MattL
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I didn't want to derail other threads, but in the various discussion involving Black Confederates a potential odd contradiction comes up.
I have seen many who exaggerate the "Black Confederate" quantity by bolstering their numbers with every slave in service (enlisted or not) into the Confederate military (almost exclusively as cooks, musicians, servants, etc). That somehow these people should be counted among the supporters of the Confederate cause.
I find this a contradiction. Most of these people (an assumption, but one I'm willing to put forward) would likely agree across the sides that slavery was bad in general. Which in most cases forced Blacks to perform agricultural work for the benefit of White people. That doing agricultural work in itself isn't bad of course (plenty of White people did it, usually at a much smaller scale) but that when someone is enslaved, who has no real say, no real rights, faces various inhumane consequences and treatment due to that status etc it becomes bad.
Yet somehow those slaves being forced to risk their lives (whether just traveling along with soldiers so being in danger due to being present, or the rare cases a gun was thrown in their hands and/or they were forced to defend themselves in the moment) and contribute towards the killing of their White masters enemies is somehow virtuous?
How is this not a contradiction and one quite vile when you step back and look at it. Slavery is bad except when those slaves are forced to do something far more dangerous and far more exploitative of their lack of personal rights?
Conversely to those that might have been surprised why so many of us don't like to count slaves among the Black Confederates without any direct evidence to suggest they genuinely wanted to be, this is why. We don't count Black slave farm workers as pro-White Slave Master agriculture just because they were forced to labor for that cause either. In fact it feels quite insulting and deprecating to do so. Another abuse of the slaves, not only were they forced to do things they had no real say in during their lives, but in death they are used to bolster those same causes they were forced to serve.
I have seen many who exaggerate the "Black Confederate" quantity by bolstering their numbers with every slave in service (enlisted or not) into the Confederate military (almost exclusively as cooks, musicians, servants, etc). That somehow these people should be counted among the supporters of the Confederate cause.
I find this a contradiction. Most of these people (an assumption, but one I'm willing to put forward) would likely agree across the sides that slavery was bad in general. Which in most cases forced Blacks to perform agricultural work for the benefit of White people. That doing agricultural work in itself isn't bad of course (plenty of White people did it, usually at a much smaller scale) but that when someone is enslaved, who has no real say, no real rights, faces various inhumane consequences and treatment due to that status etc it becomes bad.
Yet somehow those slaves being forced to risk their lives (whether just traveling along with soldiers so being in danger due to being present, or the rare cases a gun was thrown in their hands and/or they were forced to defend themselves in the moment) and contribute towards the killing of their White masters enemies is somehow virtuous?
How is this not a contradiction and one quite vile when you step back and look at it. Slavery is bad except when those slaves are forced to do something far more dangerous and far more exploitative of their lack of personal rights?
Conversely to those that might have been surprised why so many of us don't like to count slaves among the Black Confederates without any direct evidence to suggest they genuinely wanted to be, this is why. We don't count Black slave farm workers as pro-White Slave Master agriculture just because they were forced to labor for that cause either. In fact it feels quite insulting and deprecating to do so. Another abuse of the slaves, not only were they forced to do things they had no real say in during their lives, but in death they are used to bolster those same causes they were forced to serve.
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