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Yup. The first few shows were interesting, but now they're really showing how narrow their focus is. It should have been named "Finding Your Racial Roots". I would have been fine with that and still watched the show, but understood more of what it was all about.
Expected by whom? HLG is just the host and he doesn't put words into anyone's mouth. It's PBS.
Didn't Ken Burns even say his feelings about his family's past didn't include guilt.
People are allowed to have whatever reaction they have. Don't project onto the host or the guests.
I thought it was funny that the slave master was killed by a farm hoe. No slave owner had clean hands. No, Black people were not better off during slavery days.
While I won't get into the objectivity of HLG or the possibly misplaced feelings of guilt on the part of descendants of slave owners, I do think that the tone might be different in different circumstances.
For example, some Blacks and Native Americans were slave owners themselves. Had a Black guest discovered he had a Black, slave owning ancestor, I wonder if the repartee would have been characterized with the same levity.
Or would it have been a more sober interaction concerning the insidious nature of American slavery?
Half of my ancestors are rooted in Kentucky and Tennessee. I have found no slave owners, but numerous Confederate soldiers (no Union soldiers on that side). I don't know how many were conscripted or true volunteers fighting in a volunteer unit, but have found no deserters. My 46 year old gg-grandfather volunteered and served 3 years (although he knocked 5 years off his age when he enlisted). He went in as a quartermaster sergeant and turned down two promotions to lieutenant.
Mine too. The went from VA (1500s/1600s), to NC (1700s), to TN (1700s till today) but some to KY (late 1700s till today). Several of my family lines were slave owners but in the Civil War their kids and grkids fought for the Union. My gr granddad enlisted in his 50s and he and most of his sons served in the same company. One of his sons died during the war but not sure if it was 'in action' or an illness. His is about the only record I don't have. No POWs or KIAs, far as I know, and no deserters.
While I won't get into the objectivity of HLG or the possibly misplaced feelings of guilt on the part of descendants of slave owners, I do think that the tone might be different in different circumstances.
For example, some Blacks and Native Americans were slave owners themselves. Had a Black guest discovered he had a Black, slave owning ancestor, I wonder if the repartee would have been characterized with the same levity.
Or would it have been a more sober interaction concerning the insidious nature of American slavery?
I don't understand why people today would feel guilty for anything their ancestors did hundreds of years ago. I find the idea of slavery a very bad thing but evidently they didn't and I'm not going to feel guilty FOR them.
I DO wish this show would get off the Civil War and slavery thing though. I'm sure there are ancestors further back just as much, or more, interesting. I know *I* have some.
For example, some Blacks and Native Americans were slave owners themselves. Had a Black guest discovered he had a Black, slave owning ancestor, I wonder if the repartee would have been characterized with the same levity.
Or would it have been a more sober interaction concerning the insidious nature of American slavery?
Ben Jealous of the NAACP had a black slave-owning relative. They had documentation showing that the patriarchal gggggrandfather on which the entire family pinned their legacy owned his own family (wife and daughters), but they said it was to prevent them from being bought by someone else.
This happened, but there were also blacks who owned black slaves who were not their relatives. And before indentures faded as a way of control, there were black landownders who owned black and white indentured. It has always been about money and control.
The first offical slave was the property of a black master. Anthony Johnson punished two white runaways with more years, and their black companion with lifetime service. This was recognized by the court. Thus John Punch became the first legal slave in 1640.
As lack of jobs, unmet promises about land and land so poor it couldn't be farmed, and a growing pool of both black and white current or former 'servants began to pose a real danger to the ruling class, and one rebellion nearly succeeded in removing and potentially dispatching the governer, pulling the race card became a way of dividing the enemy.
I had a reference but can't find it, but will keep looking. It's somewhere on the PBS site. But supposedly one of the 19 black africans bought and made indentured in 1619 did quite well for himself and was a major slave trader himself, and one of the wealthier citizens of New Orleans. He owned several plantations where his specialty was breeding new slaves. He sold a greater than normal amount of children. Breeding the supply so deliberately was not common, but he had no problem with it.
Still, there is NO reason to be personally 'ashamed' of your ancesters or their choices, white black or other, since they lived in their time and their influences and we live in ours. And there is nothing which can say if we'd all lived then if we'd see the world around us more like they did. Maybe *we* should quit feeling bad about the decisions of people who are dead and buried along with their world, and consider what tomorrow will think of US and what else we could be doing to make it better.
But I wonder if one of the breeder in New Orleans descendents turned up on this show they'd dance around his legacy.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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I love this show, though the amount of South hating (by the NorthEast based media) gets old. NYC had numerous black slaves and plantations as late as the mid 1700s and had several devastating White on Black race riots yet they get off guilt free. Minnesota was the site of the largest mass lynching in USA history (dozens of Native America men at one time) yet they get off guilt free. The Japanese interment camps where in California but they get off guilt free. But anyone of Southern heritage must be repeatedly blamed for slavery as if the rest of the USA never had it or any other major race problems?
What I am specifically referring to is how any time Southern and / or Confederate ancestry comes up on the show they have to spend 10 minutes talking about the evils of the South. But if you're ancestor arrives in the North and lives on land stolen from the Indians... well that's fine and dandy. If your ancestors lived in California during Japanese interment there's no mention of "what did they do during interment?". But Southerns must be blamed for and reminded of slavery? Just give all evil all of our ancestors did equal time and I'll be happy.
The greatest spoil of war is getting to castigate the losing side and blame them for any evil that ever existed.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Blinx
Yup. The first few shows were interesting, but now they're really showing how narrow their focus is. It should have been named "Finding Your Racial Roots". I would have been fine with that and still watched the show, but understood more of what it was all about.
I have no problem with PBS pointing out the fact that Black Americans have different family challenges than any other group. It's an oft ignored fact that more non Blacks should be aware of. I just think it's funny how I have yet to hear anyone guilted for how their ancestors treated Native Americans. Stephan King (Pollock) was praised for having anti slavery Southern ancestors who moved to Indiana during the early 1800s when that land had just been illegally taken from the Indians... literally 10 years or less before they moved.
Bottom line is most Northeasterns honestly think Native Americans were wiped out and don't exist. They mostly live out West in remote reservations while Blacks live in population centers where the NE media is.
I have White ancestors that owned slaves and White ancestors that rubbed elbows with Native Americans and were illegally pushing them out of their rightfully held land. I am also 1/64th Native American. I feel equally bad for both wrongs.
As for the Civil War... it was never a war to end slavery until near the end when Lincoln strong armed it to be about slavery. I'm very glad he did, but let's not assume all Union soldiers were driven by wanting to bring a better life to Blacks while all Confederates were evil racists. Lincoln held views about Blacks that were more racist than what a KKK member would believe today. White mobs attacked innocent Blacks in numerous Northern cities when they were drafted to fight in the war because they didn't want to fight for "negroes". Some Unionist owned slaves, including one of the ancestors who lost a son at Vicksburg. Most Confederate soldiers didn't even own slaves. It was complicated. The hilly and mountainous areas of the South tended to be evenly split between US and CSA sympathies. Knoxville TN was a Union stronghold while Baltimore was a Confederate stronghold.
I have no problem with PBS pointing out the fact that Black Americans have different family challenges than any other group. It's an oft ignored fact that more non Blacks should be aware of. I just think it's funny how I have yet to hear anyone guilted for how their ancestors treated Native Americans. Stephan King (Pollock) was praised for having anti slavery Southern ancestors who moved to Indiana during the early 1800s when that land had just been illegally taken from the Indians... literally 10 years or less before they moved.
Bottom line is most Northeasterns honestly think Native Americans were wiped out and don't exist. They mostly live out West in remote reservations while Blacks live in population centers where the NE media is.
I have White ancestors that owned slaves and White ancestors that rubbed elbows with Native Americans and were illegally pushing them out of their rightfully held land. I am also 1/64th Native American. I feel equally bad for both wrongs.
As for the Civil War... it was never a war to end slavery until near the end when Lincoln strong armed it to be about slavery. I'm very glad he did, but let's not assume all Union soldiers were driven by wanting to bring a better life to Blacks while all Confederates were evil racists. Lincoln held views about Blacks that were more racist than what a KKK member would believe today. White mobs attacked innocent Blacks in numerous Northern cities when they were drafted to fight in the war because they didn't want to fight for "negroes". Some Unionist owned slaves, including one of the ancestors who lost a son at Vicksburg. Most Confederate soldiers didn't even own slaves. It was complicated. The hilly and mountainous areas of the South tended to be evenly split between US and CSA sympathies. Knoxville TN was a Union stronghold while Baltimore was a Confederate stronghold.
This is a very good point. When you look at history, there are often according to present sensitivities, no real 'good guys'. It's much easier to imply that all southerners supported slavery/owned slaves/defended the south/were motivated by the politics we see now. But the reality is so much more complicated. And on an hour show when your hurrying through it takes *time* to really explain history. So you keep it simple. The problem is too many people will never get the complicated story and believe the one sided pc one.
I appear to have ancestors who fought for the north, and some for the south, and the direct ones who were burned off their farm by union forces in Missouri, left and didn't fight for anyone. And this is in one family. But I had never heard of the virtual war in Missouri that preceeded the big war, and the ruthless way it was ended by Order number 11. And when I connected the county where my ggggrandfather lived with the first one depopulated, I felt like there was a connection I hadn't even known of. I'm not taking a 'side' since the object was to end the guerilla war which had led to many deaths, but then I can understand just how they'd feel that because somewhere in Scotland County there had been a confrotation so the whole county was despoiled. I can see why they stayed out of it. The war was about different things for different people.
And we don't really teach history today, not for a long time, but the pc version. A friend who is Native told me about his family, part Sioux and part Crow. His father's family disowned their son when he married a 'lesser' person. The native tribes were hardly pc standard perfect. But since they are the honored loser we don't seem to be able to deal with the reality that they too were just imperfect human beings. Everyone is, and we need to lose the idea that the currently 'right' side had to be the 'good' one too. "Good' as we like to define it doesn't exist.
Maybe they should do ONE person's line, and deal realistically with who is in it. Don't condem people who are long dead and lived in a different world, just look at the world they lived in and leave it up to the viewer. But then some would come to the wrong conclusion so that would not do.
I was absolutely blessed by having a history teacher in high school who taught US history using the words spoken and written by the people of the time. The book with their writing was the most important one to read. The standard vanilla text book was the least. We had a debate each week on an issue of the time, and you got assigned a side. Thing was, you have to argue your point with the arguments they would have used. See their world. It made you realized that why people do what they do is far from as simple as the pc sorts like to make it. And if we were around then, who knows what you'd think if you'd grown up in their world.
Very interesting series! I wish they would go into detail about all the genetic DNA test results!
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