Washington & slavery

[jbor]

Otto wrote:

> [...] he should have known better that black people are not inferior to whites
> by birth. 

Isn't this the main point?

"There are, however, in the vast record of his correspondence no explicit
statements by Washington that blacks were innately inferior to whites."

> His laments that they're not trustworthy & words like that are
> highly hypocritical.

Well, no, I disagree with this. Discrimination is when you employ different
standards to make judgements about different groups of people. I'm sure GW
also believed some white individuals he knew were untrustworthy, idle,
thieves etc too. No doubt they were. GW also seems to have trusted a great
many of his slaves, granted them a range of privileges/liberties, and
considered them as part of his "family". The point would be that he treated
them as individuals, as people, not as a racial abstraction.

Within the system of slavery, which is a racist institution by its very
nature, George seems to have gone out of his way to respect the opinions and
wishes of his slaves, and to have exerted himself quite a bit on their
behalfs in order to ensure their ongoing welfare and humane treatment.

It's quite feasible that some abolitionists were as racist as some
slaveholders. The opposite possibility also holds true. I strongly doubt
that life (i.e. freedom to go wherever and say whatever she or he wanted,
freedom to work or worship as she or he wanted, financial and legal freedoms
etc) for a "free" African in Philadelphia, Boston or New York in those times
was any better than, or even nearly as good as, life for one of GW's slaves
down in Virginia.

I'd say Pynchon has done his research on George and old Ben via the primary
documentation. Essays and articles and other secondary sources are only
other people's *opinions*, some more valid and even-handed than others, some
interesting, some not, but all of them reflections and impressions and
selections and "confabulations" just the same. Ultimately, Pynchon's
characterisations of these and other historical figures in _M&D_ fall into
the same category, of course - history as fiction, fiction as history - his
text acknowledges and offers itself as nothing more nor less than this.
Nonetheless, in the novel GW is cast in a complimentary light, BF far less
so. Imo.

best