amyslittlesister Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Angie Harmon did exactly the same thing on "Who Do You Think You Are." I know because we share a Harmon ancestor who was absolutely a slave owner.
If I can talk about the fact that there was polygamy on my mom's side, & grifting con schemes on my dad's side, then these hypocrites can talk about the fact that they had ancestors who were slave owners!
Or that some of our ancestors were bodyguards for Joe Smith. Also another one helped founded Cedar City, Utah, got excommunicated by Brigham Young, years later go reinstated by the morg. Name of ancestor Peter Shirtz. As much as I know about Shirtz excommunication, it was something stupid between him and Brigham Young.
"I certainly would want to amputate that ugliness from my life. Why should he have to own that."
Affleck doesn't have to "own" it. Whatever any of his ancestors did 200 years ago, he has no responsibility or blame for it.
Affleck's only problem is that he is a member of the political philosophy which believes in "white guilt"---that somehow, white people living today are supposed to feel shame for what their long-dead ancestors did. It's a stupid and regressive attitude to hold.
I probably had slave-holding ancestors too, although I haven't been able to find documentation for any, mainly because my Alabama ancestors were poor folks. I'm aware of a couple of distant relatives who owned plantations and slaves, but they weren't direct ancestors.
For hell's sake, Washington and Jefferson owned slaves. I don't hear about a great movement of their descendants to wipe that from their history. It's just a part of American history that ended 150 years ago. No living descendant of slave owners should beat themselves up over it.
Facts are facts; history is history. Ignoring it or whitewashing it...well, you, I, and all our cohorts know exactly where lying to make the past look prettier gets you.
I have no control over what an ancestor may have done. I would not be proud if one had done something heinous but history is what it is. Denial is never wise.
When Ben Affleck farts, the thinking has been done. Why can't this insignificant asshole just go away and die like his beloved Gigli did. Or better yet, skip off into the sunset with Matt Damon.
I'm from the deep south and have slave owner ancestors. Reading some of their wills was quite interesting. I remember one who divided his slaves up between his male children, along with other living items like livestock. This same relative was also very "generous" to his widow by leaving her with the right to live out the remainder of her life on their estate with their son who inherited it and left her "one dairy cow, one female house slave, and a jackass." I've wondered if she viewed the jackass as a reminder that she had been married to one.
The ugly truths of slavery should be made known...just like ugly truths of mormonism. I feel we owe it to our descendants to "right the wrongs" of our ancestors by exposing the cultural/social crap that was acceptable then but no longer is. If we do not remind ourselves and others of the evil/bad/dishonest things that happened in the past, future generations may commit them or fall prey to them again.
Does an illustrious forebear make any of us noble and illustrious? Does a heinous ancestors make us evil or somehow despicable?
Of course not. What I find is obnoxious is racism mixed in with political correctness. The PBS host, la-de-dah Harvard Professor "Skippy" Gates lives in the oh-so-proper Harvard Square Zip Code 02138. He once filed a completely unfounded racist complaint on a very distinguished Cambridge police sergeant--one who actually TRAINS officers from various departments on race relations!
Affleck ashamed of his slave-owning ancestors? Gates calling an exemplary cop a racist and screaming (Breach of the Peace) in his genteel neighborhood?
A plague on both their privileged P.C. houses.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2015 09:50PM by caffiend.