Let Me Tell You One Thing, One Single And Simple Pure Thing That Will Probably Be Thrown Stones And Rocks

let me tell you one thing, one single and simple pure thing that will probably be thrown stones and rocks at by supporters of this movement.

"we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal."

all, see? men, he meant, humans. human beings. equal rights. see? but equal laws for everyone, too.

we don't bloody care where you are from. we don't bloody care what your sexual orientation is.

we don't fucking care what colour your skin is.

as long as you can hold an adequate, intelligent and rational conversation, as long as you obey the law, as long as you know what you're talking about, as long as you are willing to work, learn, help, cooperate and, if to fight, then fight for common sense - which is not so difficult to understand and accept - you are welcome to the world, multilingual, multicultural, multiracial.

but.

when you demolish monuments to people that have done everything to bring peace and harmony to the country they fought for, when you rob and destroy the streets that were meant to be full of people having a safe life, when you point a gun at a pregnant woman, when you worship a criminal - you deserve nothing. we interpret you as a threat, which you truly are. we think of you as a traitor to peace that we all wish for.

more than that, due to the situation of a pandemic we all live in, you should all be wearing masks, which you clearly are NOT doing. therefore, we also interpret you as a threat for the spreading of the virus that has taken so many lives already.

all lives matter. we don't see colour. and if you do, you're doing what you're fighting against.

mother. friggin’. space. man. x

These boys

So to start off, here are some mini-bios of people who I’ll be talking about! This is going to be a long post, but it will make it easier to understand my future posts if you don’t know some of these people. I’m covering: Alexander Hamilton, John Laurens, Francis Kinloch, Lois Manoël de Vègobre, Johannes Von Müller, Charles Victor de Bonstetten, Alleyne Fitzherbert 1st Baron, St. Helens, and Thomas Gray.

John Laurens: You might’ve heard of him if you listen to Hamilton. John Laurens was born in Charleston, South Carolina. His father was Henry Laurens, a prominent South Carolinian who co-owned the largest slave trading house in North America, “Austin and Laurens.” Yeah. He pretty much was a terrible father and a terrible person. He would later become president of the congressional congress. His mother was named Eleanor Laurens. Her death when John was 16 marked a significantly traumatic event in his life, however in general, John Laurens was very well acquainted with death. He was the fourth child born in his family, but he was the oldest by the time he was four years old, his older siblings all dying at young ages. One can only speculate how these early losses affected young John, or Jack, as his family called him.

John was most likely tutored at a young age. He grew up in very privileged circumstances certainly, as his father was one of the most well-known and rich South Carolinians of the time. 

As John grew up, he became very studious and serious. His father viewed him as the most promising child of the Laurens children, and prayed he would not fall prey to gambling or women. At nearly thirteen, we find our first piece of evidence suggesting John Laurens might be gay. His father Henry Laurens writes, “Master Jack is too closely wedded to his studies to think about any of the Miss Nannies I would not have such a sound in his Ear for a Crown…” In other words, Henry Laurens noticed his son’s unusual lack of interest in girls. Of course, one could read it as a passing comment on how studious his son was, or just thankfulness that Henry’s ‘best’ son didn’t seem to be ‘tempted’ in any way, but this does still confirm that as a young teenager, (and some point out that this is the time when many boys go through puberty, and therefore discover their sexual interests,) John was NOT interested in ladies. 

As John grew even older, his father decided the time was ripe for some education in Europe. Some speculation has occurred that right before John left for Europe he painted a collection known as Pope Brown Collection of South Carolina Natural History. It contains 32 paintings of natural organisms, including many types of birds and plants. This is not confirmed, but it is of interest to many that John Laurens was a very good artist, and probably quite interested in art. Many have heard of the (in)famous turtle drawings John did. In truth, though John did draw the soft-shelled turtle for naturalist Alexander Garden, he most likely did not have an uncommon affection for that particular animal.

So, John soon found himself on a boat to Europe with his younger brothers, Henry jr. and James, known as Jemmy. They eventually settled in Geneva, staying with a family friend. 

But before we even get to Geneva, it is worth noting a passage from a letter by Henry Laurens. This was written while John was briefly enrolled in a school in London. While complaining about the many crimes and indulgences of the city, he mentions “…and every black and execrable Crime had gain’d in the City is equally astonishing and shocking.” Now this simply could be another thrown in crime in the long list that precedes this, but in those those days ‘black crime’ was sometimes a code for homosexuality. So was John exposed to homosexuality in London the way Hamilton was at Nevis? This could provide some context for his later relationship with Francis Kinloch.

In 1772, the Laurens boys arrived in Geneva. John studied a multitude of subjects, and polished up his French. While he fretted about finding his brothers proper schools, his Uncle James Laurens was concerned about a different aspect of his time. Geneva, which had been a theocracy at one point, was now very open to new, more secular ways of thinking. John assured his Uncle that he was not influenced by any of his teachers not being ‘classically’ Christian. But it may not be a coincidence that the place where John most likely had his first homosexual relationship was a place more open to new types of thinking and concepts, especially in terms of religion.

What exactly was this first relationship? To establish some context, we must return briefly to Charlestown, South Carolina. The Kinloch family lived there and did know the Laurens’s. The name ‘Kinloch’ appears in some of Henry Laurens’s papers, and apparently Francis Kinloch’s sister made John ruffles for his travels to Europe. But in 1774, as John was dutifully studying in Geneva, his father wrote to him “From a hint which Waag dropped at Bath tis expected by the freinds of the young Eatonian that he will find a freind in you at Genevé, tho none of ‘em have Said a word to me on the Subject.” This “freind” is in fact Francis Kinloch, so it may be that he and John had met before. 

John and Francis became very good friends along with one of Laurens’s tutors, Luis de Manoel de Vegobre. There is little documentation of the Kinloch-Laurens relationship whilst the latter was in Geneva, but once they were separated many letters were exchanged, several quite romantic sounding. What is quite possibly the most passionate line Laurens ever wrote to a lover is contained at the end of a letter to Francis. “We may differ in our political sentiments my dear Kinloch but I shall always love you for the knowledge I have of your Heart.” Kinloch was a loyalist, influenced by his guardian Thomas Boone, while John Laurens was obviously a patriot and the two debated hotly via letters. 

Another aspect that must be looked at when considering the Laurens-Kinloch relationship is the amount of trust in the relationship. The level of trust is apparent when we see John first express his abolitionist views in a letter to Kinloch,  “I could talk much with you my Dear Friend upon this Subject,” says John, referring to slavery. “and I know your generous Soul would despise and sacrifice Interest to establish the Happiness of so large a Part of the inhabitants of our Soil_  if as some pretend, but I am persuaded more thro’ interest, than from Conviction, the Culture of the Ground with us cannot be carried on without African Slaves, Let us fly it as a hateful Country_ and say ubi Libertas ibi Patria…” Kinloch responded that he supported the ideas, but did not see how fellow Southerners would adopt them. This only illustrates more clearly that though there were serious conflicts, theirs was a loving and trusting relationship. 

When John was forced to leave Geneva, (and he did want to stay… one wonders if Kinloch had something to do with this. It may have been other reasons, like that John felt freer from his father or enjoyed his rich social life.) he wrote a plaintive letter to Kinloch, telling him, “If my Letter is a little confused, dont be surprised at it, for I am quite like a creature in [a] new world…” 

  However, as if John hadn’t lost enough family in his mere nineteen years, his brother Jemmy lost his life that summer. The boy had apparently tried to jump to John’s window and had fractured his skull. John was with his brother through the horrible night. He wrote to his uncle James, “At some Intervals he had his Senses, so far as to be able to answer singe Questions, to beckon me, to form his Lips to kiss me, but for the most part he was delirious and frequently unable to articulate. Puking, Convulsions near very violent, and latterly so gentle as to be scarcely perceived, or deserve the Name, ensued, and Nature yielded.” It is notable that soon after this, John Laurens sent a letter to Francis Kinloch, whom he hadn’t corresponded with since late the year before, 1774. This again illustrates that though the relationship was not flawless or without conflict, Laurens trusted and confided in his friend/lover.

Now studying law at Middle Temple, John received an extremely upsetting letter from Francis Kinloch. Apparently Kinloch was ready to move on from their romance. He starts the letter with an almost deceptively affectionate opening, “Whatever may be your idea of my manner of thinking in political affairs, don’t let that hinder you from telling me yours, and I promise to be as free with you: we hold too fast by one anothers hearts, my dear Laurens, to be afraid of exposing our several opinions to each other.” But Kinloch signs the letter “be certain I shall never forget you.” Apparently John  saw this as Kinloch being done with him, and as a result did something that would change his life forever.

One of Henry Laurens’s business partners, William Manning, was in London the same time as John, and apparently young Laurens came to call occasionally and enjoyed the company of Manning’s children. This is where he met Martha Manning. There is one piece of evidence to suggest that they were courting for a time, however all we know for sure is that Martha became pregnant around the time the last Kinloch letter reached John, and John Laurens was forced to marry the woman, certainly not because he loved her. “Pity has obliged me to marry.” John  wrote to his uncle. It could be that if they were courting prior to the pregnancy, the relationship was one-sided, or was an attempt for John be seen as straight. 

Though John was now married, he was yearning to leave his unhappy marriage and fight for America. An ardent patriot and abolitionist, he longed to go overseas and join the army. Henry Laurens tried his best to hinder his son’s want, but found that John was no longer a child he could bend to his will. So, John boarded a ship to America, not knowing, and possibly not caring, that he was leaving his wife behind. 

Henry Laurens, being a very prominent Carolinian and future president of the Continental Congress, managed to get his son an excellent position as Aide-de-Camp to general George Washington, though John was not officially appointed the position until October 6th or 7th. He joined the staff in August 1777, and met Alexander Hamilton, a man who would change his life forever.

Alexander Hamilton:

In quite a contrast to John Laurens’s privileged, if morbid childhood, future Founding Father Alexander Hamilton was born out of wedlock on the tiny island of St Croix to Rachel Facuette and James Hamilton in either the year 1755 or 1757. (There is great debate over his birth year. Hamilton himself used 1757, but a large amount of evidence from his childhood points to 1755. For time’s sake, we will use 1755.) Hamilton adored books and writing, but was hindered in his intellectual dreams by the grim circumstances he was brought up in. 

Hamilton had a single brother, James, also born out of wedlock. When Hamilton was 12 his mother died of smallpox, quite common at the time. Alexander was also sick, however he recovered, albeit he always had health problems most likely connected to the early brush with mortality.

Where Alexander grew up, blacks outnumbered whites by a ratio of nearly 8:1, so there was existential tension in the air, a constant fear of sugar plantation owners that the slaves would revolt. Indeed, the slave owners were so cruel to their slaves that things Hamilton witnessed as a child appear to have given him a permanent pessimism about human nature. In addition to the rich white landowners and enslaved blacks, there was a population of poor whites and criminals. St. Croix was a place where outcasts in society at the time were sent as well. This included people accused of sodomy (homosexuality). Ron Chernow writes in his biography of Alexander Hamilton, “Hamilton had certainly been exposed to homosexuality as a boy, since many ‘sodomites’ were transported to the Caribbean along with thieves, pickpockets, and others deemed undesirable.” This may explain why Hamilton seemed more at ease with his sexuality than Laurens, who grew up in a more strict, to say the least, household.

After his mother’s untimely death, Alexander and his brother lived with their cousin Peter Lytton. Unfortunately, very soon after the arrangement began, Peter took his own life, leaving the boys with practically no place to go. 

Alexander managed to get a job clerking for a prominent businessman. It is no stretch to assume that this is where Hamilton began his economic studies. While Alexander managed to get a good job, his brother was stuck being a carpenter and competing with others for work. Ron Chernow points out that this is again an example of Hamilton’s superior intellect pulling him out of ditches.

When Alexander was seventeen, a horrible storm shook the island of St. Croix. Hamilton wrote a beautiful and moving account of the hurricane, and this led to people raising enough money for him to enroll in King’s College in New York City. 

Lois Manoël de Vegobre:

A Swiss lawyer who met Francis Kinloch and John Laurens while in Geneva. His early life is pretty elusive, as he does not even have a wikipedia page. He was a math teacher, and John Laurens’s math tutor. John Laurens taught him English, and both Kinloch and Laurens seem to have taught Vegobre to love America, as he grew despairing when he heard about the challenges of the war in America. The book, Evolution of a Federalist: William Loughton Smith of Charleston (1758-1812) says of Vegobre, “When the first rumblings reached Europe, de Vegobre wrote Laurens: ‘Poor America!—you cannot believe how much me heart is moved on its account; you, and after you Kinloch have raised in my mind such a concern for your native country! I am as much affected for what happens to it, as if I were an American…. English friends, I will, I will see you in your country, before I die!’”

Vegobre was likely in a romantic relationship with Kinloch. He wrote to John Laurens in December 1774: “Let me tell you what are these pleasures whose you are the first cause.  I began to understand speaken; I read Spectator, Clarissa, Milton and Shakespear, besides some philophical books.  Never, never in my life I have been so well entertained as I am when I read Milton; and why?  First, for Poet’s excellency, and secondly and chiefly because I read it with Kinloch.  My beloved, my dearest friend is Kinloch; how happy am I, when I teach him some part of natural Philosophy, when I read with him both English and French Poets, when I talk with him about various matters plainly and heartily as with a friend!  Let me say again: Kinloch is my beloved, my dearest friend.”

Charles Victor de Bonstetten (Karl Victor von Bonstetten in German):

A writer from Switzerland, he was educated partly in Geneva, where he would develop the liberal beliefs that alarmed his father enough to make him return to Bern, where Bonstetten was born. He introduced the people of the Ticino Valley to potatoes.

He appears to have had a romance with Johannes Von Müller and Thomas Gray (I will be posting about the Gray- Bonstetten relationship very soon)

Johannes Von Müller:

A historian who’s life goal was to compile a giant master history book on Switzerland. He was a teacher of Greek, and later appointed office by Napoleon himself. He wrote many history books, and traveled throughout Europe throughout his life. Fun fact: if you look at his wikipedia page, I changed ‘his friend Bonstetten’ to ‘his lover Bonstetten.’ I wonder how long it’ll be before Wikipedia takes that down…

Letter from Müller to Bonstetten: “Any mistakes I may make in the future will be your fault; that is only if you neglect your letter-writing – your friendship can never grow cold – might I let myself be surprised by a passion. Tell me why I love you more as time passes. You are now incessantly in me and around me. My dearest friend, how much better it is to think of you than to live with the others! How is it possible to desecrate a heart that is consecrated to you? I need you more than ever; over and above these immutable, laudable plans for a useful life and an immortal name I have forsworn everything that is considered to be pleasant and delightful – not only pleasure but love, not only revels, but good living, not only greed, but ambition. B. is everything to me, you make all my battles easy and all abstinence sweet. Thus you live in my mind and especially in my heart. You write to me often, but it does not seem enough to me; you often address only the historian, and do not embrace your friend often enough.” 

Thomas Gray:

I stumbled upon this man while researching Bonstetten and Müller. I came upon the book My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters Through the Centuries. I saw that one of the essays in the book was entitled Thomas Gray & Charles- Victor de Bonstetten. Intrigued, I clicked on the essay, and then from there I somehow managed to find the archive of a full biography of Gray. Thomas Gray was an English poet. He was/is pretty famous, but not super well-known, partially because he did not publish much in his lifetime. Thomas Gray’s childhood was marred with sadness. He had nearly a dozen siblings, but none except him lived past babyhood. He stayed with his mother once he had left his father, who was abusive. He was born in 1716 and died in 1771.

Francis Kinloch: 

John Laurens’s first boyfriend. He was also born in Charleston (then Charles Town) and educated at Eton College. After this he went to Geneva, where he met John Laurens. He later hosted what I call Kinloch’s Gay Retreat, in which he had Johannes Von Müller, Charles Victor de Bonstetten, and Alleyne Fitzherbert, 1st Baron, St. Helens stay with him.

Alleyne Fitzherbert, 1st Baron, St. Helens:

I haven’t been able to find anything gay about him except he was apparently lord of the bedchamber for George III, and find words.info says this about lord of the bedchamber: “A Lord of the Bedchamber’s duties consisted of assisting the King with his dressing, waiting on him when he ate in private, guarding access to him in his bedchamber and closet and providing companionship.” So… possible? Maybe, but King George III also had like 20 other Lords of the Bedchamber. Also fun fact: Mt. St. Helens is named after him!

Hope this was informative!

first of all, thank you for such an elaborate reply. second of all, let me tear off the cloth that keeps you blindfolded.

misunderstanding no 1: when i say, "we don't see colour", i mean the particular human being "we" are talking to. i add this to what i said above, the "as long as you can hold an adequate conversation[...]" bit. i mean that we (and by this i mean people that agree with me on this matter) don't see the colour of someone's skin, we are not telling someone "ha, you're black, and therefore you won't get this job/eat here/study in this university", because they are healthy part of the society they live in. but when they use this (and it happens a hell of a lot in my country, for instance) to actually get the job, as in "so you won't give me the job/let me study in this university because i'm black, so i am going to sue you on discrimination"; suppose there was another candidate for that place that had bright skin, but ten times better than the dark-skinned one; the employer/headmaster/whoever accepts people in their institution won't have anything else left but to go to court, eventually lose the case because, in these occasions, people tend to be as stubborn as donkeys, and, well, tell the other candidate "sorry, we appreciate your effort, but no". and people with dark skin will use it even more due to this movement. do you know why? because 90% of every population is merely a mass of one-celled brains that doesn't really care about whether the government's to blame on the high taxes or is it god. and yes, some of the people whose rights you assume you defend for good violate them, overuse them in their own favour, and when a dark-skinned rapist commits his crime and the court blames the victim on false sue, then the only thing the criminal be grateful for is the fact that he was given the right to present his rights to do whatever he wants to because he's got a dark skin.

ah, so all black lives matter but his? let's then rename it to black deaths matter, or does it sound too odd? he was a criminal, eight crimes behind his back. a crime is blind to the skin colour of the one who commits it. therefore, if you love george floyd's life so much and are so, so sorry for the loss of his, undoubtedly, great mind, wouldn't it be better if you actually started a protest defending criminals? or is it too odd, too?

misunderstanding no. 2: when i say "people having a safe life", i say everyone, whatever their skin colour is. the crowd. the population. as i said, we don't see the colour as long as you're fit to join the healthy world we all fight for. or is it a communist society (where everyone gets the same, everyone has the same and no one has the right to have more) that you want to build? yes, that is a utopia, and we all somehow wish the world was all-equal, with no more or less for each one. but we are humans, and we have equal rights, but different possibilities.

misunderstanding no. 3: "you deserve nothing". i am regretfully sorry for my somehow literary description of the consequence of a murder. murder has no justification, and that is a statement of common sense. yes, people who commited grave crimes deserve a punishment as grave - not death penalty, as you may have thought i would say, but a long rehabilitation in prison. some people change, some don't. and i don't believe the majority does. also, what is the guarantee that a person who has committed a crime in their past won't commit more in the future? again, eight.

misunderstanding no. 4: when i say "traitors to peace", i am assuming myself as one aware of the consequences of this protest. people do overuse the rights they were given, and now as "black lives matter", and the others mattered already, they can afford themselves a barbarous attitude because they are protected, and, if the case demands so, can protect themselves stating "that is discrimination", and they'll be listened to and taken off the charge; this i explained above.

misunderstanding no. 5: did you really assume i didn't have a clue of the fact that jefferson, grant, madison, washington, polk and jackson owned slaves? because if you did, you underestimated my american history knowledge. here, i am shocked that a statue of a person who actually fought for slave liberty in the american civil war was demolished - i think you should know him - abraham lincoln. here, we have ignorance, absolute ignorance, absence of any trace of awareness of what the person whose monument was demolished did - and what he did not. he fought on the northern side. he was against slavery - and yet his statue was demolished. why? ignorance. stubbornness. total unawareness. and that's what the majority thinks, once demolition was committed - that "the guy was white and had a deal with slaves". this ignorance made the authorities put labels on each and every statue stating what the historical figure did. yes, that may be right - opening eyes to newcomers that have no idea what the person did, so that they become more aware of history of the world they live in. but what i think that truly means is that people who are against demolishing are afraid of losing all the statues because of this atrocious ignorance. what comes to mind in this case is that people who support these riots want to erase everything from the earth's surface just to start another world, friendlier and with no past. that was what the futurists thought, too, but they had an alternative - technology, future, no soul, and that was beautiful and scary at the same time. but here we are talking about the present. from where i sit it seems that these protests haven't yet had any thought about what happens next, and also that they are using this just-from-quarantine state of people's minds to insert themselves into it as something new and energetic.

"you don't see statues of nazis in germany". so now you are comparing the opposition that merely wants equal rights for everyone to the most barbaric ideologies ever existed? you just compared the early us government with a hitlerian? let me tell you the big difference that you haven't noticed yet: nazis killed everyone who wasn't equal to them. we want everyone to be equal, and we don't kill for it. also, as societies evolve, main truths and beliefs change, too. back then owning slaves was normal, as owning a pet now, but there were people who strongly disagreed with it, for instance, lincoln or laurens.

"black people have seen their rights violated for 400+ years". yes, they did. let's now change that. accept them as equals, as part of the world's community, without elevating them over ourselves by bending down on our knees. because by creating a "black community", they are already settling a barrier between them and us. i thought skin colour didn't matter in that case?

amazon forest, you say. let me tell you this: i am russian. i grew up in the northern countryside, and whenever i see a forest, i feel a strong connection to it, because my childhood was spent mostly wandering between pines and firs. all forests matter to me, no matter when, they all matter to me equally. when forests burnt in australia, when they burnt in siberia, when they burnt in portugal and when the amazon forest burnt, i felt it and i cared about every forest at once - because it's the world we live in, and we must care about everything at once, not only when it needs our help. yes, i said, "what about other forests?" - because i care about them all. and you seem to care about black lives only.

let me tell you one thing, one single and simple pure thing that will probably be thrown stones and rocks at by supporters of this movement.

"we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal."

all, see? men, he meant, humans. human beings. equal rights. see? but equal laws for everyone, too.

we don't bloody care where you are from. we don't bloody care what your sexual orientation is.

we don't fucking care what colour your skin is.

as long as you can hold an adequate, intelligent and rational conversation, as long as you obey the law, as long as you know what you're talking about, as long as you are willing to work, learn, help, cooperate and, if to fight, then fight for common sense - which is not so difficult to understand and accept - you are welcome to the world, multilingual, multicultural, multiracial.

but.

when you demolish monuments to people that have done everything to bring peace and harmony to the country they fought for, when you rob and destroy the streets that were meant to be full of people having a safe life, when you point a gun at a pregnant woman, when you worship a criminal - you deserve nothing. we interpret you as a threat, which you truly are. we think of you as a traitor to peace that we all wish for.

more than that, due to the situation of a pandemic we all live in, you should all be wearing masks, which you clearly are NOT doing. therefore, we also interpret you as a threat for the spreading of the virus that has taken so many lives already.

all lives matter. we don't see colour. and if you do, you're doing what you're fighting against.

happy independence day let's all pray america doesn't screw it all up even further raise a glass to common sense