What 'Lincoln' misses and another Civil War film gets right

[redstar826]

- He used the N-word and told racist jokes. He once said African-Americans were inferior to whites. He proposed ending slavery by shipping willing slaves back to Africa

Comments

[kitschaster]

I've been telling people about Lincoln for years, including many of those listed points. What's really sad? I've had more southerners confess it to be true than I ever got when I lived in Los Angeles. That has always been quite...unnerving. I'd think it would be the other way around.

[encircleme]

We're incredibly racist and live with massive blinders on here in LA.

[kitschaster]

Truly. I used to think my fellow Los Angelians were great. But not so much anymore.

[intrikate88]

Idk, I think Southerners are more aware because we never stop having that history brought up to us. We have to deal with it, we have to live with it, and we have to try to learn from it. People from other regions hear about it more abstractly, and I don't think it's quite as real. Doesn't mean we don't have a shitload of racism problems, but I don't think we're ever allowed to be blind to history.

[redstar826]

I know in Michigan, as far as race is concerned we got Civil War/slavery, a little bit about reconstruction, then nothing about black americans until the Civil Rights Movement. Which was all about segregation in the south. Despite the fact that the metro Detroit area where I grew up had its own history of segregation and racial discrimination and is still one of the most segregated parts of the country.

I get the impression this is how it is taught in much of the US. Everything is framed as a southern problem

[lenympheas]

I was born in Virginia and lived there until the end of second grade. There was so much history in the area where I grew up and we started learning a lot about that history starting in first grade--we also discussed slavery and the Civil War. We had the best Black History Months in first and second grade and, in addition to learning about black figures from history, we talked about the history of racism in Virginia. We learned that things didn't necessarily get better for freed slaves after the War and that they struggled in Virginia and the rest of the country too. Racism was never presented as just a "Southern" problem but as an American problem. Everything was watered down for elementary students but it was a great introduction to race relations in this country. I wish that was taught everywhere.

[redstar826]

It seems like the teaching of history is one of those things that varies so much from classroom to classroom. I've heard from people who grew up in areas near me who had better classes.

[roseofjuly]

In the South that's what we get, too. The Civil War - but I remember my U.S. history book having about 2-3 pages on states' rights and all the conflicts and court cases that arose about states' rights, and maybe a paragraph or two on slavery itself. The implication was that the Civil War, from the South's perspective, was fought about states' rights and not really slavery (although I had a pretty radical history teacher who taught us otherwise).

But we basically skipped Reconstruction. And when I say we skipped it - we didn't actually skip it, but there simply wasn't much about it to learn in the book. The section on Reconstruction was really a mess. Honestly, I think modern history books should make Reconstruction a separate chapter from the Civil War. It's a short period of time, but it's distinct from the war

[redstar826]

We got the negative portrayal of Reconstruction here too. I did so much unlearning in my college history classes.

[moonshaz]

I went to elementary school in the late 50s and early 60s in Chattanooga, TN, a city that was the site of some major battles of the Civil War and loaded with Civil War-related historical sites. AND our textbooks didn't even MENTION the Civil War--or rather they mentioned the war, but they didn't CALL it the Civil War. It was the War Between the States

[kitschaster]

Well, that would explain why southerners are more apt to speak frankly about it. Definitely not suggesting that the south doesn't have just as many problems with racism but that many do confront it. I never knew how much southerners had to confront it, though.

[intrikate88]

Yeah, pretty much. It's not like every day is a big race debate and Civil War re-enactment or anything, but issues of culture and history and race play into everyday life in such an ordinary and regular way- it's very strange and alarming to go somewhere where everyone's white and seemingly homogenous. So just little day-to-day interactions are full of consideration for issues of intersectionality, because seeing those things there is as common as noticing the weather or that there's some event happening in the park this weekend or whatever. Being quietly "colorblind" is just not a concept that makes any functional sense, it seems.

[redstar826]

It amazes me though when I go down south (my brother moved to Nashville a few years ago) and the Civil War/that time period is EVERYWHERE. Battle fields. War monuments. Plantations to tour. etc.

[moonshaz]

It's the same way and maybe even more so in Chattanooga, where I lived as a child. Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, Chickamauga Battlefield, Orchard Knob--it's EVERYfuckingWHERE you turn.