I really like Azizi and usually find myself in agreement with her, but in this case, we're not in 100% accord.

Litle Hawk's first contribution to this thread ~ and all the rest of them, too, for that matter ~ was absolutely on the mark and not "racist" in the least. I think that Azizi's response was an overreaction and indicated a very understandable degree of oversensitivity and an uncharacteristic lack of empathy.

It's hard for any of us today to understand, and undoubtedly even more difficult for anyone descended from people bound in slavery, but there can be little doubt that some of the participants in the worldwide "peculiar institution" of slavery were more humane than others. It's also difficult to realize that most of the young men fighting and dying for the CSA were not themselves slaveowners, but instead were individuals who felt they were defending their homeland.

The slaveowners were a highly privileged elite with enough economic and political power to sway the general public to suffer and sacrifice on their behalf. Sound familiar? Human nature doesn't really change that much, ceratinly not over the span of a mere one or two centuries.

(LH, by the way, is not a Southerner, by no means. For anyone who does not alreayd know it, he's Canadian.)