Black Pirates, "Social Justice Warriors," and Sad Puppies

[chris_gerrib]

One of the many, many fine whines emitted at volume complaints of the Sad Puppies is that "social justice warriors" keep insisting on changing the races of people in order to advance the cause of social justice.

Then I was referred to this interesting article: black men and the black flag. Turns out that during the Age of Sail, lots of black men

Comments

[catsittingstill]

Wow, I had no idea.

Someone wrote a very interesting post on how she read The Hobbit to her daughter, and her daughter insisted that Bilbo was a girl, and so for grins, she read it that way. It turned out to be an excellent story about a girl who had adventures among a bunch of people who thought that was such a natural thing for a girl to do that they didn't bother to comment on her being a girl.

Changing the races of people in books seems to me to have the potential to be like that. I wouldn't recommend it as an exclusive solution to the issue of visibility, because I want books by diverse authors also, but it could be one aspect of the solution. So if that were what recent authors had done, I wouldn't see a problem with it anyway.

But kind of interesting to see the whitewashing of history exposed.

[chris_gerrib]

Yeah, and this whitewashing has happened a lot. A third of George Washington's army was black, yet you'll not see that in any movie.

“Who Controls the Present Controls the Past”

[baron_waste]

A THIRD of the Continental Army was black?!  Now, where did you get that little factoid, and is the ink quite dry on those “original documents” yet?

There were blacks to be found in Washington's Army, yes.  there were also native Americans. There was at least one woman, too. All were individual and isolated exceptions to the general rule.

Re: “Who Controls the Present Controls the Past”

[chris_gerrib]

Well, the US Army seems to think 10 to 15% was a good number, and up to 25% at certain times and places.

[baron_waste]

Well, when you look at how many such pirates were press-ganged in the first place, and how cosmopolitan their experiences and make-up were, it's not surprising; they HAD had walked a mile in the other guy's shoes - or manacles, in this case.  So their natural sympathies were with the cargo, when they took a blackbirder.

That's not to say they embraced them with Sixties™ lovingkindness, singing “We Shall Overcome,” which is what you're intended to think.  There were several occasions where a slave ship was overrun, its crew killed, the slaves freed, and the pirate ship sailed on, leaving a shipload of bewildered Africans who hadn't the slightest idea what an ocean was, let alone how to sail on it.  That wasn't the pirates' problem, was it?  In manu tua, Domine…

[baron_waste]

By the bye, there was an equally swept-under-the-carpet population of black homesteaders and cowboys out in the Territories after the Civil War.  Made sense; they were always hated in the North and now just as hated in the South, so a good many cleared out and headed West.  They didn't assimilate, nor did the established white townsfolk welcome them, but they could work and own land and not get lynched…

[ext_3018476]

Do you actually have SP quotations to back up ANY of these assertions? I mean, I don't remember a whole heck of a lot of complaints about all those black pirates in... I dunno, Pirates of the Caribbean?

Actually, what "whitewashing" are you referencing right now? I certainly didn't grow up with the impression that all pirates were white. Heck, given that I actually had an education growing up, I'm aware that there were black/native slaveowners and white slaves in the Americas.

[chris_gerrib]

What "all those black pirates in the movie?" I saw one.

[ext_3018476]

http://www.militaryheritage.com/images/03_976.jpg

Seriously, there are at least 3 in just that one picture. From the first movie. There are several others, including the two prominent black women.

I'm begging to believe that you perceive cultural biases where none exist.

[chris_gerrib]

Here's a link hot of the presses

Money quote: Because reading about a dissatisfied whore while being subjected to a sermon on the importance of diversity in sexual orientation, race, and transgenderism - there's one black character mentioned in the book, and he's a real historical person.