Race- Privilege, Relations, Racism, etc.

Go for it.

So, I am currently reading a book named 1822: How a Wise Man, a sad princess and a scottish mad for money helped D. Pedro ([[{{http://tinyurl.com/lmvjuhu}} this guy]]) create Brazil, a country that had everything to go wrong. (Translated from the original Portuguese) It is, as you probably guessed from the title and the link, a book about the circustances that led to the Brazillian declaration of Independence.

And in one chapter the writer starts describing the life of a man named Jose Bonifacio de Andrada e Silva, he was basically the guy who wrote the text that would later be used to define how the Brazillian Empire would be once it removed itself from Portugal. The author of the book, Laurentino Gomes, then uses that fact to draw some parallels between Jose and Thomas Jefferson.

One of those similarities being the fact that they both had lovers of several races.

It then follows that assertion with this phrase, which I took the liberty of translating.

"Jefferson had inumerous children with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings. He never recognized them. The paternity was only proven in 1998 by Genetic Exams on Sally's descendants, a job that up until today Jefferson's white lineanage tries to disprove."

I must ask... does anyone knows how true this assertion is or isn't? I have no reason to doubt Laurentino when he talks about Brazillian History but I genuinely don't know about how reliable he is in regards to American History. And he tends to put a Note saying where he learned this in his book, but he did not do that here.

edited 29th Aug '14 9:49:08 AM by SaintDeltora

I have been to Jefferson's home, Monticello. Even there, on a federally recognized landmark, they confirm that Thomas Jefferson had children with at least Sally, though possibly more. It is not very clear if he had other affairs besides with her.

Jefferson was not the only one who had affairs with his slaves, it was more common among the upper class the originally thought. His is just the more documented.

I think the main reason why people do not wish to acknowledge this about him is because they do not want to accept that a very smart man who did a lot of good for our country was also an adulterer and a rapist. There are some who say him and Sally were in love, but regardless, he was in the position of power and that love cannot be confirmed. She was property who was denied her own chance to voice her concerns.

It is an uncomfortable feeling for some.

There's also the fact that Jefferson had very ambiguous, often hypocritical, and sometimes misquoted opinions about slavery in general. Abolitionists have argued that he himself was an abolitionist who simply kept slaves as a Necessary Evil (because they were what gave him his wealth), while others have claimed that he wasn't abolitionist at all, and point toward his refusal to recognize his mixed children as proof that his "reluctant slaveowner" persona was bullshit.

There is both circumstantial and DNA evidence pointing towards Jefferson fathering Sally's children. The DNA testing, as mentioned, ties them together, plus Jefferson freed Sally's children once they were adults, the only set of his slaves he ever did so with. Sally herself, was the product of a master-slave relationship. In fact, she was Jefferson's wife's half sister.

Thomas Jefferson's words and ideals played a central role in shaping the young United States, but he lacked the will or courage to actually live up to them, to the eternal frustration of future generations, and no doubt to the dismay of his own slaves.

Thankfully, though, not too much of his ideals. I mean, just check out the context for his 'tree of liberty' quote. Dude was pretty nuts.

Thank God for Alexander Hamilton.

To keep this on topic, yes, many slave owners took advantage of the slaves with depressing regularity. A number of prominent Anetebellum and Civil War era African Americans were actually of mixed ancestry. One of the more humorous stories from the Civil War was a Southern woman, outraged that her slaves had been freed after Union troops arrived with the Emanciparion Proclamation in hand, yelling at a Union soldier about how they were inviting the horrible future of black and white race mixing. The soldier from whose writings we get this story from says that no sooner had she finished her diatribe that several mulatto (people who are half-white and half-black) children seemed to just gratuitously run by. Seemed like the South had a good head start in that regard.

Less funny is a remark by Theofore Roosevelt, who said one of the most revolting aspects of slavery was family selling family, and that he knew of a white man who had sold his own half-sisters.

FYI, "Mulatto" (along with its derivatives like "Quadratto" and "Octaroon") are considered very un-PC these days. Because the origin of the word is "mule", a type of domesticated work animal that's half horse and half donkey.

Where you live or where I live?

I...I don't understand the question.

Basically, given that "Mulato" is still very often used in Brazil in stuff like children's stories, important biographies, school books and so on and there seems to be no movement towards removing them...

edited 29th Aug '14 1:58:04 PM by SaintDeltora

In the United States at least, mulatto is considered either rude or archaic depending on where you live. Some places will find it offensive if you try to use it, others you'll just get blank stares and maybe offense after you've explained what it means.

Yeah, well, everyone knows America does things the RIGHT way.

MURICA!!

To err on the safe side, only use words like "mulatto" in conversations in the U.S. when you're directly quoting someone from the time period, or otherwise can show you're only using it in historical context.

At least in Jamaica it's not really viewed as a taboo word, as my older relatives used it without irony and I didn't even know it was looked at badly in America until I was a teenager.

Uh, yeah, I guess. But you seem to bring this up much more than I do, and I'm not sure why. I agree with what you're saying, but we don't talk about it that much.

Because of globalization, racism seems to be both easier and more difficult to confront. The greater awareness for cultures other than our own has given way to new discussions about the historical, psychological and social effects of both macroscopic discriminatory practices and small-scale acts of racial aggression. On the other hand, it has illuminated variations and even competing viewpoints on how racial discrimination should be evaluated and mitigated in each society because globalization has in many ways magnified controversies regarding cultural relativity. This was evidenced by the somewhat infamous black Santa Claus helper (can't remember his name) story from Europe, and many European tropers were fairly adamant about defending its existence for the sake of historical reverence and children's fun.

I don't have a fully baked solution to this issue, and it will continue to be a source of conflict as we continue to bridge cultures.

edited 29th Aug '14 3:49:16 PM by Aprilla

Zwarte Piet.

Okay, thanks.

An article from The BBC: The fear of being seen as racist

Neogaf already has a gif from it.

edited 31st Aug '14 8:16:22 PM by Mars444

More interesting information coming out the Rotherham events: Rotherham abuse: Researcher 'faced council hostility'

Looks like the opposite of the situation in the US...

Yeah, that's really bad. The council appears to be treating her point as "these people are from Pakistan so they must have done it" when she was actually saying "these people seem to have done it, and a lot of them happen, completely aside from anything else, to be from Pakistan."

My aunt works in the British school system as a counselor and she said that she's occasionally given a list of phrases and words that could be considered racist. Most of them are terms most people would consider racist, but one she showed me said that it's apparently racist to mention that anything is black (the color) because that draws attention to black people. Not kidding.

Sure, it's a bad thing to overfocus on a specific ethnic group, but when someone in that group has legitimately committed a crime, they should be arrested. I'm also wondering if anyone of Pakistani descent is on that council.

Yes, I remember "blackboards" being renamed "chalkboards" during my time at Secondary School ('98-'05). And I think that at least one of the members of Rotherham Metropolitan Council that Labour have suspended from the Party over this were of Pakistani origin.

To be fair, many blackboards are green.

I'm suspicious that this whole British pedo ring is a bit less pc gone mad and a bit more corruption in high places.