James5

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I just finished watching C.S.A - The Confederate States of America - a Spike Lee film from 2004. It’s quite an interesting movie, it’s a mockumentary around the idea that the South won the Civil War and that slavery continued to the present day. It has some funny moments, and some thought provoking ones too. It really sticks to the History Channel documentary formula though - full of Kens Burn effects with voice overs - so can be a bit slow going at times. I would well recommend at least one watching - the tv ads alone are quite amusing. Though the whole thing is an interesting thought experiment the mockumentary is not really historically or logically accurate - as in it is difficult to imagine history developing as it did in the film.

One crazy thing I learned from it was Dr Cartwright an American doctor who investigated ‘diseases of the negro’. He came up with the disease (this is 100% historically true) called Drapetomia. This disease, it seems, made slaves disatisfied with their circumstances, become sulky and prone to running away. The cure?

Slaves showing incipient drapetomania, reflected in sulky and dissatisfied behavior should be whipped-strictly as a therapeutic early intervention.

It’s a crazy world we live in.

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