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| Cartoon by Walt Handelsman. |
Masoff's Wikipedia entry has one account of the three Internet sources Masoff used that it claims link back to this document generated by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a group which works hard to separate the rebellion from the stink of involuntary human servitude. One way to do that is to imply massive black support for states' rights (as opposed to the right of states to pass laws that enslaved people because of their race.) One wonders if it was these lines that Masoff cobbled into that one pithy sentence:
"There are at the present moment, many colored men in the Confederate Army doing duty...as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders and bullets in their pockets...." Frederick Douglas, former slave & abolitionist (Fall, 1861).
How many? Easily tens of thousands of blacks served the Confederacy as laborers, teamsters, cooks and even as soldiers. Some estimates indicate 25% of free blacks and 15% of slaves actively supported the South during the war.
Young historians: beware the ellipse. And honestly? If you didn't know who Frederick Douglass actually was, that first line is impenetrably confusing.
This was brought to the attention of the authorities in question by our colleague, Carol Sheriff of William and Mary, whose child was assigned the book. "Sheriff says blacks occasionally took up arms to defend their masters, but it was illegal to use blacks as soldiers in the Confederacy until toward the war's end. None of those companies saw action on the battlefront and most worked involuntarily as laborers." Note: Sheriff is not claiming that no black person did service that supported the Confederacy, only pointing out that thousands of enslaved people did not sign up to risk their lives with the goal of perpetuating slavery -- which is what Masoff's odd little factoid strongly implies.
Textbooks do make mistakes, and they can be corrected. And yet, an erroneous fact like this one would be field-changing were it true, and Masoff has to be criticized for not recognizing that and pursuing the question further. That the text also then slipped through nnumerous other hands before ending up in Virginia classrooms is a scandal.
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8 comments:
apparently the Virginia dept of education sees no present need to correct or withdraw this textbook...reports last week were that "it was only one sentence" and "teachers could just teach around it." interesting notion, given other rather rigid ideas about curriculum and teaching to the test (so called "standards of learning").
but this is Virginia, also home to Gov. Bob McDonnell and the infamous Confederate History Month Proclamation honoring soldiers who fought for the South because that is "our heritage." racism: it's a game of whack-a-mole down here.
Er, TR, what was in the ellipse? What did Douglass really say? Without this information, it's hard to know what to make of this quotation.
Or are you saying that the Douglas that they're quoting isn't THE Frederick Douglass who used to argue with Lincoln? Are we supposed to notice the missing "s"?
I don't know what was in the ellipse: perhaps googling the phrase would help. My point was to point out that the sentence had been made into, as the kids say, a mashup.
and yes, Douglass's name is misspelled in the original.
update: having learned a small something from Confederate History Month Proclamation gaffe, Gov. McDonnell is now ordering a review.
[History textbook] author Joy Masoff told The Washington Post that she found the passage on the Internet[.]
Independent of the whole Virginia-is-filled-with-unrepentant-racist-scumbags angle, this is one of the most depressing things I have ever read in my entire life.
Er, TR, what was in the ellipse? What did Douglass really say? Without this information, it's hard to know what to make of this quotation.
Dude, regardless of what was in the ellipse--and even if it's true that some slaves served in the confederate army and even fought on the battlefield--it's not hard to figure out that their having done so does not in any way, shape, or form imply that they thought the confederate cause was a good one. Because, you know, they were fucken *slaves*.
Lemme guess: it's Jack Daniels Black? amirite? Are you actually this fucken stupid, or is this some kind of weird act?
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