A place to share history memes!
Rules:
No sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, assorted bigotry, etc.
No fascism, atrocity denial, etc.
Tag NSFW pics as NSFW.
Follow all Lemmy.world rules.
Banner courtesy of @[email protected]
Fun fact: Robert E. Lee was one, of many, of the Confederate leaders that recognized the deep harm they caused the nation, and thus he specifically wrote in his diary and will, that no statue, memorial, or song should ever commemorate his traitorous actions.
Then Wilson became president and refounded the KKK, erected a fuckton of Confederate statues, segregated the federal government for the first time in history, and generally shat on as many brown people as he could.
Every American general that graduated from Westpoint has their portrait hung prominently at the school. Despite graduating westpoint and becoming a general, Robert E Lee does not have a portrait hung in Westpoint's gallery because he's a filthy fucking traitor and is burning in hell
Benedict Arnold has neither name nor portrait at West point despite being a literal war hero that only defected because he was owed money and continually denied promotion he justly deserved (Washington admitted to this and lamented the fact that if not for a promotion he denied Arnold he likely wouldn't have defected).
In college I tried to stage a protest where we dressed up as British Redcoats waving a union jack flag at my state's capitol ostensibly protesting in favor of putting a Benedict Arnold statue next to a Confederate statue and just parroting talking points people bring up about the Confederate statue. I was going to call the group "The Sons of Loyalist Veterans" and talk about how we are just celebrating our heritage, not hate, and that we don't hate America we just want to celebrate our Loyalist ancestors and Loyalist hero Benedict Arnold. Unfortunately I couldn't get anyone to go with me and chickened out.
In college I tried to stage a protest where we dressed up as British Redcoats waving a union jack flag at my state's capitol ostensibly protesting in favor of putting a Benedict Arnold statue next to a Confederate statue and just parroting talking points people bring up about the Confederate statue. I was going to call the group "The Sons of Loyalist Veterans" and talk about how we are just celebrating our heritage, not hate, and that we don't hate America we just want to celebrate our Loyalist ancestors and Loyalist hero Benedict Arnold. Unfortunately I couldn't get anyone to go with me and chickened out.
Explanation: Robert E. Lee, the foremost general of the Confederate forces in the US Civil War, was a Southern Gentleman(tm).
And by that, I mean a horrific fucking slaver using civility towards white people as a mask for immensely inhumane cruelty.
Robert E. Lee personally owned slaves that he inherited upon the death of his mother, Ann Lee, in 1829. (His son, Robert E. Lee Jr., gave the number as three or four families.) Following the death of his father-in-law, George Washington Parke Custis, in 1857, Lee assumed command of 189 enslaved people, working the estates of Arlington, White House, and Romancoke. Custis’ will stipulated that the enslaved people that the Lee family inherited be freed within five years.
Lee, as executor of Custis’ will and supervisor of Custis’ estates, drove his new-found labor force hard to lift those estates from debt. Concerned that the endeavor might take longer than the five years stipulated, Lee petitioned state courts to extend his control of enslaved people.
The Custis bondspeople, aware of their former owner’s intent, resisted Lee’s efforts to enforce stricter work discipline. Resentment resulted in escape attempts. In 1859 Wesley Norris, his sister Mary, and their cousin, George Parks, escaped to Maryland where they were captured and returned to Arlington.
In an 1866 account, Norris recalled,
[W]e 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.
“…. who gave us the number of lashes ordered…”
”Gen. Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine, which was done.”
Even Satan would tell this guy to calm down.
Unfortunately, washing lashed backs with brine or hot pepper juice was a well-known 'additional' punishment levied on flogged slaves in the American South, whenever the punishers felt like the slaves deserved it, or looked at them wrong, or if the slavers were just having a moment of pure fucking meanness.
Fuck.
Reading of slave punishments should be required reading like the Holocaust.
It wouldn't change much. The Trumptards would just enjoy it. They lack the empathy to take away any valuable lesson from this.
Growing up: “Robert E. Lee was a good man who fought on the losing side.”
As an adult: “Robert E. Lee was a Confederate and supported slavery.”
Reading a PugJesus post about Robert E. Lee: 🤮
It's really sad how lionized Lee is despite being worse than average even by slaver standards.
Like, history is my center of interest. I am acutely aware that morals and norms are deeply contextual things, and that most people will grow up absorbing the morals and norms of the time and place.
But how can someone be such a piece of shit that their own slave overseer refuses to carry out their orders? The man's job is literally to brutalize slaves, and HE thinks you've gone too far?
I mean, shit, at least lionize some blinkered fanatic like Stonewall Jackson. He was a slaver, but at least he was willing to break the law for the sake of treating slaves more humanely, rather than less humanely. It doesn't absolve him from being a slaver at a time when it was increasingly clear that slavery was not some fundamental piece of existence, but it at least absolves him of being worse than his fucking peers.
One of the things I appreciate about Behind the Bastards is the acknowledgment that historically people were more racist and misogynist, and to then clarify that the subject of an episode was notably racist or misogynistic for the time. Like Dewey of the Dewey Decimal System, who had a colleague write about how horribly sexist he was.
Librarian here. One of the reasons librarianship was dominated by women was bc Dewey convinced people they could pay them less. Also, he likes to use his power to form sexual relationships. The subject headings that his decimal system uses are still problematic to this day.
Same for LGBT rights. There's been a seismic shift since I was a kid in the 80s. Here in America we're rolling backwards a bit, but that's the nature of societal progress, two steps forward, one back.
Maybe more than one, dear.
The only reason that “morals are deeply contextual” is that average people are dumb as shit in all the ways that matter. Moral reasoning is similar to mathematics, but whereas we have formalized math, which people study in school for 12+ years (and are still terrible at it), morality is a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants-and-do-your-best endeavor.
That’s why there’s such a discrepancy between the opinions of ethicists and those of average people. Why we had slavery for 10,000 years, why Trump was elected. Why billionaires, religions, and cruise ships exist. Because average people are dumb as shit in all the ways that matter, and no discipline in the world reminds us just how close the average human is to a mindless animal than ethics.
We had slavery for thousands of years because the enlightenment occurred only a few hundred years ago and it brought about the concept of liberalism (not like liberal/conservative but liber like short for liberty or liberate - meaning freedom). Up until that point there was only basic pathos that would allow people to feel bad for a slave's conditions but usually not to the extent that it would lead to a full abolition movement.
I mean, shit, at least lionize some blinkered fanatic like Stonewall Jackson.
Jackson was a 19th century Christian jihadist.
On the other hand... instead of Lee or Jackson, James Longstreet is right there.
I mean, to be fair, Jackson was a 19th century Christian fanatic. He wasn't an advocate for some radically changed theocracy to take charge of the pre-war USA or the Civil War CSA. His fanaticism affected his personal behavior more than his political positions.
On the other hand… instead of Lee or Jackson, James Longstreet is right there.
Longstreet 'betrayed the cause' by daring to make peace with the fact that they lost the war and Black folk were citizens, that's basically treason to a Lost Causer. Jackson died before any such thing could theoretically happen, so he remains pure.
Why tf is he shown wearing a blue Union (Northern) uniform and not a grey Confederate (traitorous Southern) uniform?
Now, my color perception isn't great, but that looks more gray than blue to my eyes.
Who's memory? Am I too not-a-Southerner for this meme?
Unfortunately, as recently as 30 years ago, Robert E. Lee apologism was widespread in popular culture.
What is this Lee guy doing in the picture part of the meme? I don't get it
Just a look of gleeful, eager malice.
