I’m Invited to a Destination Wedding at a Plantation. What Do I Do?
I can almost understand why the Citrus County Board of Commissioners refuses to fund a subscription to The New York Times. Impressionable children and uninformed voters might read it and not be able to defend their minds against the socialist propaganda gushing forth from ‘The Old Grey Lady.’
As a veteran of military intelligence with an honors degree in political philosophy, nearly a half-century of professional journalism and too many years in advertising and marketing to apologize for, I can read the paper without fear. Propaganda is not a foreign language.
Some may think I am just kidding myself, like those science-addled sheep who get vaccinated or wear a mask during a pandemic.
Read this sub-head and weep. (I might’ve gone with ‘extricate’ myself.)
The New York Times‘ magazine’s Ethicist columnist on how uncomfortable moments can’t be avoided if our country is going to get out from under four centuries of racism.
Personally, I am more worried about five centuries of genocide, as I sit at home in Seminole country. But I am not feeling guilty about the Trail of Tears. Or Wounded Knee. Or Sand Creek.
Knowledge of past crimes does not make me nor my third-grade grandson – who proudly announced he reads at a third-grade-level – racists.
Ethics. I am old enough to remember when law schools first introduced compulsory ethics classes for prospective attorneys. 1975. Think Watergate, kneejerk reaction.
Point is, Critical Ethical Theory is a cross-disciplinary intellectual and social movement that began in the United States in the post-Watergate era, as the Nixon administration and a gang of white Republican men forgot everything they’d ever been taught in church. With inequalities persisting even after civil rights legislation was enacted, CET scholars in the 1970s and 1980s began reworking and expanding critical legal studies (CLS) theories on class, common sense, courtesy, civics, economic structure and the law to examine the systemic role of the Republican Party and the Proud Boys [e.g.] in perpetuating unethical behavior.
Note. Critical Ethical Theory has never been taught outside a college curriculum. To protect the children.
I’m Invited to a Destination Wedding at a Plantation. What Do I Do?
By Kwame Anthony Appiah
A friend’s daughter has sent my family an invitation to her upcoming “Plantation Wedding” in a Southern city. I had been looking forward to attending until I became aware of the appalling and tragic history of this estate and gardens. I am deeply troubled by the thought of celebrating on the grounds where hundreds of men, women and children were bought and sold, enslaved and tortured, so that white people can enjoy the privilege of a fairy-tale wedding.
Some friends are attending to support the mother of the bride. They urge me to just go and raise my own consciousness by touring the estate’s historical slave quarters and other sites in this city. I am skeptical that this is enough. I doubt I would be able to avoid speaking out during the wedding reception. Should I explain to the bride and groom the reason for my absence? She surely knows the estate’s history already. I foresee that all this will cause a rift in our families for some time. Would a donation to a historically Black college, in lieu of a wedding gift be appropriate?
Everyone in this scenario is white, raised in the Northeast and college-educated, and I’m astonished that they don’t realize this is a terrible idea. I want to act in good conscience and not create more disturbance. Do you have any thoughts? Name Withheld
“Name Withheld.” Of course, it is.
Obviously, this letter is a total fabrication. Completely made up.
Anybody can see that. First of all, if “everyone in this scenario is white,” just how woke are they?
In choosing a plantation wedding, this couple would appear to be idealizing lifestyles built directly on the unpaid labor of Black people who were treated as property and regularly abused. You regard that history with repugnance, and no doubt your friends would say they share that sentiment. But two decades into the 21st century, a couple planning a wedding would almost have to have gone out of their way not to see the connection. Evidently, they’ve tuned out a vigorous national discussion about the legacy of slavery; ignored much of what comes up if you simply type “plantation wedding” into Google; and achieved a serene obliviousness that normally requires the sort of monastic seclusion not associated with marriage.
First freakin’ sentence in the answer:
“In choosing a plantation wedding, this couple would appear to be idealizing lifestyles…”
I speak with some authority on wedding locations. With the exception of my first in-laws who understandably wanted to launch their only daughter lavishly – think Michael Corleone tying the knot – ‘idealizing lifestyles’ never entered my thinking.
Or those second marriage photos wouldn’t include a biker gang and fat Italian men in bikinis.
Maybe the couple was looking for a convenient rural location with plenty of parking – and shelter, if needed – at a low price on a special date when all the cool churches booked.
Of course, there are all sorts of reasons that couples may choose a plantation setting for their wedding, but it doesn’t sound as if (like certain Black couples) they are seeking to subvert a racial hierarchy or to spend time amid the slave dwellings as a foray toward repair or education. Possibly, the couple haven’t given thought to how their Black guests would feel about the destination; possibly, there are no such guests. Either way, you can’t happily attend an event that takes place in what you understand to be an architectural adjunct to slavery.
If our country is going to get out from under four centuries of racism,
uncomfortable moments can’t be avoided.
You want uncomfortable moments? You can’t handle uncomfortable moments!!!
Try grocery shopping during a pandemic with 50% of the community unvaccinated and masks are for sissies and the government hopes nobody notices a thousand people have died.
I have met some of their surviving relatives.
That was an uncomfortable moment. Don’t get me started.
You’re thinking about making a donation to a historically Black college in lieu of a gift. Perhaps the gesture is meant to assuage your guilt — akin to buying a carbon offset. It might be a good thing to make such a donation, but not for this reason. Or perhaps the donation is meant to send a message. But then you might as well tell them the truth: You’re pained you won’t be able to join them, but you can’t reconcile yourself to a celebration on these haunted grounds.
“If any among you can show cause why these two should not be joined in matrimony, now is the time to speak up.”
You rightly don’t want to find yourself bemoaning the venue of a wedding while you’re attending it and spoiling the special day for the couple. If you offer some innocuous excuse for your absence, however, you’ll only be protecting your own sense of moral purity. That’s why the braver, better path is to explain, well in advance, why you won’t be there. The exchange will be uncomfortable. But if our country is going to get out from under four centuries of racism, uncomfortable moments can’t be avoided. You may be accused of getting on a high horse. So be it. Those saddled on high horses sometimes see the fields more clearly than others.
And sometimes they ride face-first smackdab into a thick low-hanging tree branch.
Too few people worried about Critical American Theory.
Too few doing the right thing.
I’m Invited to a Destination Wedding at a Plantation.
What Do I Do?
Think we can all agree, the decision is pretty simple really.
Do these nuptials have an open bar?
This is the ancestral home of a sitting U.S. Congressman.
https://www.belmontmansionevents.com/