Who, me? No way!

The basketball game is going fast and furious. A player is dribbling while he lopes down the court toward the goal, a defender running along side him, slapping at the ball, bumping against him to knock him off balance, and suddenly the official's whistle blows. He points at the defender and raises his hand to stop the clock, then signals pushing/charging.

The defender's face registers complete and utter surprise -- shock, really -- and he throws his hands out at his sides in an exaggerated display of innocence. As he looks from the ref to his coach to the crowd in the stands, the exaggerated innocence takes on a touch of righteous indignation.

Now, he fouled the guy. He knows it. The ref knows it. The coach knows it. Everybody in the stands knows it. But he still plays innocent when caught.

This is exactly the scenario that comes to mind when Mr. Civil War Memory attempts to defend himself from charges of South-bashing. He does it -- everybody knows he does it, and sometimes he gets called on it. And he throws out his hands in a display of exaggerated innocence, and offers up truly ludicrous "proof" of his innocence.

In one recent thread on his blog, he wrote, "No one here has attempted to turn this into a South bashing crusade. We are all aware of the North’s long and violent history surrounding slavery and the slave trade."

Really? His entire blog is a South-bashing crusade, and while he may be aware of the north's long and violent history surrounding slavery and the slave trade, he manages to do a supreme job of ignoring and yeah-yeah-yeah-style downplaying it.

In the same thread, he wrote a post that included the phrase, "the darker side of slavery," which I repeated in a response. Now, when *I* used that phrase, I was jumped on by a couple of his sycophants ("And what exactly was the bright side of slavery?" and "Slavery had a bright side?").

Mr. Memory himself came back at me with, "You said: 'Perhaps it is because the darker side of the institution of slavery is often dishonestly portrayed as the totality of it.' It implies that there was a lighter side. Perhaps you should take more responsibility for your choice of words. Exactly what aspect of the 'institution of slavery' fell outside of this darker side?"

Well, of course I had to remind him with this post:

Mr. Levin, in your post tagged “Kevin Levin August 1, 2011at 3:55 pm” you said:

“…They were not responding to the specifics of the show, but the broadest themes surrounding the darker side of the institution of slavery….”

Seems to me YOU are the one implying a lighter side. Perhaps you are the one who should take more responsibility for your choice of words.

I was responding to what you posted, and I didn’t imply anything about a “lighter” side of slavery — I said flat out that advocating for a more **realistic** view of slavery is to be called a “slavery apologist.”

Since you originated the “darker side of slavery” phrase, why don’t you tell us what fell outside of it? In your opinion.

So three of them -- which includes him -- jump on ME for using a phrase HE originated. Hmmm... That looks a lot like bias, practicing a double standard, and just being all around hypocrites.

This man is so transparently anti-South, anti-Confederate -- not to mention anti-fairness and anti-objectivity -- that only an idiot could believe he truly sees himself as fair and objective.

No, he knows exactly what he's doing. He feels justified in being unfair and subjective because he is convinced the South was/is morally deficient and the north morally superior. They aren't -- but the north and its self-appointed spokespersons have to maintain their warm- fuzzy illusions of moral superiority, and if that requires self-delusion...

Call 'em on their fouls, and watch the exaggerated displays of fake, "Who, me?" innocence. It'd be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.

(Photo: U.S. Navy, Public Domain)