User talk:Joelrosenblum

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Ira Berlin
Hi Joel,

I think it's better to conduct our debate on Ira Berlin on our own talk pages as we try to come to some consensus rather than just cluttering up the Ira Berlin talk page. However if you want to move what I write here over there that's fine, although it's really just an attempt to dialogue with you personally before I make any other edits. Since I'm trying to engage with you directly I see no reason to put it on the other talk page.

Let me just mention some things about myself because I think you are forming some incorrect impressions about me. First of all I am not secretly Ira Berlin and furthermore I do not know him in the slightest, nor do I admire him. The professor who has most influenced me regarding slavery has written scathing reviews of Berlin (though not for the same reasons that you do). Hence please do not think that I removed your work because I am a Berlin partisan. I'm not.

I study American history in graduate school, and although it's not my primary area of focus, I have spent a great deal of time on the history of slavery. I say this not to invoke expertise (I'm not an expert and wikipedians don't do that anyway) but just to let you know where I'm coming from. Last year when I taught pre-1865 U.S. history to college undergradautes the primary topic we discussed was slavery and its many ramifications for American society. I can assure that I strove at all times to drill home the horror of slavery rather than to minimize it. We spent a lot more time talking about slavery than we did "great white men" as they are called. I can't prove that to you but I hope you'll take me at my word.

I've taken classes with leftist "race studies" (unsure what that means) professors--even African Americans. I myself am a deeply committed leftist and have been for years, which is not to say that I don't like Bush (though I obviously don't) but rather to say that I am opposed to capitalism and believe that we live in a patriarchal world with severe, systemic inequities of class and race. This obviously applies to the U.S., a country that is far, far away from escaping its white supremacist roots. I don't know whether or not the U.S. is one of the least racist societies, I only know that our society is still deeply racist and white dominated. An enormous part of my political stance is to be an anti-racist which, given that I am white, often takes form in efforts I make to convince other whites that race is an enormous issue in our society and that even though they might say "I'm not racist" they actually are (in the 60s--before my time--the Black Panthers and others said whites should join the struggle by working to decrease racism among whites, and I think this is still true). Of course none of this matters on Wikipedia, but I say it in the hopes that in the future you won't imply that I am going soft on slavery or that I think about things the way Strom Thurmond does (or did--may he not rest in peace).

I truly admire your passion and would be right there with you exposing covert racism and pro-slavery talk in history books if and when it was really happening, but in Berlin's case I'm afraid it is not. To be blunt, I think you need to read more about these issues before you are so confident in your judgments. I can't respond to all of your points, but let me mention a few things.

You say "to highlight the changing levels of oppression in slavery is to de-emphasize the fact that at every point in history slavery has been an inhuman system of domination enforced by violence." This goes to the heart of it, and I think you are quite wrong here. What historians of slavery generally do is this. They say, "at every point in history slavery has been an inhuman system of domination enforced by violence." Then they detail differences which are quite important. For example, if you were a slave in the rice fields of Carolina you were much more likely to die of disease or overwork than you were in the tobacco fields of Virginia. However in Carolina you were able to associate with more slaves (and thus better preserve African traditions) and had a bit more free time than you would in Virginia where tobacco required constant attention. Do you find that a relevant fact about the history of slavery? I do, and so does most everyone who studies the subject seriously. To discuss how the oppression of the slave system functioned at different places and at different times does not de-emphasize the fact that slavery was inhumane and oppressive. Your suggestion, that if you talk about temporal or geographic changes you essentially play-down slavery, is illogical and kinda strange.

You also said (first quoting Berlin):

"Although denied the right to marry, they made families; denied the right to an independent religious life, they established churches; denied the right to hold property, they owned many things.

"How is this conception of a "family" different from a couple of monkeys allowed to breed in a cage to make more monkeys to be experimented on? They have no right to parent their children at the moment the master decides to sell them or their children, firstly, and secondly, what kind of monster would "emancipate parents while continuing to keep their children in slavery"?"

Again, a very strange reading of this passage. Berlin's point is obviously that in spite of everything slaves were prevented from doing, as individuals they were at times able to go against--though never defeat--the system of slavery. And you should think twice about what you wrote. Is your argument that a man and woman who were African American and enslaved and who had a daughter together were not a family, that they did not try their damndest to be a family in spite of the constant threat of being separated or killed? I find what you said more offensive that what Berlin wrote by a long shot. You're correct that family life under slavery is unbelievably stunted and limited, that it is an awful, awful way to live, but you essentially say that blacks did not have families under slavery while comparing them to monkeys (which shows you did not think so well about what you wrote). There are hundreds of books written about slave family life. Read one before you talk about the topic anymore. Also you did not object to Berlin's mention of African Americans creating churches and owning property because of course they did those things. I hope that you are able to see that those facts and the fact that slavery was the most abominable institution ever created (which it was and is) are not mutually exclusive.

You said: "The fact that slaves died daily and fought rebellions to kill their masters and get out of slavery even though they generally had no chance in succeeding tells me more about the history of slavery than Berlin's entire book..." Well, actually it hasn't, because you don't seemt to know much about the history of slavery and what you said is wrong. There were very few slave rebellions in America (more in places like Brazil, Cuba, and of course Haiti). Masters were certainly murdered (often by "house" slaves, the kind you would call Uncle Tom) though this was not a frequent occurence. Slaves did run away, steal shit, break tools, work slowly or poorly, refuse to work, hit their overseers or get them fired, make children and raise them as best they could given the circumstances, create new African-American subcultures, etc. etc. Most of the time they did not revolt. Why? Because you got killed. No slave revolt in the U.S. was ever successful, and slaves knew this. During the Civil War Southern slaves ran away in huge numbers and thus greatly contributed to the Union victory (as well as freeing themselves). However this was the exception. You might be bored by hearing about how slaves negotiatied for less work hours or the right to build a church (Christianity, incidentally, was not imposed on African Americans--the earliest mass conversions were not until the mid 1700s and they were generally voluntary--many masters were not happy about it) but those acts of resistance had a lot more to do with how African Americans fought against slavery and lived their daily lives than whatever glorified notion of revolt you have. Had you been a slave in 1820, you likewise might have chosen to try to raise your children in whatever limited way you could rather than running out to revolt and dying. That wouldn't have made you an Uncle Tom.

I could say more about your points in your reply (I basically disagree with all of them incidentally) but won't. Just bear in mind a couple of things in a general sense. You are making a very serious accusation against a living public figure. You are saying a historian of slavery is biased in favor of slavery on the web site people are most likely to go to look up information on this person. At least one person with at least some knowledge of the topic (me) is telling you this is way, way off base and that you kinda don't know what you are talking about. Also I think a wikipedia admin would say you can't say these kind of things about someone who is alive without backing it up. You're bordering on slander if what you say about Berlin is wrong (I'm not saying that as some kind of threat, it's just true).

You might also think about what makes something controversial as I said in my original note on the talk page. Is something "controversial" just because one or two people say it is? You make reference to "leftist race studies teachers, especially Black ones" who apparently would find Berlin controversial but you don't produce any who agree with you. You say "Wikipedians can decide for themselves" but wikipedia is not a web site to throw out all types of nonsense and see what sticks, or a blog with a comments section--it's an encyclopedia. Do you really feel like you know enough about Ira Berlin and the history of American slavery to be confident that your personal criticisms of him belong on his encyclopedia entry? If you can't find other historians who say Berlin is pro-slavery, can you admit to the possibility that you are wrong, and would you admit at the least that your remarks probably don't belong on this web site since you cannot back them up? Do you believe that Berlin would have been elected head of the Organization of American Historians if he was pro-slavery? Maybe you do, but then you don't know much about the state of the field of U.S. history right now.

You can reply to me on my talk page, or better yet e-mail me at bigtimepeace at hotmail.com. If you do, please don't accuse me of being conservative or racist or Ira Berlin's lover or the man himself. I'm going to wait awhile for your reply, but eventually I'm almost certainly going to take down what you have put up on Berlin because I don't think it bears inclusion in the slightest. Actually the whole entry sucks (you're right that it's just a list of his achievements) and should be revamped, but for now I'm focused on convincing you that your stuff should not be on there. I do this in the spirit of trying to resolve a dispute and not make it personal, and of trying to make this a better wikipedia entry. Peace.--Bigtimepeace 06:05, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Joel--As I noted on the other talk page I listed the Ira Berlin article on the Biographies of Living Persons Noticeboard so someone else can take a look at it since our discussion is not getting anywhere. Let's wait and see what another party says, okay?  I just wanted to mention a few things to you, and I really hope we can keep the tone more civil.  Some of these points don't even relate to the article but just to things you or I wrote on the talk page.  They relate to a couple of factual matters and to ways in which I feel you have mischaracterized what I wrote.


 * 1) The fact that a professor I know criticized Berlin's work is not libel and I assume you know this.  Libel is when you write something defaming about a person that is not true.  Okay?


 * 2) I do make clear that "great white men" ran the slave system when I teach U.S. history. I assume you were sarcastically saying I did not.


 * 3) I am not defending Ira Berlin's book, I am saying what you are saying about his book and his point of view is wrong. Because I disagree with you does not mean that I like Ira Berlin or his work.  Incidentally, to suggest as you do that anyone who defends a book you happen to think is racist are themselves racist shows an intolerance for other points of view on your part.  Your idea seems to be that if someone disagrees with you they are racist oppressors.  That kind of moral certitude is really annoying and frightening.


 * 4) When I made reference to slaves "stealing shit" it was not a negative moral judgment as you assumed. All I said was that stealing was a form of resistance to slavery which it was.  Interestingly, slaves often referred to it as "taking", suggesting they felt entitled to "steal" which sounds about right to me.  I fully agree with your assertion that "If they took anything they had a right to do so."  I did not say otherwise--you're just reading into my comment until you see what you want to see.  I am not painting African Americans under slavery as criminals and I agree with you that this portrayal persists today as you suggest which is racist and wrong.  Please quit trying to turn everything I write into some form of covert racism.  You should assume good faith as wikipedia says rather than assuming I'm a secret racist and trying to hide that from you somehow.


 * 5) I said there were very few slave revolts in the U.S. relative to other places. Believe it or not, most historians agree with this.  I am well aware of Herbert Aptheker's book and it was and is important, but it was not the last word on slave revolts.  They happened in the U.S.--I did not say they didn't--and Aptheker changed how we thought about them (convincing many to view them as positive rather than negative which is a perspective I fully agree with) but they just were not that frequent.  Here's a passage from a very recent book (2006) by David Brion Davis (one of the foremost scholars of the history of slavery) called Inhuman Bondage which is considered an excellent general study of slavery in the Americas.  Davis writes: At the outset we need to note the striking contrast between North America and the many other slave societies to the south with respect to the frequency and size of slave revolts as well as slave escapes to fairly durable maroon communities.  Although the population of slaves in the United States eventually dwarfed the numbers in Brazil and the Caribbean, there were no significant revolts in the colonial Chesapeake from 1619 to 1775 or in the nation as a whole from 1831 to 1865.  In Brazil, by contrast, slave revolts were more common, and in the 1600s thousands of fugitives found refuge for nearly a century in the maroon community of Palmares...Major slave insurrections continued to erupt in British Jamaica from the 1670s to 1831... (Inhuman Bondage, 207).  My point in quoting this passage is that what I was saying about fewer revolts in the U.S. relative to other slave societies is not conjecture--it's generally agreed upon.  This does not mean that slaves were happy in the U.S. or that slavery here was good.  Slaves were not happy here and slavery here was awful--there just were not as many revolts.  It may seem odd, but it's true.


 * 6) You're correct that slaves were generally prevented from practicing African traditions including religion.  However, in the U.S. at least, forced conversion to Christianity was not the norm as you assume (incidentally, I'm not a Christian and am not defending the religion so don't jump to that conclusion as you have to so many others).  Not until the Great Awakening (i.e. the mid 1700s) did a significant number of slaves convert to Christianity.  A larger number converted in the early 1800s.  More often than not white masters were not happy about it, because they felt stories like those in the book of Exodus would give slaves ideas about getting out of slavery.  Later slaveowners would try to instill in slaves passages from the Bible that were pro-slavery (there were a good number) but African Americans of course generally rejected these aspects and often found liberatory messages in the Bible and the religion generally.  Afro-American Christianity is unique though, as it obviously contains aspects of African religious traditions.  It's an interesting topic that you should look into rather than assuming (and loudly proclaiming) that Christianity was forced upon slaves and they hated it.  Assuming that you are white, which I'm guessing is true, I'd be interested to watch you go into an African American Baptist church someday and try saying that.


 * 7) You say to me: "Can you understand that every conclusion you make about the valor of slaves is based on your own feelings that slaves were content with what they had?"  Let me state this categorically and please believe me here.  I could not disagree more with the idea "that slaves were content with what they had" and as such the idea does not represent my own feelings.  Okay?  I believe European enslavement of Africans is the greatest moral crime in the history of humanity.  Slavery is always awful, but this was the worst kind, and in no way were African Americans or anyone else whoever lived under slavery content.  Again, you are forcing a viewpoint on me that I do not hold.  Just because I disagree with your characterization of Berlin does not mean I am an apologist for slavery.  I think you need to work on demonizing those who disagree with you a bit less.  It's not a good way to deal with issues on wikipedia or in life.


 * 8) Your contention that I am speaking down to working people is outlandish.  I work, I have worked since I was 15.  I don't know what in the name of God you are talking about.  I believe that what you have written on Ira Berlin is a violation of wikipedia's policy on biographies of living persons (have you read that yet?).  Wikipedia takes lible very seriously and you are writing on wikipedia so you should take it seriously as well--otherwise you should start a blog and put all of this stuff there.  I have a problem with what you (not working people--you don't represent them even if you are a worker) wrote because I think it is inaccurate and defamatory.  It has nothing to do with working people or speaking truth to power.  It has nothing to do with being a leftist.  Is your argument that leftist's should not care about libel, that leftists should not be angry when, for example, someone lies about Noam Chomsky and says he is a Holocaust denier as people sometimes do?  In the kind of non-capitalist society I hope we create someday, I would think slandering people will still be a no no.  It's ridiculous to even be talking about this subject in these terms, but then again it's ridiculous for you to accuse me of oppressing the working class when I merely suggest that an article is not being written according to wikipedia guidelines.  Please try to tone down your rhetoric.--Bigtimepeace 01:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

April 2020
Please do not introduce incorrect information into articles, as you did to Vaccination. Your edits could be interpreted as vandalism and have been reverted. If you believe the information you added was correct, please cite references or sources or discuss the changes on the article's talk page before making them again. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. ''... and Talk:Vaccination. Continued soapboxing, as you did on both pages, will get you blocked from editing; WP:SOAP. Use WP:MEDRS reviews to support medical content. '' Zefr (talk) 04:57, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Hello, Joelrosenblum. I have undone a few of your edits at vaccination. Please do not edit war them back in. If you do, that is likely to get you blocked from Wikipedia. Instead, I recommend discussing your proposed changes on the article's talk page (that's what they're for, they are not meant to be a forum to grind the axe about the AMA, etc). Please familiarize yourself with the following policies and you will have a better experience while editing Wikipedia: WP:TPG, WP:SOAPBOX, and the edit warring link above. If you would like to add something to the article talk page, especially if it's controversial or other editors disagree, the best course of action is to open a discussion about this on the talk page. If there are objections to the inclusion, then you should hear why and make your case to the community for its inclusion. The onus is typically on the one who adds material. Thank you. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 08:51, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Also, I suggest reading this page, especially the section "When reviewing data from VAERS, please keep in mind the following limitations", especially the last two paragraphs of the page, which are particularly important and pertinent to the point you're trying to make. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 09:21, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Ambox warning pn.svg You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war; that means that you are repeatedly changing content back to how you think it should be, when you have seen that other editors disagree. Users are expected to collaborate with others, to avoid editing disruptively, and to try to reach a consensus, rather than repeatedly undoing other users' edits once it is known that there is a disagreement.

If you find yourself in an editing dispute, use the article's talk page to discuss controversial changes and work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at an appropriate noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, it may be appropriate to request temporary page protection. If you engage in an edit war, you may be blocked from editing. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 19:19, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) Edit warring is disruptive regardless of how many reverts you have made;
 * 2) Do not edit war even if you believe you are right.

You have been blocked indefinitely from editing because it appears that you are not here to build an encyclopedia. If you think there are good reasons for being unblocked, please read the guide to appealing blocks, then add the following text below the block notice on your talk page:. Guy (help!) 19:22, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Note: this is posted for review at the admin incident board. Guy (help!) 19:25, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Your edit on talk:vaccination
Has been responded to and restored, Talk:Vaccination. Thanks --Kwwhit5531 (talk) 02:13, 15 April 2020 (UTC)