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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]While you're at it, better change your names too if your last names are Washington or Lee.[/quote]

And change "Washington Football Team" to "Football Team".[/quote]

It’s already here — Christ Church already removed the Washington memorial from the church at the same time they did the Lee memorial.  They were both members, so it wasn’t just a random plaque.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/historic-alexandria-church-decides-to-remove-plaques-honoring-washington-lee/2017/10/28/97cb4cbc-bc1b-11e7-a908-a3470754bbb9_story.html[/quote]

Good for them. It’s sounds like they put real thought into the process.  I’m not religious. But I admire any religion that has prayerful dialogue and seeks consensus on hard topics.

I’m from the South. And let’s be clear. Lee lead an insurrection that killed more Americans than any other war to keep people enslaved in order to maintain the cultural heritage the South is so proud of. This is a monstrous thing.  He should not be created. And the crap about venerating our heritage.  Well, the heritage they are so proud of was a moral disaster in 1800. How people were still defending it in 1980 was baffling to me when I was an 8 year old yankee transplant called a yankee transplant.  And it’s more baffling after watch the second American Insurrection, which most Southern senators just voted to find NBD.

Washington is a towering figure in our history. But he also owned slaves, and there were significant moral objections to slavery when he was alive. His failure to free his slaves while alive is a problem we should acknowledge. Not to cancel him. But because it is deeply and personally painful to so many of our citizens that we refuse to.

And all our complete inability to admit our country, like all countries, has an imperfect past. And being powerful doesn’t make that less so. I won’t speak for Black people. But I haven’t heard serious people suggest we knock down the Washington Monument and pretend he never existed. But I can see how this country’s failure to say— great guy for staying the country, big asterisks on owning slaves is a problem. I find it problematic, and I’m not Black.

If we don’t start to reckon with our country’s past and move forward, the 3rd American Insurrection might work.

And that isn’t cancel culture. It’s tellin it like it is [/quote]

Washington could not free the dower slaves at Mount Vernon, which were over half of the total.  They belonged legally to his wife's heirs.  He made provisions to free his slaves upon the death of his wife or sooner if she freed them.  It was his hope, expressed in his will, that the dower slaves would be freed by his wife's heirs at the same time, because the dower slaves had married and had family ties to Washington's slaves.  (Washington recognized slave marriages even though Virginia law did not.)  He did not want them to be separated.  Martha Washington freed Washington's slaves about a year after his death, but the dower slaves were not freed by her relatives.  As a result, the families were divided.

Washington worked to build up an estate that would support the elderly freed slaves for the rest of their life and also the young freed slaves until the age of 25.

[/quote]
What about Jefferson, while we're at it?![/quote]

Jefferson only ever freed 10 members of the Hemmings family.  He was also deeply in debt, which probably would have restricted his options if he had wanted to free his slaves.[/quote]

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