When it comes to our clothing, we claim that we must do it right. After all, we claim, it is our responsibility to portray the wartime as authentically as possible. But what happens when it comes to the parts of 19th century reality that we'd rather forget? Is it our responsibility to go against our morals to portray something so horrific as slavery? Civil War reenactments are severely lacking in African American reenactors. Spectators are quick to point out the absence of enslaved peoples but reenactments also leave out the mass numbers of African Americans who worked as laborers, teamsters, servants and cooks. But what about those who do come out? Are period appropriate interactions, inappropriate today? Should reenactors have to act in defiance of their modern day beliefs?
Many period terms are offensive to us today. In addition to period words that are considered racist today, there are many offensive descriptors that were acceptable at one time. It seems cruel, but words like "dumb," "lame," and "imbecile," referred to medical conditions. Gay could mean happy or be a euphemism for prostitutes. Is using these words part of the authenticity we owe to the public? Are "period" racism and discrimination something we should incorporate? Should women portraying "prostitutes" or the poor not get an invite to the ball? Should stripes on a coat really mean something? Should the Irish Brigade have derogatory names thrown at them?I have never witnessed "period racism," but I have encountered real, modern-day racism. There are some people who somehow think that everyone in the south was racist and a supporter of slavery. They also think that everyone in the north was an abolitionist or somehow more enlightened than their southern counterparts. This type of thinking is juvenile at best and shows little understanding of the complex social and economic roots of the problems of the time period. Many people also don't notice the "actor" in reenactor and falsely accuse Confederate reenactors of racism. They don't understand that reenactors portray people of the past and our real views are very different from the views we may portray. Will "period discrimination" enforce these falsehoods?
I do not believe that "period" racism or other modernly derogatory comments should be used, unless all parties involved are in agreement about it and the moment is used as a "teaching moment." Someone should be available to explain to the public that "dumb" meant mute or "Uncle," was a common greeting for a white southern girl to an African American man. I also believe that the age group of the spectators is also very important, what is appropriate for a group of highschoolers is probably not appropriate for for primary school children. Everyone deserves to have a good time at a reenactment and real racism should not be a part of it.
Please read Ken's fantastic post about this topic An Interesting Perspective on Authentic Reenacting.
I would love to hear everyone's thoughtful comments. This is a difficult thing to discuss and there probably isn't any right answers. It would be very interesting to see what everyone's thoughts on the matter are.
I sometimes feel like a hypocrite when people ask "Where are all of the slaves?" 100 % period correct attire can't tell the whole story. It seems silly that we're so focused on it.
ReplyDeleteI agree.
DeleteTo be flippent, I did the Union so I didn't have answer that question about slaves. Unfortunatly a friend that did 54th Massachusetts as a white officer saw too much racism coming from Northern reenactors.
ReplyDeleteAs for women, protraying prostitutes usually gets silly.
There are very few reasons for women to be in camp :)
DeleteThank you so much for putting this out there. I actually might do a similar post, if you don't mind. I think it's a really important issue that needs to be discussed within the living history community. Excellent post, this really made me think about what we do as historians! :)
ReplyDeleteI don't mind at all!
DeleteVery well thought out question. We portray a Confederate group from Maryland which was a border state, and the historical people that were actually in the unit that we portray were mostly not slave holders. Maryland had the highest percentage of free black men in the US, and that includes the Northern States so we portray people from a border state that was not the norm in either Northern or Southern states. Many Marylanders that were from our area near Baltimore, went to the Conferate side because the Union army occupied Baltimore, suspended the writ of habeus corpus, imprisoned civilians for speaking out against the war (no matter which side they supported) without a trial, and trained the cannons at Ft. McHenry against Baltimore to force the people to "behave". That said, we still get a fair amount of spectators that come up to our camp and make statements that we shouldn't be at the reenactment since we are pro-slavery and racist. That couldn't be further from the truth of any of us that I know. But history reminds us that we must present both sides of the conflict in order to learn from it, and quite a number of the members of our group had ancestors in the "real" or historical group. So we try to explain that factual information, and give some background about Maryland's role during the war, yet there is little open-mindedness among those that feel as they do. Our unit will not and does not display the Battle flag in camp since it would have only been displayed in Battle, rather we display a copy of the historic 1st National "Winder" Maryland flag that our unit would have carried in 1862. We don't display the battle flag because it is not historically proper to have it in camp, but also because we are reenactors of history, not trying to incite racial tensions. I don't personally do much first person, so I try to explain things to spectators in terms of being a reenactor, but also from today's world. Those that want information listen, those that have their opinions firmly decided, do not.
ReplyDeleteIt's sad that people think that all Confederate reenactors are racist and ignorant. I once heard a story of one person that came out with a group I know of, revealed his.."feelings" about race, and was firmly asked not to come out again.
DeleteThere's a college near one of my favorite events, and often the students will drive by yelling insults at the Confederate camp. If they'd only give us a few minutes to explain what we do and why, instead of assuming, they might actually learn something.
Unfortunately, there seems to be this strange belief among non reenactors that we're some different kind of species. "These strange people who dress in warm clothes and run around in the middle of summer shooting guns at each other."
Some people just have preconceptions about who we are. If they're not willing to listen, unfortunately there's not much we can do.
"Those that want information listen, those that have their opinions firmly decided, do not," is a very true statement. It is very hard to convince them otherwise when they come up to you *convinced* you are racist. Thanks for your comment!
DeleteIt's all relative depending what state you're in.
DeleteAt Spottsylvania last year our tiny Union camp was located as close to the main road and away from everything else(ie the restrooms, the sutlers, the water tanks) as possible. There were a lot of cars passing by with rude gestures and offensive things yelled at us out of car windows.
There were fewer than 20 of us, just a tiny fraction of one single company out of our regiment. We were outnumbered so ludicrously that Colonel Wolff of our Vincent's brigade went to the event staff and said basically, "look, if you don't galvanize at least forty of your reenactors we're packing this up and going home."
We really got treated like garbage at that event pretty much the whole time. I think I remembered at least one shout during the battle of "Yankees go home!" But it's Virginia I'm talking about.
We get the same thing at Shippensburg. But it is what it is and the only real option is to choose to not go. I personally don't let those idiots have the satisfaction. I can choose to let them get to me and ruin my day, or I can choose to have a good time.
DeleteI think it would be great to see more "living history" at reenactments. It's fun for people to come out and see a battle, but when it comes to exploring camps, they tend to see a bunch of guys dressed in weird clothes catching up with their friends on how their modern day lives have been going.
ReplyDeleteMany times we'll teach these wandering spectators about our clothes and tools, but most often first person interaction is left out. I think this has something to do with the topic of your post. Many of us lack much of the common knowledge of the time. We can say we're portraying farmers, but how many of us know how farming was done?
We read the history books, and we know the battles, and the generals, and the politicians of the time, but we need to remember that there will always be something else to learn..we should always look for that little detail we didn't know about before.
That event they were even throwing things at the confederate camp. I like your point about daily life. They were real people most of the time an soldiers for a short period of time. :)
DeleteJames Deetz, a famous New England historian, was director of Plimoth Plantation museum at one time. He lost his job over have an African American actor portray Abraham Pearce in 1627 Plymouth, Massachusetts in the 1980s. He has stuck by his story that Pearce was black, and the primary sources of the time point to the possiblity. Many of the Pearce descendants have no problem with this idea. However, the museum's perception of public opinion led to their decision. The debate continues today. People just don't want to think outside of the box. History is not always black or white, but many beautiful shades of gray...
ReplyDeleteThank you for writing this thought-provoking post Stephanie Ann.
ReplyDeleteI wrote my take/answer to this post here:
http://passionforthepast.blogspot.com/2012/02/interesting-perspective-on-authentic.html
I think your post is fantastic and much better said than I could have written. Thanks so much!
ReplyDelete