On Slave Plantations and Revisionist History
Where to begin with this…
This is how decent white people who tell the truth about slavery on plantations are reviewed by white people. pic.twitter.com/xiomBzPpWl
— saira rao (@sairasameerarao) August 7, 2019
This just further proves my point that America would much rather forget the real truth about slavery. Instead of dealing with the issue head-on, many people want to get a sanitized, whitewashed version of this part of American history.
Seriously, who goes to a slave plantation with the expectation that there wouldn’t be any discussion about slavery? It’s like going to Auschwitz “on vacation” and not expecting to hear about the concentration camps. Unfortunately, many Americans still want to romanticize the antebellum South. They think about southern plantation life, they don’t think about slaves. They visualize Gone with the Wind with Scarlet O’Hara in a hoop dress. They may even think about Carol Burnett’s parody Went with the Wind. But, God forbid, they think about the mental and physical violations slaves had to deal with; it destroys the fantasy…
But, apparently, it is a thing for people to go to places where crimes against human decency occurred and call it a holiday. Plantation weddings are a big thing in the south. I remember a former white friend (notice former) who I went to college with who got married to her black husband on a plantation in Georgia. She thought the plantation was “perfect” because of all the beautiful flowers on the grounds.
She invited me to the wedding, and I adamantly said no. Yes, the plantation is beautiful to look at, but it comes with a lot of historical baggage. Also, why the heck did her black husband agree to do this? It’s weird because her husband would have been a slave on the plantation and probably killed for even looking at a white woman the wrong way! Needless to say, I didn’t go to this wedding, but I heard they got divorced a couple of years later. I wonder why?
I remember going to the Whitney Plantation a few years ago outside New Orleans. I was in town for a journalism conference, and it offered optional, free tours to this plantation. So, I went, and I am actually glad I did. The tour guide gave a candid, brutal description of what life was like during that time. The plantation operates as a museum now to tell their stories.
Either way, the only reason people should go to a plantation is to learn about its history, not for a vacation or a wedding.