[Vision2020] Black and Tan

[TIM RIGSBY]

Doug Wilson and Southern Slavery
Just when you thought sympathy for the antebellum South was dead, two men, 
Reformed Christians posing as historians, come out from behind Calhoun's 
coattails. The controversy resurfaced in a recent World magazine article. 
Doug Wilson and Steve Wilkins are re-publishing their poorly-researched, 
racist myth, Southern Slavery As It Was. The new book, entitled Black and 
Tan (which seems wholly inappropriate), is a revision of the earlier 
one--minus its presentism, anachronism, and plagiarism. Although Wilson and 
Wilkins admit that they committed some egregious errors in the first 
publication, they are too arrogant to revise the major thrust of the 
book--that slaveholders' system was much more ethical than the morality of 
the abolitionist. Wilson himself expressed remorse for his sins. What gets 
me is that the argument of the book itself--which praises the heroism of 
slaveholders, condemns radical abolitionism as contributing to the rise of, 
say, abortion (what?), and provides no voice for the slave himself--is 
completely plagiarized.

Wilson and Wilkins's views on slavery compliment the racism of historians 
like Philips, Burgess, and Dunning. History, to them, is made by wealthy 
white European Americans. In a more contemporary reference, Wilson and 
Wilkins's concept of "paternalism," the foundation of the antebellum 
political economy, comes from Eugene Genovese's Roll, Jordan, Roll. 
Plagiarism is a tricky thing--like Southern slaveholders or independent 
Moscow demagogues--it is not limited to word-for-word copying. It includes 
stealing someone's argument. They have taken the arguments of others, 
including Genovese's, as their own. What's worse is that such arguments, 
which can be traced back to the early antebellum period, have been shown 
false. As a Christian, I am embarrassed that two leaders of the church have 
advanced such garbage. But then I have to remind myself that even Christians 
can be guided by pride on certain issues.

The book is both emotionally charged and everyday practical: it provides a 
hearty laugh and a chaffing substitute for the absence of toilet paper.

From: 
http://blog.subcurrents.com/2005/04/doug-wilson-and-southern-slavery.htm


Tim Rigsby

Revolution is not a word but an application; it is not war but peace; it 
does not weaken, but strengthens. Revolution does not cause separation; it 
generates togetherness.
-John Africa, Strategic Revolution

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