Insane Pro-Slavery Prager Video

[ItsNick]

I watched some progressive channels react to this, but wanted to share it because of how absurd this is.

It's almost as if  PragerU is trying to attract white suppremacists.

[Vrubel]

Yeah, John Brown should be the real American hero. And to me, the video does not make a convincing argument for why his statues should remain. But to be fair the video was historically accurate, people in the mid-1800s had another outlook on life. Almost everybody was racist back then, it was just a matter of degree. Robert E Lee was a modest gentleman with very high integrity but also very much so a man of his time. He was against secession but his loyalty to his home state of Virginia trumped any of his personal convictions. That's just mid-1800s morale, there is some beauty in it. Don't look down on these people because you have no idea how tough life was back then. 

Edited December 26, 2020 by Vrubel

[ItsNick]

@Vrubel You are correct. Racism was the norm back then. But we should not ever praise the statues quo. We should praise the ones who dared to challenge it (in the name of progress and love only of course)

So yeah, John Brown would be the hero who deserves the statue.

 

And yes the video is historically accurate. But remember it's trying to convey an argument as to why he deserves a statue, and then does the opposite. And they also frame someone like John Brown as a radical abolitionist, whilst appearantly praising the person who killed him. PragerU has shown their true colors once again.

[Vrubel]

@ItsNick John Brown was a radical abolitionist, that's the historically correct term. For me, it has a very positive connotation. The video is not saying something outrageous or "justifying slavery", I just think their arguments are not very convincing. In a sense, they are being too honest. The video says: "Lee believed that freed blacks should get an education but not the right to vote". This actually illustrates the nuance of the men. Whether you judge him as good or bad for that is highly relative to the place and time you live in.

The video is very open to interpretation and rather than just stating the positives they also include the grey area. Apparently, PragerU wants to show that Robert E. Lee was not a blatant slavery defender but that he has done some "good" and was against slavery but admittedly he was against black (voting) rights. Saying that they are "insane pro-slavery" is very libelous and does not constitute a good argument against Robert E. Lee statues.

Edited December 26, 2020 by Vrubel