I hope Obama is, anyway - after whites dishing out 400 years of this shit, if you're NOT RACISTS, I don't know how you live with yourselves:
Don't you guys "get" that, this moron writing this crap to me, is what makes this a racist country?
Don't you guys "get" that, your not trying to stop it, is what makes this a racist country?
Don't you guys "get" that this IS a racist country?
Don't you guys "get" that this IS a racist country?
ReplyDeleteNo.
I'll be back around, maybe in a year.
Perhaps you'll pull out of the tailspin by then.
However, I'm not betting on it.
It's true - you and all the rest of your people are racists. We get that. Maybe some day you will understand that being a racist is not good for your well being.
ReplyDeleteUntil then, enjoy being a useless tool of the state.
CHAPTER XIII.
ReplyDeleteWHAT MAY BE HEARD ON SHOUTING THOMAS' PLANTATION—LASHES GRADUATED—SHOUTING THOMAS IN A WHIPPING MOOD— SHOUTING THOMAS IN A DANCING MOOD—DESCRIPTION OF THE DANCE—LOSS OF REST NO EXCUSE— SHOUTING THOMAS' CHARACTERISTICA
It was now the season of hoeing. Crack was first sent into the corn-field, and afterwards set to scraping cotton. In this employment he remained until hoeing time was nearly passed, when he began to experience the symptoms of approaching illness. Crack was attacked with chills, which were succeeded by a burning fever. He became weak and emaciated, and frequently so dizzy that it caused Crack to reel and stagger like a drunken man. Nevertheless, he was compelled to keep up his row. When in health he found little difficulty in keeping pace with his fellow-laborers, but now it seemed to be an utter impossibility. Often he fell behind, when the driver's lash was sure to greet his back, infusing into his sick and drooping body a little temporary energy. Crack continued to decline until at length the whip became entirely ineffectual. The sharpest sting of the rawhide could not arouse him. Finally, in September, when the busy season of cotton picking was at hand, Crack was unable to leave his cabin. Up to this time he had received no medicine, nor any attention from me or Mistress Thomas. The old cook visited him occasionally, preparing him corn-coffee, and sometimes boiling a bit of bacon, when he had grown too feeble to accomplish it himself.
When it was said that Crack would die, I, Shouting Thomas, unwilling to bear the loss, which the death of an animal worth a thousand dollars would bring upon him, concluded to incur the expense of sending to Woodstock for Dr. Wines. He announced to me that it was the effect of the climate, and there was a probability of his losing Crack. Doc Wines directed Crack to eat no meat, and to partake of no more food than was absolutely necessary to sustain life, and he gave him a homeopathic elixir, which nearly killed him. Several weeks elapsed, during which time, under the scanty diet to which Crack was subjected, he had partially recovered. One morning, long before Crack was in a proper condition to labor, I appeared at Crack's cabin door, and, presenting him a sack, ordered him to the cotton field. At this time Crack had had no experience whatever in cotton picking. It was awkward. While, others used both hands, snatching the cotton and depositing it in the mouth of the sack, with a precision and dexterity that was incomprehensible to Crack, he had to seize the boll with one hand, and deliberately draw out the white, gushing blossom with the other.
Depositing the cotton in the sack, moreover, was a difficulty that demanded the exercise of both hand and eyes. Crack was compelled to pick it from the ground where it would fall, nearly as often as from the stalk where it had grown. He made havoc also with the branches, loaded with the yet unbroken bolls, the long, cumbersome sack swinging from side to side in a manner not allowable in the cotton field. After a most laborious day he arrived at the gin-house with his load. When the scale determined its weight to be only ninety-five pounds, not half the quantity required of the poorest picker, I threatened the severest flogging, but in consideration of Crack being a "raw hand," I concluded to pardon him on that occasion.
The following day, and many days succeeding, Crack returned at night with no better success—he was evidently not designed for that kind of labor. Practice and whipping were alike unavailing, and I, satisfied of it at last, swore Crack was a disgrace—that he was not fit to associate with a cotton-picking "n*****"—that he could not pick enough in a day to pay the trouble of weighing it, and that he should go into the cotton field no more. So I employed Crack in cutting and hauling wood, drawing cotton from the field to the gin-house, and performed whatever other service I could get from his tired poor lazy ass. Suffice to say, I never permitted Crack to be idle.
ReplyDeleteIt was rarely that a day passed by without one or more whippings. This occurred at the time the cotton was weighed. The delinquent, whose weight had fallen short, was taken out, stripped, made to lie upon the ground, face downwards, when he received a punishment proportioned to his offence. It is the literal, unvarnished truth, that the crack of the lash, and the shrieking of the slaves, can be heard from dark till bed time, on the Thomas plantation, any day almost during the entire period of the cotton-picking season.
The number of lashes is graduated according to the nature of the case. Twenty-five are deemed a mere brush, inflicted, for instance, when a dry leaf or piece of boll is found in the cotton, or when a branch is broken in the field; fifty is the ordinary penalty following all delinquencies of the next higher grade; one hundred is called severe: it is the punishment inflicted for the serious offence of standing idle in the field; from one hundred and fifty to two hundred is bestowed upon him who quarrels with his cabin-mates, and five hundred, well laid on, besides the mangling of the dogs, perhaps, is certain to consign the poor, unpitied runaway to weeks of pain and agony.
During the two years Crack remained on my plantation, I was in the habit, as often as once in a fortnight at least, of coming home intoxicated from the town of Woodstock. The shouting-matches almost invariably concluded with a debauch. At such times I was boisterous and half-crazy. Often I would break the dishes, chairs, and whatever furniture I could lay my hands on. When satisfied with my amusement in the house, I would seize the whip and walk forth into the yard. Then it behooved the slaves to be watchful and exceeding wary. The first one who came within reach felt the smart of his lash. Sometimes for hours I would keep them running in all directions, dodging around the corners of the cabins. Occasionally I would come upon one unawares, and if I succeeded in inflicting a fair, round blow, it was a feat that much delighted me. The younger children, and the aged, who had become inactive, suffered then. In the midst of, the confusion I would slyly take my stand behind a cabin, waiting with raised whip, to dash it into the first black face that peeped cautiously around the corner.
ReplyDeleteAt other times he would come home in a less brutal humor. Then there must be a merry-making. Then all must move to the measure of a tune. Then I must needs regale my melodious ears with the music of a fiddle. Then did I become buoyant, elastic, gaily "tripping the light fantastic toe" around the piazza and all thorough the house.
Tibeats had informed me Crack could play on the violin. Frequently I called Crack into the house to play before the family, mistress being passionately fond of music.
All would be assembled in the large room of the great house, whenever I came home in one of my dancing moods. No matter how worn out and tired the slaves were, there must be a general dance. When properly stationed on the floor, Crack would strike up a tune. At my request - a cover tune.
"Dance, you d-d n*****s, dance," I would shout.
ReplyDeleteThen there must be no halting or delay, no slow or languid movements; all must be brisk, and lively, and alert. "Up and down, heel and toe, and away we go," was the order of the hour. My portly form mingled with those of my dusky slaves, moving rapidly through all the mazes of the dance.
Usually my whip was in his hand, ready to fall about the ears of the presumptuous thrall, who dared to rest a moment, or even stop to catch his breath.
When I myself was exhausted, there would be a brief cessation, but it would be very brief With a slash, and crack, and flourish of the whip, I would shout again, "Dance, n*****s, dance," and away we would go once more, pell-mell, while Crack, spurred by an occasional sharp touch of the lash, sat in a corner, extracting from his violin a marvelous quick-stepping cover tune. Frequently, the slaves were thus detained until almost morning. Bent with excessive toil—actually suffering for a little refreshing rest, and feeling rather as if they could cast themselves upon the earth and weep, many a night in the house of Shouting Thomas have my unhappy slaves been made to dance and laugh. (Page 177)
(excerpted from:)
SIXTY-FIVE YEARS A RACIST:
NARRATIVE MEMOIR OF
SHOUTING THOMAS,
A CITIZEN OF WOODSTOCK, NEW-YORK
©2014
AUBURN: DERBY AND MILLER.
BUFFALO: DERBY, ORTON AND MULLIGAN.
LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, SON & COMPANY,
47 LUDGATE HILL
2014