Sarah Jeong and The NY Times

[Worffan101]

Those Bostoners wouldn't start talking with Southern accents, owning slaves (not that that was a cultural trait of the South anyway) or embracing Southern mannerisms EVER, since in your nutty genocide plan there wouldn't be any Southerners left to emulate.

I didn't offer a plan, YOU did. I merely laid out a thought experiment. You're the one that's saying that more killing was the answer, not me.

We should have systematically dismantled the Southern states and reorganized them into new states, executed every Confederate officer of General rank, hung Jeff Davis, imprisoned any state legislator or governor who voted for or supported secession, and executed any of those who also owned slaves, and we should've repossessed every single plantation and handed it over to the former slaves, and imprisoned any Southerner who owned slaves.

And while nobody has ever managed to put my thought experiment into practice, (thank goodness) plenty of people have tried your approach. Many are trying it RIGHT NOW. The Israelis have embraced your ideas when it comes to the Palestinians, Saddam tried it with the Kurds, Russia tried it with Chechnya, heck, we have have a nice little microcosm of your ideas when it comes to north and south Sudan. Civil war happens, victors come in, ruthlessly execute anyone who opposed them, smash up the local society, put their own favored lackies in charge, and then seemed shocked when they find themselves fighting the exact same war 20 years later. Your ideas aren't new, they're downright constant...and frankly, they have a miserable success rate.

The conclusion of the Civil War as it played out gave the United States 150 years of growth and stability, making us the strongest, most diverse country in the world. No world power has ever managed anything like it in scale and effect. It is, honestly, one of the most successful political stories of our era. I can't understand people who look at that outcome and think..."Yeah, but what we really needed was more killing."

And you're missing the point entirely (and yes, you DID come up with the genocide plan, calling it a thought experiment doesn't really change that).

The consequence of the OTL civil war was 150 years of continued racism, domestic terrorism, mass murder, lynching, and social instability, which has left us looking like massive hypocrites and continues to lead to murder, the election of the worst President ever, and other serious social ills.

What we needed was to use the Southern leadership, the people responsible for the war, as the focus of blame, execute some of them and imprison or exile the rest, and then focus on reconstructing the South to be loyal to the Union rather than to a corrupt slavocratic failed state that lasted all of 4 years due to breathtaking incompetence on the part of the US military.

Or we could've let the South secede then come back 20 years later when we had a 10x numbers advantage and 20x industrial advantage and their economy was in the shitter from the cotton crash, and every man in the Union army had blood in their eyes from 20 straight years of propaganda about the evils of slavery, and how the Southerners are evil inbred sisterfuckers who molest babies, and we hear that they personally insulted the mothers of every single boy in the platoon, too, like the dirty slavers they are. You want a bloody scenario, THAT is a bloody scenario.

[LittleRaven]

The consequence of the OTL civil war was 150 years of continued racism, domestic terrorism, mass murder, lynching, and social instability, which has left us looking like massive hypocrites and continues to lead to murder, the election of the worst President ever, and other serious social ills.

I can't help but notice that you never did point out an area of the world where racism, domestic terrorism, mass murder, lynching, and social instability are nonexistent. One might almost suspect that such an area would be difficult to find, because things like racism and social instability are part and parcel of human nature, and not the result of some kind of unique failure of the United States.

(also, how exactly is TRUMP a result of the Civil War? Did Pennsylvania drift south of the Mason-Dixie line when I wasn't looking?)

What we needed was to use the Southern leadership, the people responsible for the war, as the focus of blame, execute some of them and imprison or exile the rest, and then focus on reconstructing the South to be loyal to the Union rather than to a corrupt slavocratic failed state that lasted all of 4 years due to breathtaking incompetence on the part of the US military.

Except, we managed to do all that WITHOUT the extra killing part. Whatever faults the South has, it is EXTREMELY loyal to the Union. It's children recite the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, and become young men and women that fill our armed forces to an astounding degree. It's economy has risen, with states like Virginia and Georgia now rivaling or even exceeding their Northern cousins when it comes to GDP. Lynching has all but disappeared...the last definite case we had was in 2008, and before that you have to go back to 1998. Racial tension continues to be a problem, of course, but it's not clear that the South is substantially worse in that regard than the North. Out of the top 10 deadliest cities for blacks, 3 are in Union states, and only one is located in the South. The nations most openly racist governor has got to be good ol' "D-Money" Paul LePage, from Maine of all places. I suppose the tainted blood of the South must have migrated it's way to snowy borders of Canada, given our failure to properly purge it back in 1865.

Or we could've let the South secede then come back 20 years later when we had a 10x numbers advantage and 20x industrial advantage and their economy was in the shitter from the cotton crash, and every man in the Union army had blood in their eyes from 20 straight years of propaganda about the evils of slavery, and how the Southerners are evil inbred sisterfuckers who molest babies, and we hear that they personally insulted the mothers of every single boy in the platoon, too, like the dirty slavers they are. You want a bloody scenario, THAT is a bloody scenario.

That's your fever dream, not mine. I'm perfectly happy with how things played out, thank you very much. The war was won, the peace was won. Sure, it wasn't all happily ever after, but real life never is. We have managed to craft a safer, more prosperous Union for everyone since 1865. That doesn't mean there isn't still work to do - there most certainly is. But I'm skeptical of anyone who says we can kill our way to a better future. History suggests that is a perilous path.

[TGLS]

Northerners and southerners both came from the same stock but ended up so different do to climate.

Albion's Seed would disagree.

--

Honestly, the KKK and Jim Crow all came about because of a desire to remain in political and economic control of their states. A prolonged reconstruction may have been able to prevent this, but the compromise of 1876 ended that. It may have been better to resettle slaves to somewhere in the west, land reform would not work in this case.

[Worffan101]

The South is NOT loyal to the Union. It is loyal to the fever dream that the Confederacy had a snowball's chance in Hell. Why do you think there are so many Confederate monuments, flags, and other symbols set up all across the South?

The Lost Cause myth is cultural poison but it's a powerful one that's taking far too long to root out.

[Antiboyscout]

Northerners and southerners both came from the same stock but ended up so different do to climate.

Albion's Seed would disagree.

--

Honestly, the KKK and Jim Crow all came about because of a desire to remain in political and economic control of their states. A prolonged reconstruction may have been able to preserve this, but the compromise of 1876 ended that. It may have been better to resettle slaves to somewhere in the west, land reform would not work in this case.

Concentrating the entire black population in one place would be a bad thing. Secession is already a part of the Black Panther platform (despite the existence of Liberia and the rest of Africa)

[unknownsample]

That's your fever dream, not mine. I'm perfectly happy with how things played out, thank you very much. The war was won, the peace was won. Sure, it wasn't all happily ever after, but real life never is. We have managed to craft a safer, more prosperous Union for everyone since 1865. That doesn't mean there isn't still work to do - there most certainly is. But I'm skeptical of anyone who says we can kill our way to a better future. History suggests that is a perilous path.

Yeah providing you weren't an African-American in the South everything was peachy. Nor was it much better in the North either.

[LittleRaven]

The South is NOT loyal to the Union.

With respect, what the hell are you smoking? No Southern state has attempted anything remotely seditious in the last 150 years. The state making all the news for defying Federal law these days is California, which is hardly a bastion of Confederate thinking. Southern states pay their taxes, send duly elected representatives, and abide, however reluctantly, by Federal law. What does 'loyal' mean in your world?

Why do you think there are so many Confederate monuments, flags, and other symbols set up all across the South?

For the exact reason that TGLS mentioned. People (particularly the people in power) are always attempting to freeze the status quo in amber; to insure that whatever is currently culturally dominant will remain so in perpetuity.

But it doesn't work.



Look at that. Positive change, nobody dead. It's almost like you can make progress WITHOUT filling mass graves.

[TGLS]

Concentrating the entire black population in one place would be a bad thing. Secession is already a part of the Black Panther platform (despite the existence of Liberia and the rest of Africa)

I wouldn't be sticking them in one place. It would be dispersing them across the western half of the country, though they would probably need aid to adapt to different conditions. Brazen land reform in the south would probably have led to violence and suffering, though extending it to poor whites might have managed to only antagonize the land owners...

[LittleRaven]

It would be dispersing them across the western half of the country, though they would probably need aid to adapt to different conditions.

Ehh....forced migrations, however benevolent the intention, have a history of going very, VERY badly. Lots of freed slaves DID move west, of course, but many didn't want to, for all the same reasons that people never want to leave where they live, no matter how terrible that place may be.

And of course, the West isn't exactly a mecca of enlightened thinking on race either.

That’s because racism has been entrenched in Oregon, maybe more than any state in the north, for nearly two centuries. When the state entered the union in 1859, for example, Oregon explicitly forbade black people from living in its borders, the only state to do so. In more recent times, the city repeatedly undertook “urban renewal” projects (such as the construction of Legacy Emanuel Hospital) that decimated the small black community that existed here. And racism persists today. A 2011 audit found that landlords and leasing agents here discriminated against black and Latino renters 64 percent of the time, citing them higher rents or deposits and adding on additional fees. In area schools, African American students are suspended and expelled at a rate four to five times higher than that of their white peers.

All in all, historians and residents say, Oregon has never been particularly welcoming to minorities. Perhaps that’s why there have never been very many. Portland is the whitest big city in America, with a population that is 72.2 percent white and only 6.3 percent African American.

[Worffan101]

The South is NOT loyal to the Union.

With respect, what the hell are you smoking? No Southern state has attempted anything remotely seditious in the last 150 years. The state making all the news for defying Federal law these days is California, which is hardly a bastion of Confederate thinking. Southern states pay their taxes, send duly elected representatives, and abide, however reluctantly, by Federal law. What does 'loyal' mean in your world?

Why do you think there are so many Confederate monuments, flags, and other symbols set up all across the South?

For the exact reason that TGLS mentioned. People (particularly the people in power) are always attempting to freeze the status quo in amber; to insure that whatever is currently culturally dominant will remain so in perpetuity.

But it doesn't work.



Look at that. Positive change, nobody dead. It's almost like you can make progress WITHOUT filling mass graves.

Have you ever been in the South? It's not about active sedition (we bought their facsimile of loyalty by screwing over black people, and even THEN white supremacists' biggest fantasy is throwing out The Feds and having a Turner Diaries-esque orgy of violence against black people, Jews, and Latinos. Confederate flags are de rigeur down there, and I'm preeeeeetty sure that it's Southern states that have been historically most restive (until the white supremacists got their man into the Oval Office and California came as close as possible to open revolt without actually firing shots, that is). Celebrations of "southern pride" (read: Confederate identity, complete with Confederate flags and "It was about State's Rights (tm)" bollocks) are regular and common. I've BEEN to the South. It's like a different country from the North--even from West Virginia, which gets stereotyped as backwards hick country much the same way. You want a pro-Union state, you go to WV, the whole state's entire raison d'etre is "fuck the Confederacy, glory to the Union!"

As for the UNC protests--yes, progress! 150 years of cowardice later.

I don't think that waiting 150 years for something that could've been accomplished in under 50 was a good thing.