From Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens’ Cornerstone Speech. Delivered March 21, 1861
“Our new government is founded upon exactly [this] idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Can there be any better proof than the above statement that declared the South’s contempt for Black Americans and their main reason for beginning the Civil War ? I believe I may have been an abolitionist in my past life. I commend those brave souls who stood up against the hatred and criticism of the times prior to, during , and after the Civil War to fight for the rights and dignity of Black Americans. William Lloyd Garrison is a hero of mine, his publication The Liberator, was the most hated news paper in the country during the times prior to and after the Civil War. Even great liberal thinkers during this time like Ralph Waldo Emerson were critical of William Lloyd Garrison, because of his harsh criticism of Americans for tolerating slavery.
I am amused yet disturbed by the recent NFL kneeling controversy. Nothing brings out White American Hatred more than a black man kneeling during the national anthem. The NFL players are American Gladiators, who entertain millions of Americans weekly by breaking their bodies and exceeding the limits of athleticism. For so many of them to be disparaged by “White Americans’ for expressing their right to Free Speech, is the ultimate in hypocrisy. No one is saying America is not a great country,nor are they insulting the U.S.A. What kneeling means in the NFL is calling a Time Out, to question a ruling, or to free catch a kick off without being tackled. I believe what the players are saying to America, when they kneel during the Anthem is Time Out, look what is happening in America to minority Americans under the blatantly racist Trump administration.
Black Americans are being unjustly shot or beaten by police for expressing their rights in protests, or being profiled by police for being Black Americans and falsely arrested or harassed without cause. If I were an NFL player or owner, I would also kneel in protest . Knowing what the real history of the historical treatment of Black Americans and Slavery is and what the Civil War was really fought over, should make most Americans pause to consider what they are demanding the NFL players and all minorities today to do, by standing during a national anthem, that was derived from a drinking song sung in bars during the early 1800s, and its lyrics were rewritten to pay tribute to a battle during the war of 1812, when slavery was still a major economic institution in the U.S, where black slaves were auctioned and sold to the highest bidders as cattle or horses. This was a tragic time in American History, but millions of deaths and many wars were fought over slavery both in the U.S and abroad.
Under the Trump presidency white racism has been revived as a political power and religion in the U.S. White Nationalism is a sick and evil monster, unleashed by Donald Trump and Steve Bannon, and the Alt Right Idiots, and the conservative media, who have been waiting for their moment to arrive again in history, when they can once again brutalize and belittle all Black and Minority people in the name of patriotism, as well as destroy any Liberal and Moderate thought in America. Unless Trump and his insane minions are stopped , America will be ruined and any gains won by the Veterans of our wars, and the suffering of the American people will be in vain. We must all kneel for a time out , to pause and think about who and what we are believing in. Either we believe in the God given equality given to all men and women of all races, or we continue to stand up to whistle and sing along to an unsingable song formally sung by drunks in bars during the 1800s, a ritual continued to this day as a patriotic reason to have another drink.
L.A. Steel
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