Thread by @michaelharriot

Have you heard that one about coming together and political unity after an insurrection?

A thread:

One time, after a contentious election, there was a group of angry white people. Because of their "economic anxiety," they refused to acknowledge the president. But THEIR economic anxiety was really white supremacy.

NO, I'm not talking about 2020. This was the election of 1860.

Lincoln wanted to ignore these racist idiots but—I don't know if you've heard about this—racists aren't known for their "letting-shit-go" qualities.

Very few people who own muskets and handlebar mustaches are described as "pretty chill dudes."

Look it up

So they kicked the Southern senators for engaging "in a conspiracy for the destruction" of the gov't and not telling anyone that there was a conspiracy.

Didn't I just say this wasn't 2020?

@tedcruz ain't that old.

The racists were SO angry that they decided that they would rather not be a part of America if they couldn't rape, kill and own Black people.

So they decided to attack a federal building:

NO THIS IS NOT 2020!

This was the insurrection at Fort Sumter, not the Capitol Building.

And I know you're saying: "To call the Civil War a white supremacist insurrection is a reach. Confederates weren't white supremacists! They just wanted the South to keep control of their slaves."

Maybe you're right. Let's see what a dictionary says:

I know: Facts are bullshit. But let's move on.

Anyway, during this white supremacist insurrection, they came to an agreement. Basically, they would shoot each other in the face, but they would exchange prisoners of war, like "gentlemen."

Yes, racists can be "gentlemen! Remember how the "gentlemen" used to spit on 12-year-old Black kids when they were integrating their schools? Remember how some forced labor camps (yall call'em "plantations") knew "bright baby season" was 5-6 months after a white woman gave birth?

What's "bright baby season?"

Well, "gentlemen" who couldn't have sex with their pregnant wives would just sexually assault their human property. Six months after a white woman had a baby, mixed enslaved kids would be born because...

"Gentlemen."

BTW, if I haven't mentioned it:

Fuck that Confederate flag. It's not just a racist flag. It LITERALLY stands for legal rapists.

Anyway, these "gentlemen" were cool with the exchanges at first. Then, something happened that outraged the Southern gentlemen.

Black people started kicking their Confederate asses.

The Confederates argued that negroes fighting was not gentlemenlike. They LITERALLY called it "uncivilized."

Yes, the traitor/rapist/racist dudes said that!

So, Lincoln said: "Well if you won't give the Black soldiers back, we won't give NUNNA y'all's soldiers back!"

And this is one of my favorite factoids about the Civil War. You know what the Confederate prisoners did?

A LOT of these bitch-made white boys talking about "heritage" and "southern honor" just JOINED THE UNION ARMY!!!!

HAHAHA

A musket and a mustache can't make a coward brave.

Anyway, Lincoln issues an executive order saying that if the South kills any Black soldiers, the North will kill a white soldier. If the Confederates send a Black soldier to slavery, the Union will sentence a white soldier to hard labor.

Now there is one other thing:

Technically, the Union could have killed ALL the Confederates because they were guilty of treason. But you know... unity.

Son April 12, 1864, Confederate forces moved in on Fort Pillow. There war about 500-600 Union soldiers there, half Black, half white.

All the white dudes were fairly new, but the Black dudes were from two artillery units (I think that means the black dudes got to choose the radio station.)

About 10 am, they noticed 1,500 white dudes show up in the parking lot. As soon as they pulled up...

A sniper (Probably Jamaal) shot the Confederate leader's horse out from under him.

Aw hell no!

They started fighting and the Union leader was killed. The Confederate dude told them to surrender but guess what happened?

Somebody shot his horse AGAIN!

The Union refused to surrender. The fighting restarted. Somebody shot the dude's horse AGAIN! (Where TF is he getting spare horses? Horsemart? Horse Depot?)

But they were outnumbered. the Union had to surrender.

The Confederates captured the surrendering soldiers and then...

They SLAUGHTERED ALL THE BLACK PEOPLE.

All of them. Three hundred fifty souls. A massacre.

When the public heard about this they were furious. Lincoln's cabinet thought they should just kill 350 white dudes like his Order of Retaliation said

But Lincoln was soft on war crimes

He wanted "unity" and to wanted to move forward. So after the Civil War, some "Radicals" wanted to hold the traitors responsible—AT LEAST the ones who committed war crimes. They passed a bill that punished them.

Lincoln vetoed it.

Then he pardoned most of them.

Now of all the people who was pardoned, the Fort Pillow massacre was the most egregious. Not only was he a traitor, but he was a murderer and a war criminal. By all accounts, he should have been killed, raised from the dead and killed again.

(Like a horse, apparently)

Instead, he just went home.

Like all the Confederate. Like all the traitors at the Capitol. Like white people get to do ALL THE TIME.

And those Confederates carried out the longest sustained period of racial terrorism in American history.

The Confederate soldiers made up the KKK. They were the ones who massacred Black people during Reconstruction. They were the ones who fought a war for white supremacy in the South.

AND THEY WON.

The Compromise of 1877 was essentially this::

We know y'all killed so many Black voters and stole an election. But if you let our boy win, we will let y'all treat Black people however you want.

"However you want" is now called "Jim Crow."

It is impossible to say if punishing ex-Confederates would've prevented the terrorism

But by not punishing those racist rape-murderers, the federal government legalized institutionalized racism AND gave organized terror cells a blank check.

And here's the thing:

THEY DID NOT UNITE SHIT. THERE WAS NO PEACE.

Oh, white people were happy it was over...

But Black people had to endure a terror campaign. When they said "unity" they mean "white people united with other white people"

They mean "we get to keep doing what we were doing the whole time."

They mean "white people don't EVER EVER EVER have to face the consequences."

It means "fuck Black Lives"

Even if they would have punished that ONE GUY they might have stopped a murder campaign and saved thousands of Black people.

Well, maybe that's a reach...

Except for one thing:

That war criminal who was pardoned after Fort Pillow?

He was Nathan Bedford Forrest

The first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan

If you visit the Tennessee Statehouse, you can see how the state of Tennessee honors this racist, white supremacist criminal EVERY DAY

Of course, he's a "gentleman"

And "unity" means "fuck Black people"

Every.
Damn.
Time.