What you are getting at is correct, but are you certain it is incompatible with the statement, "Judging the past by the present is its own form of cultural appropriation"?
The modern world is all too ready to judge God's past actions by its standards, some of which are taken from God's word without credit and misapplied.
Modernism hates God and scripture, because He and His Word doesn't make sense to their already in error beliefs and culture. One based on the tenets of a Modern Society. I am declaring war on the whole show through attacks on its guiding principles. That's why I said what I did.
Now Confederate statues have to be dealt with in wisdom. We should engage people in discussion about why they want them or why they think they should go. Problem is the Baptist Board is not diverse, not in person, and quite polemical. So not the place to do that.
You're the one labeling things as a conspiracy. I'm not reaching for anything. You're trying to push what's apparent back into the realm of conspiracy theory. As if the left wing in America isn't taking the lessons learned from the European and South American left. As if China isn't providing "aid" to these left wing factions when they get into power.
Granted, America is a larger mouthful to chew than a Bolivia. But the same tactic we saw in Bolivia over the last 2 years are the same being used in America.
China has provided aid in the form of loans to Bush, BO and Trump... so tell me how this is left wing. BTW, these cameras are already evident in our neighborhoods. Where did they come from?
It was about slavery.
It was about states rights and the nature of the union.
It was about economics.
And slavery was not merely racism (we have to remember that black people had also owned black slaves in America).
It was racism. It was a caste system. It was economic dependency.
My point is today people try to oversimplify our history.
I can Simplify it even more .... in a word that war, as well as any war is about profits, was nothing else but profits. God, youse guys are always gripin about liberals, Democrats, pansies, Marxists blah blah blah. When the heck are we (in the USA) going to wake up and be a committed capitalist society for Pete’s sake!
So let’s follow this reasoning, if you kill off slavery and the South doesn’t have the big factories and the businessmen, where did that leave the South? The south was agrarian (think plantations sized) where gentlemen farmers and ranchers prospered through slave labor. So if a war happens the Northerners and carpetbaggers can come in and take advantage and make healthy profits. That’s why the DuPonts were selling gunpowder at a good profit... to both sides! So ya stuff the turkey and ya get fat on the dinner with allot of leftovers.
So let’s advance this to our lives. Our economy is ruined, what can America do to kick start it... may I suggest start a war... pick your commie...any commie country.
And do it quick, I need to make some serious money to get outa this hole.
It was about economics but it was also about a caste system.
Rich slave owners represented a minority of white southerners. It was also about government and the independence (or lack there of) of individual states.
It was about laws and the authority of a federal government.
It was about representation.
I believe the North was right about the nature of the Union.
The North was right about slavery.
But I believe the South had a more constitutional view of the authority of federal governance.
I believe the South had some good points about the freedom and independence of states (however not to the extent they would hold).
From these common quotes, it seems that racism (as the basis for slavery) was what the whole movement was about:
Alexander H. Stephens, vice president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865, and later governor of Georgia, in his famous "Cornerstone Speech", which
William T. Thompson ("Stainless Banner" version of the flag designer, or at least gave his input on it):
Afterwards:
“Declaration of the Causes Which Impel the State of Texas to Secede From the Federal Union”:
Benning, general who, after he helped get his home state of Georgia to secede, made the following argument to the Virginia legislature:
And yes, slavery was economic (the big business of the times), and naturally, it would become an issue of "states rights". It's now being pointed out how "race" was in fact conceived and being used to justify the "business"! That doesn't make either issue any less important.
It doesn't matter whether slavery was "the only issue"; it was indelibly woven into everything. So it's not "reducing" anything to point this out; it's reducing something to say "oh, that was just one minor issue among other more important stuff", as some seem to argue.
So these things are naturally offensive to people, just like abortion and the other "moral" issues are offensive to others (including some who are offended by both). Both violate the commandments of God (Matt.7:12), yet removal of the former is being equated with the moral issues, and it's the devil, and just a conspiracy by those trying to pitch Communism, etc. (which is all the same stuff people said about King, yet now many conservatives claim to respect him). The Devil was just as active back then! Even if there were/are people getting involved with an ulterior agenda like that, it doesn't change the fact of what these people themselves said they represented.
Race was involved, but that was not the basis for slavery.
The basis for slavery was the need of (or preceived need of) slaves.
Black men were the ones who enslaved other black men, sold them to slavers who sold them to slave owners.
Slave owners did not but slaves because of racism. They purchased slaves as labor.
Similarly, the 3/5 law declaring a black man less than human was not racism at its base. Southerners did not like thus law. They wanted black men to count as a human being.
Northerners did not want them to count at all. The 3/5 rule was a compromise.
Northerners did not want black men to be counted as human beings because it would give Southern states a greater representation.
Boiling down these things to racism us too simplistic.
Racism certainly was involved on all sides (the North and the South). But it is not all not encompassing.
when I read this morning that Robert E. Lee, a slave owner thru his wife’s family had slave families split up and sold off I was a tad dejected. Then to read that they were ordered flogged, well it changed my opinion of the man and got me thinking that if Lee could meet out 50 lashes filled by pouring brine on the wounds then what were others who could treat slaves ( and consider them Christian ) do!
Read Gronniosaw's Narrative (Gronniosaw is the first black writer published in England). Calvinists and the Dutch Reformed viewed slavery as beneficial (black men were among those who shared this view).
From those quotes, it was more than simply “involved”. They're saying that was their whole “foundation”!
Africans may have sold other Africans into slavery, and everyone knows others had slavery (including today), but that was simply normal subjugation of tribes who lost a war. They did not build a whole philosophy, genetic theory or religion (“curse of Canaan”, etc.) that dehumanized the enslaved groups. If it were just owership and not the other stuff, you probably wouldn't have the same outcry against slavery today, nor the fight to end it. It's also known that some slavers was what was known as “indentured servanthood”, which met the need for labor, and they would gain their freedom after awhile. But what we see in those quotes clearly is a premise of permanent natural inferiority that they themselves said was their whole basis.
As for who was behind the 3/5 clause, we all know both sides believed the blacks were inferior. It seems nearly everyone did. But the South was the one pushing to maintain more overt subjugation.
I disagree with the conclusion.
It is wrong because the ones who enslaved the black men were black men and black men owned slaves as well.
Racism was, obviously, essential (for slavery to exist the slave owner had to view the slave as inferior). But racism was not the cause of slavery (people did not stumble upon a black guy and say "hey, he's another race.... Let's make him a slave and see if that will help our personal economies".
The 3/5 law was the same.
It was the racism of the North (it was the North taking advantage of a race for their benefit). But race, again, was not the cause.
The point at this stage is not which caused which; slavery or racism, who sold who into slavery, or the 3/5th clause, etc. This is about the intentions of the Confederacy, and why that former regime and its emblems are offensive to people today.
In other words, it's racism (togetherwith the slavery it intended to justify) as the basis of the Confederacy's desire to secede, not "racism as the basis [meaning "cause", as you seem to be taking it] of slavery" [see below]. They didn't care who started slavery; they just didn't want it to end, and had built a whole belief system to justify it (which would actually suggest your point "racism was not the cause"; it came afterward, as the effect). So that's not what's being argued against.
When the African merchants sold slaves, most captured in war, "At that time, there was no concept of being African – identity and loyalty were based on kinship or membership of a specific kingdom or society, rather than to the African continent." (The slave trade's effect on African societies - Implications of the slave trade for African societies - Higher History Revision - BBC Bitesize) It was once in Western captivity, that this thing called "race" became the deciding factor, and people discriminated against for it (whether by slavery, its replacement Jim Crow or anything else).
That's what I meant by "racism as the basis of slavery"; "basis" being not a timelike meaning of causation, but as the already established [by then] rationale (justification), that the people were inferior. The Confederates weren't protesting "We bought those slaves from the African merchants, and [no matter who they are], taking this property from us is just one of other more important things we are seceding over". What they said was was that "we are fighting to maintain the heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race", and "the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition".
So no; no one here is saying "racism" came first; nor does it make a difference at this point.