were imported). Haiti had a huge slave mortality rate.

Racism, sure. But you know, at some point using the men and women for sex, as intelligent animal labor, as servants, as just property ... The idea that they weren't considered inferior under those conditions versus the idea that they were considered inferior under the same conditions? The difference is that slaves were considered *personally* inferior, inferior by virtue of their family or tribe or religion, not because of their skin color. Sort of stops being a huge whopping deal.

[craigmatic]

11. Any time I see a black person with that flag and not burning it I assume they're mentally ill.

[orpupilofnature57]

16. " Slavery is a choice " yeah maybe .

[BillZBubb]

17. I assume the same of white people.

[SusanCalvin]

20. Yep. nt

[Igel]

34. It was in the way she meant it.

The Europeans and European-Americans taken as slaves had the same options: submit, try to flee, or commit suicide/get themselves killed.

Those are choices. Not all choices are palatable and often we decide to forget some choices are available to us because we don't want to admit we've chosen the lesser of two evils. Most people don't really accept "Live free or die" as a viable motto, even probably in New Hampshire.

I haven't bothered to check to see reasonable estimates of the European slave trade in Islam, whether it was just hundreds of thousands or millions of people. It made mincemeat out of Kievan Rus' when they were trying to resist the Horde. And the slave trade, with ransoms and tribute to avoid having white Americans enslaved, pretty much gave us our first standing navy after we made peace with Great Britain--of course, the reasoning behind that wasn't racial inferiority (still not a strong motif in Western thought at the time) but religious inferiority.

It was really only when slavery was perceived as being something that involved only slaves that were black that the racial narrative could really get its footing and grow legs. The stories about how bad it was for Europeans and American whites to be enslaved died out and, well, empathy can be difficult when it gets in the way.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

36. I see fetal alcohol syndrome and/or lead based paint.

[BillZBubb]

41. Or inbreeding.

[Uncle Joe]

42. You're not slamming New York are you? That's where she is from, but

you would have to read the article to know that.

[BillZBubb]

47. If you read the thread, you'd know that's not what I was doing.

This thread started with a comment about what the poster thought of black people who wave the confederate flag. You'd have to follow the thread to know that.

[orpupilofnature57]

15. Ask Elmer Ellsworth what he thinks of the Confederate flag, first casuality of the Civil War .

[SusanCalvin]

18. I was going for "seriously misguided,"

Until I saw the "choice" part. Now I'm going for "seriously delusional."

[Cleita]

19. Wow! When did the South get California Valley girls. That's really dumb.eom

[orpupilofnature57]

22. LOL !!!!

[Warpy]

21. Whose choice?

Not the slaves. They were kidnapped, clapped in irons, stacked like cordwood below decks, taken far away from their homes, and sold like cattle. They had no legal rights at all and could see their spouses and children all sold off to different places if the master lost at gambling and needed fast cash. They had no protection against abuse or being murdered. They had zero legal standing except as pieces of property that had to be returned if they went missing, even when return meant mutilation or death.

Yeah, it was a choice like being homeless is a choice, like being poor is a choice.

This woman is a dingbat, as are the other 39 members of her group. I hope they grow up and learn a little history.

[Liberal_in_LA]

23. Her reasoning based on "give me liberty or give me death" , so the slaves must have chosen slavery

over death:

“I say that because of what Patrick Henry said: ‘Give me liberty or give me death.’ To me, if we had went back to that kind of slavery, no I couldn’t do it. Give me death.”

[Warpy]

25. SUUUUURE she would.

Bless her heart.

[arcane1]

26. Wow. Basically blaming the victims.

[arcane1]

24. Fucking clueless on more levels than I can count. She clearly needs to read a book or three n/t

[Kalidurga]

29. I think she has

One by Ann Coulter, one by Rush Limbaugh, and one by O'Reilly.

[PowerToThePeople]

27. so much fail

[kwassa]

28. the really disturbing part of this article.

A 2014 Winthrop University poll found that 61 percent of black South Carolina residents said the flag should no longer fly on the state house grounds, The Post’s Aaron Blake reported last week. And yet, 27 percent of black South Carolinians said it should stay — suggesting that the flag’s meaning remains a source of some debate.

[Historic NY]

33. Choice...someone send her to see the vestiges of slavery...

perhaps she could reenact being one for a weekend.

[Uncle Joe]

35. It's worth reading the entire article, she's not alone.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/06/30/why-some-black-defenders-of-the-confederate-flag-believe-slavery-was-a-choice/?tid=pm_national_pop_b

While black Americans are assumed to be uniformly opposed to the Confederate flag flying over government buildings, polls of Southern blacks suggest opinions about the flag are more complicated.

A 2014 Winthrop University poll found that 61 percent of black South Carolina residents said the flag should no longer fly on the state house grounds, The Post’s Aaron Blake reported last week. And yet, 27 percent of black South Carolinians said it should stay — suggesting that the flag’s meaning remains a source of some debate.


(snip)

Courtney Daniels — a black Birmingham, Ala., native and Marine — argues that the Confederate flag and its “gorgeous colors” were hijacked by “a few cowards in bedsheets,” obscuring its rich history.

(snip)

“In the South, we mingle,” he writes. “We play. We do like Willie Mays and ‘say hey’ no matter the color of the person sitting on the porch. I walk into my local grocery with my daughter and like the tick of the clock, I know I can count on an endearing ‘Hey baby doll, you need some help?’ from the attendant whose skin heavily contrasts mine.”

I've said it before and I will say it again, symbols mean different things to different people.

Thanks for the thread, Liberal_in_LA.

[johnp3907]

37. Idiots come in all colors.

[BlueJazz]

38. Probably that prick Lee Atwater had something to do with it.

[mcar]

39. You can't fight stupid

You can fight ignorance but not stupid.

[MohRokTah]

40. A real life Clayton Bigsby. eom

[lburnhamah_198]

46. Slavery was a "choice"? Just what kind of school did she attend? Clown School?

Honestly, this really makes me worry about the state of the education system in this country. What's next, the slaveowners were kind, gentle overseers, who treated the slaves with dignity and respect? Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if some educators in that area were teaching such a ridiculous form of "history". Just unbelievable.

[uppityperson]

48. Of course it was a choice. For slaves it choice of being a slave or dying. For owners it was choice

of whether or not to keep people enslaved.

But to say "it just happened" is wrong as it was VERY MUCH a choice. A choice to enslave others, a choice to die or be enslaved.

It was wrong, it is wrong.

[booley]

49. One can choose to be a slave

There is a kind of slavery that one choose

Buit it involves ball gags and sexy leather outfits

I assure you the South was practicing the fun kind slavery.

They were doing the bad kind of slavery

[GeorgeGist]

50. Freedumb™

Besides, she adds, slavery is “a choice.”

“I say that because of what Patrick Henry said: ‘Give me liberty or give me death.’ To me, if we had went back to that kind of slavery, no I couldn't do it. Give me death.”

[LordGlenconner]

54. Pitiful to watch people so desperate to "fit in".

[Jazzgirl]

55. Cooper is an idiot.

n/t

[spanone]

57. lack of basic education.

[Iliyah]

58. Slavery was extremely bad all over world, some worst than others, but the

thought of someone "owning a living, breathing human being" is one the many evils in human society.

Well well well, lack of understanding the past with facts. This is what certain groups in America want. Erase history, make up one.

Time travel please. Send these humans back to the time when Africans were caught/sold and let them experience what truly happened. Oh wait, they would kill themselves, ok never mind.

[rock]

62. In the South

How many Whites chose to be slaves? (Yeah, really stupid concept.)