May
2
“[O]ne thing… which inevitably comes through any time smart people gather to discuss the Civil War. The conceded common ground was the following—The Civil War was a tragedy.
I think that ground is generally accepted by almost everyone, and for good reasons. Six hundred thousand people died in the Civil War, a shocking figure which doesn’t really capture the toll that this sort of violence took on the country at large. And yet when I think about the Civil War I don’t feel sad at all. To be honest, I feel positively fucking giddy.
And I don’t think I’m abnormal because of this. Twenty-two thousand people died in the Revolutionary War, and we celebrate that with hot dogs and hamburgers every year. I’m sure that while Jews feel fairly horrible that the Holocaust happened, very few of them consider the fighting it took in order to liberate the death camps, “tragic.” The Holocaust is tragic. Ending the Holocaust is not.
…
It’s really simple for me. One group of Americans attempted to raise a country on property in Negroes. Another group of Americans, many of them Negroes themselves, stopped them. As surely as we lack the ability to see tragedy in violently throwing off the yoke of the English, I lack the ability to see tragedy in violently throwing off the yoke of slaveholders.
For most Americans, the Civil War is a sudden outbreak of a existential violence. But for 250 years, African-Americans lived in slavery—which is to say perpetual existential violence. I don’t know what else to call a system that involves the constant threat of your children, your parents, your grandparents, being sold off, never for you to see them again. That is death.
Malcolm X was fond of saying that that there was no such thing as a “bloodless revolution.” I don’t know if that’s true, but it surely was true of black people. The Civil War is our revolution. It ended slavery, and birthed both modern America, and modern black America. That can never be tragic to me.” The Civil War Isn’t Tragic - Ta-Nehisi Coates - National - The Atlantic
I think that ground is generally accepted by almost everyone, and for good reasons. Six hundred thousand people died in the Civil War, a shocking figure which doesn’t really capture the toll that this sort of violence took on the country at large. And yet when I think about the Civil War I don’t feel sad at all. To be honest, I feel positively fucking giddy.
And I don’t think I’m abnormal because of this. Twenty-two thousand people died in the Revolutionary War, and we celebrate that with hot dogs and hamburgers every year. I’m sure that while Jews feel fairly horrible that the Holocaust happened, very few of them consider the fighting it took in order to liberate the death camps, “tragic.” The Holocaust is tragic. Ending the Holocaust is not.
…
It’s really simple for me. One group of Americans attempted to raise a country on property in Negroes. Another group of Americans, many of them Negroes themselves, stopped them. As surely as we lack the ability to see tragedy in violently throwing off the yoke of the English, I lack the ability to see tragedy in violently throwing off the yoke of slaveholders.
For most Americans, the Civil War is a sudden outbreak of a existential violence. But for 250 years, African-Americans lived in slavery—which is to say perpetual existential violence. I don’t know what else to call a system that involves the constant threat of your children, your parents, your grandparents, being sold off, never for you to see them again. That is death.
Malcolm X was fond of saying that that there was no such thing as a “bloodless revolution.” I don’t know if that’s true, but it surely was true of black people. The Civil War is our revolution. It ended slavery, and birthed both modern America, and modern black America. That can never be tragic to me.” The Civil War Isn’t Tragic - Ta-Nehisi Coates - National - The Atlantic
