Comments on: Slave state

By: Helen Losse

Helen Losse — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 04:05:04 +0000

Sherry, I think so many of us have had to deal with relatives who might not be blatantly racist but certainly don’t fight against it. My mother told me I talk about race too much. I said that’s because others talk about it too little.

By: sherry

sherry — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 15:52:59 +0000

Jessie, I didn’t respond to this comment when you made it, and I should have because it is a brave comment and I appreciate your candor. Members of my family are now and have been racists. And yet I still love them for our shared blood and the good that is in them. Racism is slippery and cuts in many different directions, especially in this time of “war on terror.”

In truth, I think we often are the products of our environment, but I also think we have to be constantly on our guard who we turn to for leadership because there are many who would play on prejudices and fears as a means to power. It has happened in the South often, but it has also happened in other parts of the country and the world.

I’m sorry I didn’t acknowledge your comment. I can only plead the holidays and holiday issues.

By: Jessie Carty

Jessie Carty — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:33:24 +0000

I have heard of this story as well, but not the depth of it.
One thing that has always frightened me as a Southern is that I lived with at least one racist parent and I have this internal fear that I would have been a racist if I had been born in a different era. Would I have been? This parents thoughts didn’t make me one in the modern age but what if I had lived back then?
Scares me like those experiments that show people will do whatever a leader tells them in controlled environments…

Definite important food for thought.

By: sherry

sherry — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:41:07 +0000

My apologies to you and Catherine Clinton, Darin Jolliffe-Haas. The mistake was mine, caused by distraction and carelessness.Even I know better than that.

I had the name “John” in my mind because Clinton also writes about a distant cousin of Mary Lincoln’s named John Todd Russell whose slave gave birth to his only son. Upon Russell’s death, his mother freed both the slave and her son, but it caused a long court battle and a scandal. [Clinton p. 23]

There was also Col. John Todd, who was in putative command of the militia that rode into ambush in the Battle of Blue Licks, an event I am also reading about at present.

Errors, of course, are the scandalous aspect of blogs, which are written quickly with no fact-checkers or editors to keep the writer straight. Thank you for your attention to mine.

By: Darin Jolliffe-Haas

Darin Jolliffe-Haas — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:16:35 +0000

Ms. Clinton 2009 Harper Collins’ article states that Mary Todd Lincoln’s father is “John Todd”?

Mary Lincoln’s father was Robert Todd. She and Mr. Lincoln named their first son, Robert, after Mary’s father.

If Ms. Clinton missed such an obvious, even crucial piece of information, I seriously wonder about her research in the other portions of her artcile.