(no subject)
Sep. 23rd, 2006 06:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theweaselking
Bill Cosby on Friday called on each American to contribute $8 to help build a national slavery museum amid the battlefields of the Civil War.
Cosby, who already has committed $1 million to the project, joined Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder on Friday in launching a new campaign to raise $100 million toward the Fredericksburg museum's $200 million price tag.
"The incentive is that they would join in with the rest of the United States of America in saying yes, as an American, I gave $8 to help build something that tells the story," he said in a teleconference with Wilder.
In a nation of some 300 million people, even a tepid response would surpass the $100 million goal, Cosby said.
He admitted this kind of campaign "generally fails badly."
"But I'm going to try again because I'm going to present this national slavery museum as a jewel that's missing in a crown."
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-24 12:09 am (UTC)Slavery ended, we're sorry it happened in the first place, can we all just along with our lives.
Why do you keep picking at this massive scab on our history instead of letting it heal???
Must be trying to deflect attention from all those rape charges.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-24 12:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-24 12:34 am (UTC)$200 million for the museum as a whole. That's even more help for people who need it, now.
Focus on the present. The past is past, and while its lessons are important, building monuments and museums will ultimately do nothing to change what's already happened. A difference could be made in the here and now.
-K
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-24 01:27 am (UTC)On the other hand, I really do not think it's a good idea to start passing judgement on what particular non-harmful cause other individuals decide to donate their own money to. (I mean, it would be helpful if I thought it *was* a good idea. Life would be simpler. I could take a poll, and other people could decide--should be giving to the Red Cross instead of the Canadian Cancer Society? Does New Orleans rank higher than Planned Parenthood? Is time at the gym so I can keep qualifying for bone marrow donation--which might never come up but *will* matter if it does--better spent stuffing letters asking for donations? Declare, if thou hast understanding.)
(Also on that hand, colour me cynical about how much of the money going in the general direction of New Orleans
New Orleans? Ha! meet my friends Zip, Zero, and Zilch
Date: 2006-09-24 02:02 am (UTC)Given the fact that Wilder won't even use it for his own STATE (but
where's it coming from?) every single penny is going to that memorial. More like something to honor the Board of Directors, Wilder at the head. I noticed that the Board is made up of all men (the only woman is "The Late Mrs. Ruby G. Martin, Esq.")
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-26 09:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-24 01:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-24 01:17 am (UTC)Shit, he even ADMITS it's Quixotian, so give the guy a break.
And if you think that slavery is a scab, you obviously aren't paying enough attention. That wound still bleeds and oozes, and I'm sorry if that makes people uncomfortable.
bring out the antibiotics!
Date: 2006-09-24 03:19 am (UTC)But what I'm trying to say is that IMHO Cosby, Wilder, et al. are building a new museum that is going to get people all worked up about slavery YET AGAIN. Things were finally settling down a little bit. Not completely, not anywhere near completely. But at least it was no longer the biggest issue anymore. There are other things that are more important right now. Pay attention to the living, in whatever fasion you want. But help build the future.
I'm not saying that slavery shouldn't be honored. But it's one of the topics that is most emphasized in American history classes. I don't think that anything else gets quite as much attention. My nephew got a whole semester on it. Slavery is not forgotten. I don't think it ever will be. Kids can tell you more about it than any other historical topic. Why go to a museum when you already know what's there?
It's not that I want to direct these men's philanthropy, although I certainly have some suggestions (their own streets comes to mind). But if they are so intent on making a hoo-hah about dead black men, maybe they should look at the ones who were killed by Katrina. The ones shown floating in the streets and ignored by the Coast Guard. Left to rot.
The dead are dead. They will stay that way no matter how many museums and monuments we build for them. When we build monuments, for whom are we building them? I think we build them for us, for our own vanity and ego. That's why the politicians insisted on a WWII memorial even though the Vets themselves objected. It's all about the creators' ego.
Do you think I'm accusing Mr. Cosby of doing this as a self-aggrandising project? You bet your sweet little ass I am. Notice he's only giving $1 million when he's probably the richest of them all. This is his "Look at me!" project. He's trying to pander to the black people. He isn't funny anymore, so he kisses up to the ones who have power.
I confess, I have never particularly liked Mr. Cosby, from his TV show onward. I liked his stage shows, but he sold out with TV.
Of course, I'm not a psychologist, but I could play one on TV. As long as it isn't on the same show as Bill Cosby.
Note: All of the comments above are entirely my own, so if you take offense at them at and want to call me foul names or question my parentage, please know that the foul names are probably true but the parentage thing isn't. But you're welcome to call my dad foul names and then we can call it a draw, OK?
Re: bring out the antibiotics!
Date: 2006-09-24 04:06 am (UTC)Re: bring out the antibiotics!
Date: 2006-09-24 05:17 pm (UTC)There are already people who claim that slavery wasn't as bad as history books make it out to be, that slaves were on the whole well treated and led overall pleasant lives—as though the fact of being owned by someone else were a mere detail.
Oddly enough, I've encountered this attitude more in the northern U.S. than in the southern.
Re: bring out the antibiotics!
Date: 2006-09-26 09:17 pm (UTC)Which -is- true.
Someone had a screaming shit fit. Because how DARE anyone look on the bright side of something horrible.
Re: Slavery vs. The Final Solution
Date: 2006-09-25 10:58 pm (UTC)Slavery came from ignorance, unfortunately. The deliberate murder of Jews, homosexuals, gypsies and others, did not come from ignorance. It was deliberate. Precise. Planned out. "The Final Solution" to the ridding the the Fatherland of this "waste."
Some slave owners attempted to treat their slaves well. Some educated them and allowed them to have some property. (Not that I defend them.) Slave owners, for the most part, only believed that the men and women they possessed were of an inferior race. They came from continents where people ran around naked and spoke languages other than English. Of course these people had to be trained, and since they couldn't all be educated, they made good servants. Then they began to be used in the fields as slaves. They were hard workers, not saying anything, as an animal might work.
Nazis used the Jews even as they killed them. Money lenders, other businessmen were allowed to live even as their friends and neighbors were led off. Most of those who were deported where not found by the Nazis; their friends and neighbors turned them in, hoping to buy more time.
If Mr. Cosby's museum were focused more on what NOT to do, I might think a little more highly of it. But if you go to the website, the little figures up at the top appear to be dancing even as they are beaten and chained. What kind of lesson does that give? That they were happy to be whipped? Does the museum provide any information about the people who were the owners, and why they thought slavery was OK? If it doesn't, what's to keep it from happening again? Who will know what the symptoms were, or how to look for them?
Re: bring out the antibiotics!
Date: 2006-09-24 10:24 am (UTC)Precisely because you know what is there.
While perhaps there are better things that need funding just yet, slavery is still an issue that needs to be dealt with and needs to be remembered. Yes, it's all done and in the past, but that does not mean it should be whitewashed into forgetfulness. Slavery, like so many other crimes against humanity, should be a mar upon your consciousness every moment of your life. Just as it is a mar on the consciousness of every black person and should be a mar on the consciousness of every human.
Katrina is a much more recent issue to deal with, and yet why is it that blacks were so disproportionately affected by that tragedy? Racism, particularly against blacks is still all too alive and well in this country. And I fear that so long as whites are trying to "get over" slavery, that will always be the case. Even now we don't accept the horrors we've inflicted. We're too busy wondering why blacks don't just move past it and live their lives to realize that maybe they don't want to, that maybe they shouldn't want to, and that maybe it's not an issue of blacks accepting the past but of whites finally living up to the consequences for our actions.
I've never been to Detroit, but racism is not an issue in DC. I know, I grew up there. While there are poor blacks and some token epithets brandied about, the great number of blacks in the area are quite well off, and even the poor blacks benefit from that because the success of other blacks means that they too to can be human and play by the rules. But I've lived other places where that's not the case. Spend some time in Philly, spend some time in Baltimore outside of downtown, come out and spend some time here in Portland. Live somewhere where people's reactions to you are based entirely around the color of your skin and know that it is not others' fault but your own.
Or perhaps, just read this (http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10157).
Re: bring out the antibiotics!
Date: 2006-09-26 09:20 pm (UTC)1) Blacks were affected more by Katrina because um...it hit where they lived.
2) Why the heck should I have to think about slavery every moment of every day?
3) "Our actions?" I'm sorry, last time I checked I didn't own any slaves. I have -nothing- to apologize for.
Re: bring out the antibiotics!
Date: 2006-09-24 03:35 pm (UTC)Bill Cosby IS a black person who has power.
I find that I cannot agree that kids know this part of our history well enough. How many of them will tell you "Lincoln freed the slaves?" How many realize that Lincoln voted against abolishment four times while he was in Congress?
Is the gesture symbolic? Yes. It may even be a dodge as you say. But until I've put as much into trying to improve the lot of my people as he has, I'm not comfortable with knee-jerk criticism of what he's doing.
It's not as if he burst forth from a vacuum and suddenly cried "Everybody gimme eight bucks!" For years he has supported both the college he attended and other black schools. He has spoken out for equality for as long as I can remember.
If you don't like him and think he's a "sell-out," fine. Take your own advice, don't pay any attention to him, and let it settle down. See how well that works?
Re: bring out the antibiotics!
Date: 2006-09-24 05:20 pm (UTC)But it's one of the topics that is most emphasized in American history classes. I don't think that anything else gets quite as much attention.
This is highly dependent on where you live, since education is largely a state-by-state issue.
Re: bring out the antibiotics!
Date: 2006-09-26 09:15 pm (UTC)Mr. Cosby does good entertainment. Absolutely unrealistic nonsense but sometimes people need that.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-26 09:11 pm (UTC)"You can read about slavery on that their internet. Internets don't feed people, beyotches." He then slapped a pimp.