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Bob Dylan: Stigma of slavery ruined America, singer says
Washington Times ^ | 9/13/12 | Associated Press

Posted on 09/13/2012 9:17:37 AM PDT by Impala64ssa

NEW YORK (AP) — Singer-songwriter Bob Dylan says the stigma of slavery ruined America and he doubts the country can get rid of the shame because it was “founded on the backs of slaves.” The veteran musician tells Rolling Stone that in America “people (are) at each other’s throats just because they are of a different color,” adding that “it will hold any nation back.” He also says blacks know that some whites “didn’t want to give up slavery.” The 71-year-old Mr. Dylan said, “If slavery had been given up in a more peaceful way, America would be far ahead today.” When asked if President Obama was helping to shift a change, Mr. Dylan says: “I don’t have any opinion on that. You have to change your heart if you want to change.” The magazine’s new issue hits newsstands Friday.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: dumbcelebrities
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To: Dick Bachert

Thank you. That post is a keeper.


81 posted on 09/13/2012 11:41:01 AM PDT by metmom (For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore & do not submit again to a yoke of slavery)
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To: Dick Bachert

Thank you. That post is a keeper.


82 posted on 09/13/2012 11:41:17 AM PDT by metmom (For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore & do not submit again to a yoke of slavery)
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To: MNDude

Roughly 5% of southern families owned salves.
It wasn’t as prolific as it seems.
Slaves were expensive to purchase. You had to be a person of means to own slaves.


83 posted on 09/13/2012 11:43:30 AM PDT by ChiMark (chewed up his body for a decade)
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To: Impala64ssa
Let me join the few who are defending Bob Dylan on this. I agree with Dylan that slavery, segregation and Jim Crow is a stigma that we still live with today. Until we put this behind us, we are always going to deal with racial tension and racism.

Having this point of view does not make you a supporter of reparations and I doubt that Dylan supports reparations as well.

In fact, I believe the opposite approach is needed. We need to eliminate affirmative action, racial quotas and special rights of any kind. We need to put blacks on equal footing with the rest of us and not give them preferential or special treatment of any kind. We need to treat them as equals in every way. Giving them preferential treatment only perpetuates racism as it implies that they aren't as good enough as the rest of us, therefore we need to lower the standards for them.

Only when we have an environment where we are all equals and we don't have to walk on eggshells when around each other (out of fear of offending) can we put this stigma behind us.

As for Bob Dylan, he's not the leftist many people make him out to be. We are talking about a guy who as far back as 1969, got as far away from Woodstock as he could get so he didn't have to contend with the smelly hippies sleeping on his lawn (he lived near the Woodstock concert site). He's a great songwriter as well (and his new album is pretty darn good).

84 posted on 09/13/2012 11:47:40 AM PDT by SamAdams76
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To: metmom

Dylan is indeed an idiot . . . speaking out of ignorance, without the least idea of what is to be found in the past.


85 posted on 09/13/2012 11:57:35 AM PDT by YHAOS (you betcha!)
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To: Impala64ssa

Wonder what the actual interview will say.


86 posted on 09/13/2012 12:12:46 PM PDT by ansel12
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To: Impala64ssa
There is an update to this important story. Just in:

Dylan Annoys; Dog Bites Man

87 posted on 09/13/2012 12:32:25 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong!)
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To: ChowChowFace

Bob Dylan was never a hippie. He held them in considerable disdain.


88 posted on 09/13/2012 12:54:58 PM PDT by Borges
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To: Bitsy

Dylan was not a hippie! And his work was 99.9% apolitical.


89 posted on 09/13/2012 12:57:58 PM PDT by Borges
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To: edcoil; Liberty Valance; wideawake; ChiMark
7 Only 1% of whites owned slaves - half of gays are pedophiles but the gay movement is never challenged. ... 28% of blacks owned slaves ... American Indians owned slaves

36 “Only 1% of whites owned slaves” ... Is that true? I’ve heard it was about a third of southern states.

51 It was about 1.5% of the population, with about 8% of US families having a slave in the household. However, about 5,000 people owned 33% of the slaves - by 1860 slavery had become very concentrated. One guy in South Carolina alone owned 1100 people.

83 Roughly 5% of southern families owned salves. It wasn’t as prolific as it seems. Slaves were expensive to purchase. You had to be a person of means to own slaves.

Much confusion remains today on the historical truth.

History of Alabama, 1934, by Albert Burton Moore
The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War, 1960, by Bruce Catton

Broadly speaking, at most, 45% of all households in the southern states in 1860 held slaves. Of these households the vast majority owned 1-20 slaves.

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-57644003.html?key=01-42160D517E1D136F170E021F05224E263C4D3C437779710F720E0B61651A617F137155
The Last Ship That Brought Slaves From Africa to America: The Landing of the Clotilde at Mobile in the Autumn of 1859.

http://www.amren.com/features/2012/09/is-brazil-a-racial-democracy/
Is Brazil a “Racial Democracy”?
by Joe Webb
September 5, 2012

Edward Telles, a professor of sociology at Princeton, has written a useful book (Race in Another America: The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil, Princeton University Press, 2005) that blows the whistle on Brazil’s “racial democracy” and the claim that the country has somehow solved problems that baffle the rest of us. Prof. Telles calls for greater honesty in describing the race question, but his proposed solution—quotas—would only light the fuse for greater conflict. His basic position is that genetic explanations for race differences have been refuted and that inequality is a product of culture. His descriptions of Brazilian society thoroughly debunk the image of harmony. ...

... Brazilian history is, indeed, very different from US history. The Portuguese came without women and brought about seven times as many black slaves as were imported to the United States. Slavery was not ended until 1888. Because there were so many blacks in Brazil, in the 1880s the government actively recruited white immigrants. This led to a literal “whitening” of the country, and whites argued that sustained miscegenation would improve the black racial stock. This notion of improvement-through-whitening remained in force for at least a century and is still commonly believed, much to Prof. Telles’s dismay. ...

90 posted on 09/13/2012 1:04:30 PM PDT by MacNaughton
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To: Impala64ssa

Most of us Americans alive today didn’t have ancestors who were slave owners so STFU. No guilt here.


91 posted on 09/13/2012 1:07:24 PM PDT by jersey117
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To: Impala64ssa

There is no concept of redemption except in Christianity.


92 posted on 09/13/2012 1:14:30 PM PDT by SaraJohnson
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To: Impala64ssa

I don’t feel any shame.

Wait, was he talking about the black slaves owned by whites and blacks in northern and southern states; or was he referring to the white slaves (former Confederates) owned by those states in the north that enslaved them?

It all gets so confusing.


93 posted on 09/13/2012 1:17:25 PM PDT by Lee'sGhost (Johnny Rico picked the wrong girl!)
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To: Dick Bachert

Well, they weren’t ENTIRELY anti-slavery. They did enslave white ex-Confederates. I guess that was different though.


94 posted on 09/13/2012 1:19:39 PM PDT by Lee'sGhost (Johnny Rico picked the wrong girl!)
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To: Lee'sGhost

Boo-hoo.


95 posted on 09/13/2012 1:22:59 PM PDT by x
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To: x

VERY intelligent.

Don’t know what your malfunction is, but I wasn’t looking for sympathy, I was just stating a fact.


96 posted on 09/13/2012 1:27:28 PM PDT by Lee'sGhost (Johnny Rico picked the wrong girl!)
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To: MacNaughton
That 45% number is simply incorrect.

The census figures from 1860 show that there were:

31,183,582 people living in America.

Of whom 3,950,528 were slaves and

393,975 were slaveholders.

There were 5,155,608 families in the US.

That works out to 1.5% of Americans being slaveholders, 13% of Americans being slaves, and about 8% of families with slaveholders.

If you look at just the undisputed Confederate states (excluding MO, KY, TN, MD, DE), then it is 6% of Confederates as slaveholders, 40% of Confederates as slaves and 32% of Confederate families.

97 posted on 09/13/2012 1:37:25 PM PDT by wideawake
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To: Lee'sGhost; rockrr
I wasn’t looking for sympathy, I was just stating a fact.

Yes, you were, and no, you weren't.

Look up "slavery" in an encyclopedia and see what you come up with.

Reconstruction wasn't slavery.

What came before it was, and what came after wasn't entirely different from slavery, but Reconstruction wasn't.

98 posted on 09/13/2012 1:38:54 PM PDT by x
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To: x

+1. The apotheosis of sore loserdom.


99 posted on 09/13/2012 1:47:18 PM PDT by wideawake
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To: Attention Surplus Disorder

Remember, like virtually all sixties mythical rock figures, Dylan consumed a lot of stuff during that period. I firmly believe the drop in the quality of Dylan’s and other famous rockers whose work went downhill after the sixties was due to drugs.


100 posted on 09/13/2012 2:53:46 PM PDT by driftless2
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