This reminds me of a couple things I've read recently. Perhaps you've heard of "The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America" (2019) by Khalil Gibran Muhammad? In his second chapter, 'Writing Crime Into Race: Racial Criminalization and the Dawn of Jim Crow" he explores how an early sociologist who wrote foundational texts on criminality could look at poor Irish and Scottish people committing crimes and say "This is because of poverty" and look at poor Black people and say "This is because they're Black." Not just that, though, this author was challenged by a prison doctor named M. V. Ball that actually you could make the poverty case for both groups. He forced the other researcher to face that racist thinking. Unfortunately, the other author insisted on being blind to it and rationalizing it away.
Another book I've been reading lately (my apologies for the longer post) may be of great interest to you. It's called "The Racial Contract" by Charles W. Mills (2nd edition - 2021). He's exploring how political theory does not address reality for most people (which is that Western society is founded on White Supremacy). The racial contract is in juxtaposition from the social contract. The social contract is an ideal that doesn't exist (that individuals come together to shape society for a general betterment of all). Instead, it's a racial contract, where White people have come together to agree to mutual benefit at the exclusion of non-Whites.
What is most relevant to you perhaps is Mills' theory of the 'epistemology of ignorance'. Which is a process of turning away, averting their eyes, and rationalizing difference to justify discrimination and racism against another group. It's a fascinating theory that has helped me grapple with how society often responds to racial injustice. I'll end with a long quote:
"But for the racial Contract things are necessarily more complicated. The requirements of 'objective' cognition, factual and moral, in a racial polity are in a sense more demanding in that officially sanctioned reality is divergent from actual reality. So here, it could be said, one has an agreement to misinterpret the world. One has to learn to see the world wrongly, but with the assurance that this set of mistaken perceptions will be validated by white epistemic authority, whether religious or secular.
"Thus in effect, on matters related to race, the Racial Contract prescribes for its signatories an inverted epistemology, an epistemology of ignorance, a particular pattern of localized and global cognitive dysfunction (which are psychologically and socially functional), producing the ironic outcome that whites will in general be unable to understand the world they themselves have made." (p. 60)
That seems to get at a bit of what you're talking about - when faced with these things, what do they wrap themselves in to justify ongoing slavery? Perhaps an epistemology of ignorance.
I'd definitely read such a book, and hope you will write it.
When I started reading on my own about the Civil War, I began with Bruce Catton, as many did, and his story was all about white men. MacPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom was the first to widen my vision - and your book on the Black Confederate myth was the one that enabled me to see the thousands of African Americans that kept the Confederate armies functioning. My mind's eye can now see their faces, along with the white ones it has always seen - a far more accurate picture.
Hadn't quite brought it out to me in this way. Yes I knew about the kidnapped free Blacks, and I knew about enslaved forced labor in the CS forces. But not how that affected the battle itself. Thank you
You touched on this in a FB post, but I do think that the experience of the local African-American population deserves more treatment. As you might know, I have done some work here, but the most solid, well-sourced piece is David G. Smith's "Race and Retaliation ...," in "Virginia's Civil War," Wallenstein and Wyatt-Brown (eds.) My very modest effort appeared in CWTI (August, 2002), following Ted Alexander's better effort in North & South (September, 2001). Ted was very helpful to me in my work here, I must say. I strongly suspect (but cannot document) a non-trivial connection between the enslaved cohort in Lee's army and the African-American population of that part of PA. There is good reason to believe that many of the latter were runaways. Also, that the United States could have dealt a serious blow to Lee's army by "driving off"/"capturing"/"liberating" the enslaved cohort in Lee's army, but that degree of pro-active effort had not yet developed in the command structure of the Army of the Potomac.
This reminds me of a couple things I've read recently. Perhaps you've heard of "The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America" (2019) by Khalil Gibran Muhammad? In his second chapter, 'Writing Crime Into Race: Racial Criminalization and the Dawn of Jim Crow" he explores how an early sociologist who wrote foundational texts on criminality could look at poor Irish and Scottish people committing crimes and say "This is because of poverty" and look at poor Black people and say "This is because they're Black." Not just that, though, this author was challenged by a prison doctor named M. V. Ball that actually you could make the poverty case for both groups. He forced the other researcher to face that racist thinking. Unfortunately, the other author insisted on being blind to it and rationalizing it away.
Another book I've been reading lately (my apologies for the longer post) may be of great interest to you. It's called "The Racial Contract" by Charles W. Mills (2nd edition - 2021). He's exploring how political theory does not address reality for most people (which is that Western society is founded on White Supremacy). The racial contract is in juxtaposition from the social contract. The social contract is an ideal that doesn't exist (that individuals come together to shape society for a general betterment of all). Instead, it's a racial contract, where White people have come together to agree to mutual benefit at the exclusion of non-Whites.
What is most relevant to you perhaps is Mills' theory of the 'epistemology of ignorance'. Which is a process of turning away, averting their eyes, and rationalizing difference to justify discrimination and racism against another group. It's a fascinating theory that has helped me grapple with how society often responds to racial injustice. I'll end with a long quote:
"But for the racial Contract things are necessarily more complicated. The requirements of 'objective' cognition, factual and moral, in a racial polity are in a sense more demanding in that officially sanctioned reality is divergent from actual reality. So here, it could be said, one has an agreement to misinterpret the world. One has to learn to see the world wrongly, but with the assurance that this set of mistaken perceptions will be validated by white epistemic authority, whether religious or secular.
"Thus in effect, on matters related to race, the Racial Contract prescribes for its signatories an inverted epistemology, an epistemology of ignorance, a particular pattern of localized and global cognitive dysfunction (which are psychologically and socially functional), producing the ironic outcome that whites will in general be unable to understand the world they themselves have made." (p. 60)
That seems to get at a bit of what you're talking about - when faced with these things, what do they wrap themselves in to justify ongoing slavery? Perhaps an epistemology of ignorance.
I'd definitely read such a book, and hope you will write it.
When I started reading on my own about the Civil War, I began with Bruce Catton, as many did, and his story was all about white men. MacPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom was the first to widen my vision - and your book on the Black Confederate myth was the one that enabled me to see the thousands of African Americans that kept the Confederate armies functioning. My mind's eye can now see their faces, along with the white ones it has always seen - a far more accurate picture.
It's not every day that I am mentioned along side Bruce Catton and James McPherson. Thanks for sharing.
Hadn't quite brought it out to me in this way. Yes I knew about the kidnapped free Blacks, and I knew about enslaved forced labor in the CS forces. But not how that affected the battle itself. Thank you
Thanks for the positive feedback.
You touched on this in a FB post, but I do think that the experience of the local African-American population deserves more treatment. As you might know, I have done some work here, but the most solid, well-sourced piece is David G. Smith's "Race and Retaliation ...," in "Virginia's Civil War," Wallenstein and Wyatt-Brown (eds.) My very modest effort appeared in CWTI (August, 2002), following Ted Alexander's better effort in North & South (September, 2001). Ted was very helpful to me in my work here, I must say. I strongly suspect (but cannot document) a non-trivial connection between the enslaved cohort in Lee's army and the African-American population of that part of PA. There is good reason to believe that many of the latter were runaways. Also, that the United States could have dealt a serious blow to Lee's army by "driving off"/"capturing"/"liberating" the enslaved cohort in Lee's army, but that degree of pro-active effort had not yet developed in the command structure of the Army of the Potomac.
My best to Otis and Michaela!
I also highly recommend Margaret Creighton's book, THE COLORS OF COURAGE.
https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/margaret-s-creighton/the-colors-of-courage/9780465014576/
You may be right about this. Hilary Green is currently working on a project that focuses on the Black population in and around Gettysburg.
Would love to know more about Ms. Green's project, might well acquire Ms. Creighton's book.
I think we'll be well served with just one more Gettysburg book. Please let us know when you'll be leading tours. Thanks!
I appreciate the positive response, but don't hold your breadth. :-)