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Politics : View from the Center and Left
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To: bentway who wrote (360275)1/16/2018 5:08:08 PM
From: cosmicforce  Read Replies (1) of 543184
 
Back then, pretty much everyone was a racist by modern criteria. I'm not sure how it moves us forward to apply contemporary labels to people, music, culture, etc. to things that far back in the past. Was he more or less racist than his peers? That might be useful to know if it weren't so speculative. There is considerable evidence to show he was MUCH less "racist" than his peers. He was also rationally fearful that if he freed his slaves, that they would be returned to slavery under worse conditions. That was not entirely unreasonable.

Liberia was supposed to be a place of refuge where people of African origin could go and set up their own civilization and not be slaves. The people that left were so happy to be gone they made their flag look like the American flag and called their capital Monrovia after Monroe. They never bothered to change either. So - is that a good thing, bad thing? Was it empowerment or paternalism? We can look at it now and say things aren't all that great, but they have a huge merchant marine fleet.
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