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Goodbye to an American Deathcamp and Charming Wedding Venue [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-05-16
Yesterday, Nottoway Plantation in Louisiana burned to the ground. It was the main house and command center of an American death camp that, at its height, held up to 176 human beings in the bonds of slavery.
Was it preserved with historical solemnity and remembrance, like Auschwitz, or Dachau? LOL, no. Not at all. Rather, it was open for business as a resort and event center.
You could have your lovely white wedding there.
You could honeymoon in one of the reconstructed slave cabins — now LUXURY SUITES.
You could book the ballroom for your high school reunion.
Friends, if you cannot imagine someone getting married at Auschwitz, honeymooning at Dachau, or holding a reunion at Bergen-Belsen, then why was it EVER acceptable to do these very things at this ostentatious house built by enslaved people — on land where many of them STILL, TO THIS VERY DAY, lie in unmarked and forgotten graves?
WHO does that?
Oh, right. Lots of white people do.
Folks who LOOK LIKE ME.
And you know what? I take that sort of aggressive, chosen ignorance by my own people personally — and so should you.
Today the comments sections are filled with CLUELESS white folks mourning the loss of this beautiful Antebellum home and its precious art works — never mind its blood-soaked history or its obscene afterlife as a party hall.
Can there be any doubt why our country is still a cauldron of racial tension and animus? We have never truly reckoned with America's original sins of genocide and slavery.
Fellow white folks, please open your eyes. Read with an open mind, and an open heart. When we are graciously allowed into Black spaces, let's please just listen — WITHOUT needing to speak.
Why is it so hard for us not to center ourselves? Not to insist on our white voices being heard at all times and places?
Please know this painful truth: WE ARE NOT TRUSTED BY MOST BLACK FOLKS, and for damn good reason. Let's do better, y'all. Please, let's just do better.
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