Eight pages and not a single good reason to play "Dixie," "Bonnie Blue Flag" or any other nonsense.

March to this at the Ole Miss game and the crowd might just cheer for the Texas Aggies in the second half:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35hNbLXBoyQ

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Doesn't get much more subhuman than that.

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Cool dude over here! He expects people from history to think like that of a 21st Century man...

Why didnt Julius Caesar make concealed carry illegal?

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Doesn't get much more subhuman than that.

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Cool dude over here! He expects people from history to think like that of a 21st Century man...

Why didnt Julius Caesar make concealed carry illegal?

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If you're making an argument with this post, your point isn't abundantly clear.

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Cool dude over here! He expects people from history to think like that of a 21st Century man...

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Oh, so now we're moving the goalposts, are we?

Black people were merely property. Assets for the slave owners estate, to be bought or sold based upon the financial necessities of the owner.

Doesn't get much more subhuman than that, regardless of the century you're in. Quit rationalizing.

Before I even say this, my 2cents. We don't need to be playing Dixie. It's a lovely song, but I just don't see a reason to play it.

Now:
No, t-bird, his point is valid.

The idea that slavery is immoral is a relatively new idea.

If you went to the early-mid 19th century and declared that you would be seen as a radical. (In both the North/South, and Europe.) If you went to any cetury before that, you'd be crazy.

Slavery has been a societal/ economic institution throughout the world, throughout our human history. It simply was. (And still is in some places) And all races have kept and been kept as slaves. That's just a historical fact.

And it was not "sub-human". It was normal. Without machinery, large civilations used slavery to move their economies.

"All men created equal" is a very new idea in the world of mankind. So to look back at men in the 1800's and proclaim them all terrible/ evil is nearsighted at best, and willfully ignorant of human history at worse.

A side note t-bird. Neither Jesus, nor his apostles spoke against slavery. (And institutional slavery was the norm then.) If your Savior/Christ isn't declaring slavery, slave holders, etc as immoral monsters, perhaps we shouldn't be casting all those people throughout history into that category.

can we go back to the southern cuisine part? I feel as though that was the most ridiculous part of all of this.

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to look back at men in the 1800's and proclaim them all terrible/ evil is nearsighted at best, and willfully ignorant of human history at worse.

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Never said that--I understand that slavery was (key word) and accepted norm. Doesn't make it right or ok, even when viewed through the prism of history.

The point is, by today's standards, (American) slavery is viewed as a horrible injustice and indeed dehumanizing, therefore distancing ourselves from potentially divisive symbols such as the confederate flag(s) and songs that glorify such a society is a proper course of action.

Oh, and don't assume posters are Christians. I am, so it's all good, but just not a wise course of action on an anonymous message board.

Do you honestly think it was like day trading? If you lived 20 miles from a city, you think they got random buyers just wondering around buying slaves.


Slavery aside, do you think a southerner (pre-civil war) thought a freedman was sub-human?

You're changing the argument again. Never said one lick about what they thought about freedmen. I said they viewed their slaves as subhuman (and treated them as such in society).

And never said it was like day trading, either. Where do you come up with this stuff? They used, bought, and sold human beings to make a living on their plantations. What's so hard to understand about that?

So you think southern whites saw slaves as subhuman, fine, but if they saw a freeman what would their opinion be of him? Still subhuman?

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And never said it was like day trading, either. They used, bought, and sold human beings...Where do you come up with this stuff?

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fif-clarity

So any song from southern states from a time when there was racism is by default racist? Mindblowing.

Bought and sold at auctions and other such forums, genious, not

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random buyers just wondering around buying slaves

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like you so ludicrously suggested.

Treating beings like chattel =/= treating them as human.

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So any song from southern states from a time when there was racism is by default racist?

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Nope, but a song whose subject is a black person longing to return to the plantation sure is. Do try to keep up.

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Nope, but a song whose subject is a black person longing to return to the plantation sure is. Do try to keep up.

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It is sheet music. It has whatever meanin you attach to it. If you change a few notes, it isn't even the same song. There's no reason to go out of your way to be offended by things. Doing so weakens your argument when there really is a reason to cry racism.

Now I love A&M and want to market it well. I recognize the controversy that would result and thus do not want to actually play Dixie. I think that de-emphasizing the corps would be a great way to improve our marketing as well. Like Dixie, the corps image is wanted by a small minority of Aggies and causes more controversy than it is worth. For the good of A&M, it is imperative that we not play Dixie or advertise the corps.

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For the good of A&M, it is imperative that we not play Dixie or advertise the corps.

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I'll agree with the former and vehemently disagree with the latter, but that's a different argument for a different thread.

[This message has been edited by tbirdspur2010 (edited 6/13/2012 11:24a).]

That doesn't make it any less sad that people don't know their history and make sure a huge deal out of instruments being played a certain way.

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That doesn't make it any less sad that people don't know their history and make sure a huge deal out of instruments being played a certain way.

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What's sad is people's complete lack of sensitivity to minorities' reaction to said music. EVERYTHING we do has meaning--nothing gets done in a vacuum. When you hear the War Hymn, you don't think "oh, that's interesting," you immediately think of Aggieland. Same goes for "Dixie." While some will just think "I'm proud to be a Southerner," others will think "This song demeans the freedoms for which my people fought." Both are entitled to their own opinions, but if it's divisive (and it is--there's no disputing that), then why have a band representing the institution that is composed of people from both camps even play it at all?

The argument here isn't really whether "Dixie" is racist or not. People will make up their own minds one way or the other and nothing's going to change that, like it or not. Whether you think it's ridiculous or not is irrelevant--people will absolutely take it as an offense if the FTAB were to play "Dixie," just like they would if the stars and bars were to fly over campus.

Maroon Tattoo

Hey !!!
Perhaps there's a SEC trade off.
Break the Corps Bloc at Kyle in exchange for FTAB rendition of..."The Bonnie Blue Flag" ?

What would be the benefit of playing a song like "Dixie" or "Bonnie Blue Flag"?

The FTAB should just find a way to incorporate every Guy Clark song into a march.

How about the FTAB play "Garry Owen" periodically.

I'm a lurker but this thread was too stupid to not invade. BoCH, you profess to be a historian on slavery, but haven't offered any sources for your rather bizarre assertions. If were trying to determine how white Texans felt about slaves, maybe the first place we should look are things white Texas said about slaves at the time of slavery. The Texas Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union.

"In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States. . . .

We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable."

But yea, totally economic.

No slavery, no civil war, bottom line. People don't kill each for years in the hundreds of thousands over tariffs and constitutional theory.

Slavery is what caused the war; without slavery, there would be no cause for civil war. All of the arguing otherwise stems from Southerners trying to reconcile honorable people fighting for an unjust cause. This argument is never ending at Ole Miss. It's pride, rather than history or reason, that will keep some Southerners from accepting that slavery caused the war. That doesn't mean that Southerners were evil people, or that even a significant number of them were Simon Legrees, but it does mean that the Confederacy's reason to exist was slavery.

Hopefully, like the dead of the war, this thread can soon rest in honorable peace.

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What should we call the war by the way? I haven't seen one person yet on this thread refer to it other than the "Civil War". What happened to the "War Between the States" or better yet, the "War of Northern Aggression"?

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Yes, NYAggie, and that should be a big clue.

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this thread was over beginning with whether or not your band was going to play Dixie as some sort of cover charge for the SEC.

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I am not necessarily for playing Dixie, and would vote against it if given the opportunity, but characterizing the idea as a "cover charge the SEC" is f***ing ridiculous. Paying respect to someone else's culture does NOT equal a freaking "cover charge."

What's the relevance of Lincoln's personal opinions about black people to this issue?

Yea, this threads getting deleted.

Ibtd.

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I'm a lurker but this thread was too stupid to not invade. BoCH, you profess to be a historian on slavery, but haven't offered any sources for your rather bizarre assertions.

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Actually I did give at least one. Fogel and Engerman, their book Time on the Cross.

But there are a ton of economic historians that write on the issue and there are still a ton of misconceptions about slavery. If anyone here saw Gods & Generals there was a scene prior to the war where Stonewall Jackson was leaving his professor seat to command and one man said "but slavery is dying out anyways." Even in schoolbooks we give to children this idea is prevalent, "slavery will die out" it was this idea that that Phillips (a regular historian, not economic historian) had produced.

Since then we've found out is that the second largest economic sector for the south, behind cotton, was the reproductive industry of slaves. This is where the idea of an industrial farm (not a family farm) would find the John Coffey (The Green Mile, huge guy and docile) and force him to impregnate as many female slaves as possible. Nine months later you had hundreds of future full-time workers. (Still, this is incredibly immoral, Im just relaying what historians have found.)

This became a large segment of the southern economy because it was lucrative and it wasnt going away, there was always more land to develop. Hell there are still parts of the south that havent been cleared for farming (yet). And why is it so profitable? Well, even in Keynesian economic theory the idea of a growing workforce is one of the strongest movers of the Long-Run Aggregate Supply of a nation. Having children is good for a nations economy, which is a practical reason to be against abortion (but thats a whole other argument). So essentially Southern industrial slave owners were riding that economic force and making millions. I cant remember who quantified it but the idea was there were more millionaires in Biloxi than their was in NYC in 1855. (Granted NYC was kinda crap back then, but the assertion remained).

I hope this thread was something to read, I didnt take much pleasure to engage in it, but I hope some of you now know the difference between the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment. I really dont like lying to kids about slavery e.g. "dying out on its own." They should know that it wasnt going away and it had to be uprooted for the good of mankind and 'merica.

[This message has been edited by BillOnCapitolHill (edited 6/13/2012 11:30p).]

If you extract slaves from the equation than the civil war just doesn't occur. That is truth. Some have pointed out, correctly, that the north didn't have much more regard for black slaves than southerners and northern factory workers had it just as bad or worse than slaves as well, which is also true.

The bottom line is that chattel slavery and antebellum southern culture are inextricably linked. Following the Civil War, it was necessary for rich southerners to encourage division between poor whites and free blacks as they were under slavery so that they could retain political power. This was accomplished through Jim Crow and the rise of the KKK that enforced segregation and white supremacy in the south. Culturally, It was further bolstered by racists such as U.B. Phillips in his history of the the antebellum south "American Negro Slavery," as well as the films such as Birth of a Nation which promoted a nostalgic view of slavery and the Old South that further reinforced social divisions between poor whites and blacks. "Dixie" is part of that legacy.

It is probably difficult for a board full of conservative white guys to understand why blacks would be offended by hearing it. To African Americans Dixie is a representation and reminder of not only slavery, but segregation, racism, and inequality that plagued the south for most of America's history.

-Ben Class of '01

Time on the Cross is full of errors and miscalculations. Most modern historians have discredited most of it's conclusions.

-Ben Class of '01

So is Phillips' conclusions but those still remain "relevant."

That is the problem with historiography, if its 50 years old, it is lacking in some areas especially because they are a counter-argument. But as FJT said, if the author is able to step back to see the larger picture you will always specific details that are the exception to the rule. But that doesnt mean you missed out on the thesis, just that it needs further description and corroboration. This is extremely true when dealing with economic history.

If you have the 1840 census and Virginia has 10M and WV has 8M, yet WV consumes twice as many pigs, wheat and cattle compared to Virginia, you can assume the caloric intake of WV is greater than VA. Then some historian walks by and says, "Suffolk county WV was the slimmest in the nation, Jackson County VA was the fattest; thus the idea that WV's caloric intake was greater than VA is erroneous."


Thats the fun that is historiography, you can always find error on big things and you can always point out lack of proper perspective on specific things...

[This message has been edited by BillOnCapitolHill (edited 6/13/2012 11:48p).]

I just don't know why you would point to such a controversial work as a key source instead of using something more mainstream like Kenneth Stammp or Ira Berlin. Granted it's been a while since I've looked at my graduate course work for Slavery in the America's and the Old South. I'm a 20th century historian and mostly use this stuff when teaching survey courses. It just disturbing to me how many are painting such a rosy picture of the South and can't understand why the FTAB playing a song like "Dixie" might be a problem.

-Ben Class of '01

[This message has been edited by AgClassof01 (edited 6/14/2012 12:19a).]