Tea Party Group Demand Textbooks Say Nice Things About Slave Owners

[Two Thumbs]

Yall know Sunni is an American right?

Even though he's a filthy muslim [], he was born and raised here and can do nothing about the horrors that spew from other countries, muslim or not.

 

[tinydancer]

Cripes. I'm typing on the fly here this morning.

I meant to bring up the Dancing Boys of Afghanistan. In the here and now.

You know the poor little boys who are sold to warlords and are dressed up as females to entertain the wealthy and powerful.

You know bacha bazi. Sexual slavery.

Afghanistan is an American style Democracy where we have given the people full civil rights and Law.

Slavey is 100% a criminal offense. So is pedophilia.

If you are aware of such criminal activity. You should report it to the proper authorities.

Oh it's been reported.
Frontline even did a story on it.

Here's a Reuters article on this situation.

Reuters) - They are known as "bacha bereesh", boys without beards, teenage boys who dress up as girls and dance for male patrons at parties in northern Afghanistan.

It's an age old practice that has led to some of the boy dancers being turned into sex slaves by wealthy and powerful patrons, often former warlords, who dress the boys up as girls, shower them with gifts and keep them as "mistresses".

Afghan police are battling to crackdown on the practice which has angered Islamic clerics who say those involved should be stoned for sodomy, forbidden under Islamic law.

In a society where the sexes are strictly segregated, it is common for men to dance for other men at weddings in Afghanistan.

But in northern Afghanistan, former warlords and mujahideen commanders have taken that a step further with competitions for their dancing boys.

"Every boy tries to be the first. They are dressed in women's clothes, have bells on their feet and have artificial breasts," said Mohammad Yawar, a former mujahideen fighter against the Taliban and resident of the northern town of Pul-e Khumri.

The practice, called "bacha bazi" -- literally "boy play" -- has a long history in northern Afghanistan, but sometimes it does not stop with just dancing.

"I very much enjoy hugging a boy. His smell and fragrance kills me," said Yawar.

The 38-year-old businessman said he recruited a 15-year-old boy three years ago to help him with his work.

"I have had him for at least three years, since he was only 15. He was looking for a job and I gave him somewhere to stay," said Yawar, showing the boy's picture.

"I don't have a wife. He is like my wife. I dress him in women's clothes and have him sleep beside me. I enjoy him and he is my everything," he said, kissing the photograph.

MARK OF PRESTIGE

Having the best-looking boy and the best dancer is a mark of prestige.

"Everyone tries to have the best, most handsome and good-looking boy," said a former

mujahideen commander, who declined to be named.

"Sometimes we gather and make our boys dance and whoever wins, his boy will be the best boy."

Former mujahideen commanders hold such parties in and around Pul-e Khumri about once a week.

"Having a boy has become a custom for us. Whoever wants to show off, should have a boy," said Enayatullah, a 42-year-old landowner in Baghlan province.

"I was married to a woman 20 years ago, she left me because of my boy," he said. "I was playing with my boy every night and was away from home, eventually my wife decided to leave me. I am happy with my decision, because I am used to sleeping and entertaining with my young boy."

The men say they lavish money and gifts on their boys.

"I was only 14-years-old when a former Uzbek commander forced me to have sex with him," said Shir Mohammad in Sar-e Pol province. "Later, I quit my family and became his secretary. I have been with him for 10 years, I am now grown up, but he still loves me and I sleep with him."

Ahmad Jawad, aged 17, has been with a wealthy landowner for the past two years.

"I am used to it. I love my lord. I love to dance and act like a woman and play with my owner," he said.

Asked what he would do when he got older, he said: "Once I grow up, I will be an owner and I will have my own boys."

But Shir Mohammad, at 24, was already getting too old to be a dancing boy. "I am grown up now and do not have the beauty of former years. So, I proposed to marry my lord's daughter and he has agreed to it."

POVERTY

Many local residents have called for a crackdown, but are skeptical it will work as many of the men are powerful and well-armed former commanders.

Jahan Shah, who lives in Pul-e Khumri, said government and security officials should take tough action against unIslamic and immoral acts.

"If they don't stop this, it will become a custom and hundreds of other boys will be involved in it," he said.

Police and security officials in northern Afghanistan say they have been doing their best to arrest the men involved.

"It is sad to state that this practice that includes making boys dance, sexual abuse and sometimes even selling boys, has been going on for years," said General Asadollah Amarkhil, the security chief of Kunduz province.

"We have taken steps to stop it to the extent that we are able," he said.

Amarkhil said poverty, widespread in Afghanistan after nearly three decades of war, forced teenage boys into compliance.

"We have taken very strict measures to save the lives of the boys and punish the men," he said. "We are monitoring to find out where these men and boys gather, then go there and arrest them."

Those found guilty of abuse would be jailed for at least 15 years, said Baghlan chief prosecutor Hafizullah Khaliqyar.

"We have 25 cases of such immoral acts. They are being processed and we are trying our utmost to tackle the problem," he said.

Islamic scholars recommended harsher punishment.

"Those who do this are the devil," said Mawlawi Mohammad Sadiq Sadiqyar, a scholar and prayer leader in the main northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. "Under Islamic law, those who practice this should be stoned to death."

But some of the men say they are not interested in women.

"We know it is immoral and unIslamic, but how can we quit? We do not like women, we just want boys," said Chaman Gul, aged 35 of Takhar province.

 

[Sallow]

By Trymaine Lee

A little more than a year after the conservative-led state board of education in Texas approved massive changes to its school textbooks to put slavery in a more positive light, a group of Tea Party activists in Tennessee has renewed its push to whitewash school textbooks. The group is seeking to remove references to slavery and mentions of the country's founders being slave owners.

According to reports, Hal Rounds, the Fayette County attorney and spokesman for the group, said during a recent news conference that there has been "an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another."

"The thing we need to focus on about the founders is that, given the social structure of their time, they were revolutionaries who brought liberty into a world where it hadn't existed, to everybody -- not all equally instantly -- and it was their progress that we need to look at," Rounds said, according to The Commercial Appeal.

During the news conference more than two dozen Tea Party activists handed out material that said, "Neglect and outright ill will have distorted the teaching of the history and character of the United States. We seek to compel the teaching of students in Tennessee the truth regarding the history of our nation and the nature of its government."

And that further teaching would also include that "the Constitution created a Republic, not a Democracy."

The group demanded, as they had in January of last year, that Tennessee lawmakers change state laws governing school curricula. The group called for textbook selection criteria to include: "No portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership."

More: Tea Party Groups In Tennessee Demand Textbooks Overlook U.S. Founder's Slave-Owning History

So you prefer that our Children are Taught that Slave Owners were all evil scum? With no context of the times? How Slaves were Treated, How many Slave Owners Freed there own Slaves?

Are you actually claiming there was nothing at all good to be said about anyone who ever owned a slave?

lol

Try being a slave.

Then get back to me.

 

[LilOlLady]

Don't we have enough probelm of our own with child molesters,etc to worry about what is happening in Muslims country and has been for thousands of years and will not change wih our forcing democracy and christianity on them? Futile effort and waste of money and time.

 

[tinydancer]

Yall know Sunni is an American right?

Even though he's a filthy muslim [], he was born and raised here and can do nothing about the horrors that spew from other countries, muslim or not.

I have no problem with Sunni Man. Whether or not he wants to become involved in Human Rights issues is his personal choice.

One really has to have the stomach for it. It's not easy. There are truly horror stories out there. And more often than not as a Human Rights advocate you lose.

But you keep trying to fight the good fight. Maybe just one day, one can make a difference.

 

[LilOlLady]

Sleeping with your children, even other people children, not sexual, is a part of the Black culture. They had many family members and only one bed or maybe not a bed. I grew up in a Black family and I crawled into any bad I could find the room. I spent many cold night with neighbors and we huddled with the parents in their bed. Sleeping in the same bed as adults has never seen sexual in black family but it is in white families? Micheal Jackson with his large family probably did the same thing.

 

[teapartysamurai]

Slave trade maybe, but how about your women are they treated as slaves?

LOL, mine would get a big laugh if she read your above comment.

Because you would beat her if she agreed.

 

[tinydancer]

Don't we have enough probelm of our own with child molesters,etc to worry about what is happening in Muslims country and has been for thousands of years and will not change wih our forcing democracy and christianity on them? Futile effort and waste of money and time.

Well I really can't see any Jehovah Witnesses tooling around the mountains of Afghanistan trying to convert anyone.

That would be a baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad idea.

 

[Sunni Man]

"We know it is immoral and unIslamic, but how can we quit? We do not like women, we just want boys," said Chaman Gul, aged 35 of Takhar province.[/B]

We have the exact same problem here in America with pedophiles.

Ever heard of NAMBLA?

Oh, I forgot, you only target muslims and Islam.

 

[Katzndogz]

There is a difference between the law and cultural practice. We don't allow slavery in the US either, but the mexican cartels do a thriving business in human trafficking. We have laws promoting equality and laws of affirmative action that prohibit equality.

The textbooks should tell the truth. The truth is, some slave owners treated their slaves well, much better than the poor whites were treated.

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

Sooo, Native Americans and Blacks are supposed to be grateful for all the wonderful treatment they have received throughout American history? I'm confused...

You certainly are... and after your anti-Jew screeds you really are in no position to bitch about anybody else's actual or perceived bigotry.

 

[mskafka]

By Trymaine Lee

A little more than a year after the conservative-led state board of education in Texas approved massive changes to its school textbooks to put slavery in a more positive light, a group of Tea Party activists in Tennessee has renewed its push to whitewash school textbooks. The group is seeking to remove references to slavery and mentions of the country's founders being slave owners.

According to reports, Hal Rounds, the Fayette County attorney and spokesman for the group, said during a recent news conference that there has been "an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another."

"The thing we need to focus on about the founders is that, given the social structure of their time, they were revolutionaries who brought liberty into a world where it hadn't existed, to everybody -- not all equally instantly -- and it was their progress that we need to look at," Rounds said, according to The Commercial Appeal.

During the news conference more than two dozen Tea Party activists handed out material that said, "Neglect and outright ill will have distorted the teaching of the history and character of the United States. We seek to compel the teaching of students in Tennessee the truth regarding the history of our nation and the nature of its government."

And that further teaching would also include that "the Constitution created a Republic, not a Democracy."

The group demanded, as they had in January of last year, that Tennessee lawmakers change state laws governing school curricula. The group called for textbook selection criteria to include: "No portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership."

More: Tea Party Groups In Tennessee Demand Textbooks Overlook U.S. Founder's Slave-Owning History

So you prefer that our Children are Taught that Slave Owners were all evil scum? With no context of the times? How Slaves were Treated, How many Slave Owners Freed there own Slaves?

Are you actually claiming there was nothing at all good to be said about anyone who ever owned a slave?

lol

I think that most people want their children to be taught history, accurately-the good, the bad, and the ugly. And just like any other country, American has history with all three.

How were you taught history? I was taught that slavery was indeed some of our darker hours. Should children be taught that about our nasty history; or do we need to whitewash it and make it a feel-good class? I think that it needs to be spoken as it is recorded-warts and all. That way our children don't repeat the same mistakes that we and those who went before us did. (you know the old adage about being doomed to repeat it)
Do we need to say of the Salem Witch Trials that "those hoes deserved everything they got"?

At grade-school and high school level, it is pretty much a summary of what all occured. I don't recall anyone launching into a diatribe about redneck slave owners.

And again, this is my state. I love it here, and I love the people. Children learn what they live. And I don't want them growing up thinking that our African American population "didn't have it so bad.". There are too many accounts that say otherwise.

I started school in my hometown 11 years after the schools had been desegregated (in that town). We were taught mutual respect from the beginning. We were color blind by 1st and 2nd grade. And that's the way that it should be. My African American friends are some of my dearest. My neurologist, who is treating my MS, is AA. Rarely have I been treated under a physician whom I trusted more. I'm certain that if I were to suggest to her that slavery wasn't so bad...she would ask me to find another neurologist.

They (AA) have not had equal rights for very many years. This textbook revision does NOT need to happen.

 

[peach174]

Why can't we have a school system that teaches facts instead of left or right ideology?

Fact - Our Constitution says that it guarantees us a Republic form of Government
Fact - there was free blacks who fought in the Revolutionary War and Free Blacks owned slaves

 

[tinydancer]

"We know it is immoral and unIslamic, but how can we quit? We do not like women, we just want boys," said Chaman Gul, aged 35 of Takhar province.[/B]

We have the exact same problem here in America with pedophiles.

Ever heard of NAMBLA?

Oh, I forgot, you only target muslims and Islam.

The issue we are discussing is slavery. That is why I brought up current conditions such as the Dancing boys of Afghanistan and the current slave trade in the Sudan for example.

Oh and I'm an equal opportunity kind of a chick when it comes to facing the truth about slavery. Past and present. By 1860 it was estimated that the Cherokee had 4,600 African slaves and wiki puts the total number held as slaves in the Indian territory at 8,000.

Here you go. Last time I checked Cherokees weren't followers of Islam.


The 1842 Slave Revolt in the Cherokee Nation was the largest escape of a group of slaves to occur in the Cherokee Nation. The slave revolt took place on November 15, 1842, when a group of African-American slaves owned by the Cherokee escaped and tried to reach Mexico, where slavery had been outlawed. They were soon captured. However, at one point the escapees had killed two pursuers, for which five of them were to be later executed.

The event inspired subsequent slave rebellions to take place in the Indian Territory and throughout North America. Although the 1842 slave revolt participants were captured before reaching the Mexican border, the aftermath of this revolt led Cherokee Nation slave holders to create stricter slave codes, expel Freedmen from the territory, and found a 'rescue' (slave-catching) company to prevent further loss of slaves

 

[Sunni Man]

Here you go. Last time I checked Cherokees weren't followers of Islam.

When did I mention something about Cherokee Indians and slavery?

But I do understand your emotional plight; and lack of memory and focus.

Menopause is a terrible affliction on women your age.

 

[tinydancer]

Why can't we have a school system that teaches facts instead of left or right ideology?

Fact - Our Constitution says that it guarantees us a Republic form of Government
Fact - there was free blacks who fought in the Revolutionary War and Free Blacks owned slaves

Exactly. I just want truth in History. All the good, the bad and the ugly parts.

 

[tinydancer]

Here you go. Last time I checked Cherokees weren't followers of Islam.

When did I mention something about Cherokee Indians and slavery?

But I do understand your emotional plight; and lack of memory and focus.

Menopause is a terrible affliction on women your age.

*sigh* Here's your post.

Oh, I forgot, you only target muslims and Islam.

 

[tinydancer]

Now for those that don't know there were Free black slaveowners this is a pretty interesting quick read article.

Free Black Slaveowners in South Carolina
Domestic slavery was quite common in West Africa, although the Europeans organized the trade to a much greater magnitude and value. Free black slaveowners resided in states as north as New York and as far south as Florida, extending westward into Kentucky, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Missouri. According to the federal census of 1830, free blacks owned more than 10,000 slaves in Louisiana, Maryland, South Carolina, and Virginia.

The majority of black slaveowners lived in Louisiana and planted sugar cane. The majority of black masters had not been slaves themselves. Yet, the ranks of black slave masters were diverse: some acquired slaves as soon as they had accumulated enough capital after their own freedom, others received slaves with their own freedom from their white masters, and others had been free for several generations.

Rest of article at link:

UWEC Geog188 Vogeler - Free Black Slaveowners in South Carolina

 

[Sunni Man]

Here you go. Last time I checked Cherokees weren't followers of Islam.

When did I mention something about Cherokee Indians and slavery?

But I do understand your emotional plight; and lack of memory and focus.

Menopause is a terrible affliction on women your age.

*sigh* Here's your post.

Oh, I forgot, you only target muslims and Islam.

Look, all I ever see you post is screeds about Muslims and Islam.

We don't want your do-gooder get in our business crap.

You are a dilatant busy body who thinks they know what's best for everyone else based on Western secular culture and mindset.

Please take your colonialistic and imperialistic ideas and put them on the history shelf where they belong.

You just need to find another hobby; like knitting or gardening to occupy your remaining years.

 

[tinydancer]

I've never figured out how anyone of faith ever thought it's a swell idea to "own" another human being.

My brain can't wrap around that whatsoever. And when I've given examples of Indians, Africans, Free Blacks and Muslims having owned slaves, I absolutely want to make it clear that I am not excusing white Christians but merely pointing out that at a certain time in our world history this was all aok by many cultures. I'll never understand it I guess.