Alex Pareene, HuffPost; Southerners Tore Down Silent Sam. Now Northerners Need to Tear Down Confederate Flags.
"At a certain point, we stopped telling ourselves about how we freed the United States."
Showing posts with label slavery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label slavery. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
Tuesday, August 28, 2018
The Story of the American Inventor Denied a Patent Because He Was a Slave; Gizmodo, August 28, 2018
Matt Novak, Gizmodo;
"The world of invention is famous for its patent disputes. But what happens when your dispute wasn’t with another inventor but whether the Patent Office saw you as a person at all? In 1864, a black man named Benjamin T. Montgomery tried to patent his new propeller for steamboats. The Patent Office said that he wasn’t allowed to patent his invention. All because he was enslaved."
The Story of the American Inventor Denied a Patent Because He Was a Slave
"The world of invention is famous for its patent disputes. But what happens when your dispute wasn’t with another inventor but whether the Patent Office saw you as a person at all? In 1864, a black man named Benjamin T. Montgomery tried to patent his new propeller for steamboats. The Patent Office said that he wasn’t allowed to patent his invention. All because he was enslaved."
Sunday, June 17, 2018
When the US government snatches children, it's biblical to resist the law; The Guardian, June 15, 2018
, The Guardian; When the US government snatches children, it's biblical to resist the law
"As writer Rachel Held Evans points out in her new book about the bible, Inspired, nearly half of all defenses of slavery in the buildup to the American Civil War were written by Christian ministers citing scripture. Later, many white Christians anchored their objections to the Civil Rights movement in Romans 13 and a decontextualized reading of the apostle Paul.
For every passage in the bible about submitting to authority, there’s another passage about a prophet calling out the authorities. Jesus Christ, himself, was crucified for subverting religious and political authorities. At the very beginning of the Exodus story, a group of midwives disobey a king’s cruel policy targeting children.
These are the kinds of biblical stories that informed Angelina Grimké when she became one of the very few white southern women to openly support the cause of abolition. In her “Appeal to Christian Women of the South” written in 1836, she states: “If a law commands me to sin I will break it ...The doctrine of blind obedience and unqualified submission to any human power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, is the doctrine of despotism, and ought to have no place among Republicans and Christians.”
There is no divine mandate requiring us to accept an unjust policy or law."
"As writer Rachel Held Evans points out in her new book about the bible, Inspired, nearly half of all defenses of slavery in the buildup to the American Civil War were written by Christian ministers citing scripture. Later, many white Christians anchored their objections to the Civil Rights movement in Romans 13 and a decontextualized reading of the apostle Paul.
For every passage in the bible about submitting to authority, there’s another passage about a prophet calling out the authorities. Jesus Christ, himself, was crucified for subverting religious and political authorities. At the very beginning of the Exodus story, a group of midwives disobey a king’s cruel policy targeting children.
These are the kinds of biblical stories that informed Angelina Grimké when she became one of the very few white southern women to openly support the cause of abolition. In her “Appeal to Christian Women of the South” written in 1836, she states: “If a law commands me to sin I will break it ...The doctrine of blind obedience and unqualified submission to any human power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, is the doctrine of despotism, and ought to have no place among Republicans and Christians.”
There is no divine mandate requiring us to accept an unjust policy or law."
Friday, June 15, 2018
Sessions cites Bible passage used to defend slavery in defense of separating immigrant families; The Washington Post, June 15, 2018
The Washington Post; Sessions cites Bible passage used to defend slavery in defense of separating immigrant families
"“I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear
and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government
because God has ordained the government for his purposes,” Sessions said
during a speech to law enforcement officers in Fort Wayne, Ind.
“Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves. Consistent and
fair application of the law is in itself a good and moral thing, and
that protects the weak and protects the lawful.”
Government officials occasionally refer to the Bible as a line of argument — take, for instance, the Republicans who have quoted 2 Thessalonians (“if a man will not work, he shall not eat”) to justify more stringent food stamps requirements.
But the verse that Sessions cited, Romans 13, is an unusual choice.
“There
are two dominant places in American history when Romans 13 is invoked,”
said John Fea, a professor of American history at Messiah College in
Pennsylvania. “One is during the American Revolution [when] it was
invoked by loyalists, those who opposed the American Revolution.”
The
other, Fea said, “is in the 1840s and 1850s, when Romans 13 is invoked
by defenders of the South or defenders of slavery to ward off
abolitionists who believed that slavery is wrong. I mean, this is the
same argument that Southern slaveholders and the advocates of a Southern
way of life made.”"
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