Publius' Forum

-By Warner Todd Huston

In another example of PC stupidity gone wild, a Civil War re-enactor portraying a Confederate officer was kicked out of Historic Crossroads Village Park, near Flint, Michigan this past weekend, for saying that a young black child would probably have been a slave in 1860's Georgia.

Civil War re-enactor Tim VanRaemdonck said he was just staying in character when he wrote "slave" as the occupation of black children on fictitious enlistment papers during Civil War Days at Crossroads Village.

Word reached Crossroads Village manager Garry Pringle, who had two conversations with VanRaemdonck and asked him to leave.

Gosh! Imagine that! A black person being assumed a slave in 1860's Georgia?

What's next, assuming a Japanese man might have been in the Imperial Army circa 1930? Maybe an English soldier being thought a Cursader in the 14th century? Maybe it would be wrong to generalize that a North Vietnamese man would be a Communist in 1965?

Darn that history stuff anyway!

Not to be outdone by the stupidity of Village manager, Garry Pringle, Parks Director Amy M. McMillan said the following to the Media:

McMillan believes there were better choices than labeling the young boy a "slave" - even if the label was designed to share history.

"There were also free people of color in the southern states during this time period," she wrote in an e-mail to The Flint Journal. "More appropriate answers could have included occupations such as farmer, blacksmith, or other occupations typical of that time period.

"It would have been equally inappropriate to respond 'slave owner' to a Caucasian child who had asked such a question. Had any re-enactor provided such a response, he/she would have also been asked to leave the village."

Um, no Mz. McMillan. You are wrong on all counts proving you know next to nothing about American history. But, also proving you are a swell practitioner of the dark arts of PCism.

For some REAL history, Mz. McMillan, the total number of free blacks in Georgia as noted in the 1860 census was only 3,500. By contrast, the total number of slaves in Georgia in 1860 amounted to 462,198! So, NO, Mz. McMillan, it would NOT have made much sense to assume that, on average, a black person in Georgia would have been a free man. There was nothing "more appropriate" to have said to the child but that he would probably have been a slave, Mz. McMillan.

Now, to clear up your other garbled historical claim, Mz. McMillan; The number of white slave owners in 1860 Georgia was 41,084 out of a total white population of 591,550. So, while it would not have been an automatic assumption that a white person in Georgia in 1860 was a slave owner it was far, far more likely to assume that a white person might own slaves in 1860 Georgia than to assume a black person was a free man in the same place and time period. The statistics do not lie, Mz. McMillan.

The reenactor was right and the staff of the Crossroads Village is wrong to have removed him from the Park for telling history like it is.

Another member of the group to which the unduly accosted reenactor belongs told the Flint paper:

"If we don't discuss it, children don't learn."

"Learning" is NOT what the putrid purveyors of PCsim want. They want whitewashed, cleansed history free of anything that might "upset" or cause certain people to have any "low self-esteem". They don't want people to actually understand the history of this country at all. They just want to label all white people as evil and let that "lesson" go unexamined, kept as a vague notion never investigated and never spoken of directly.

I hope that Civil War reenactors in Michigan stop participating at the "Historic" Crossroads Village Park and stop helping them make all that money off a public whom the Village refuses to help learn about our history. Sadly, the "Historic" part of their charge is to be ignored.