Posted on 07/09/2011 10:06:40 AM PDT by ejdrapes
Bachmann Stands By Marriage Pact That Links Slavery to Black Family Values Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann is standing firm behind a pledge she signed Thursday that promotes marriage and social conservative values, but includes a passage that suggests black families were in better shape during slavery. The Family Leader, an Iowa-based conservative group led by Bob Vander Plaats, issued the pledge formally called, "The Marriage Vow – A Declaration of Dependence Upon Marriage and Family." The two page document condemns gay marriage, abortion, pornography and infidelity. But perhaps the most controversial part is found in the preamble where the state of the black family in the slave era is compared to today. "Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA's first African-American President," the document reads. Click here to read the document.
By Stephen Clark
Published July 09, 2011
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I interpreted the message to be “It was so terrible under slavery and families were split up by force. Even so, a black boy born under black slavery was more likely to have a father than a black boy born under a black President today. WTH happened?”
I tinks youse right on the money...and a extension is who voted for Obama , who is basically one of them.
Too bad he has the same chip.
[Written before I read some of the later posts that raised at least one of the points that I’m making — and which I see was granted. I’ll go ahead and post my version too, though.]
> “There was NOTHING GOOD that resulted from the enslavement of the Black man and I challenge anyone on this site or elsewhere to publicly proclaim otherwise. Expose yourselves.”
Though I opposed Jim Crow in the South back when that was a very unpopular thing for a white Southerner to do, I don’t hesitate to accept that challenge (I have no strong opinion either way on the Bachmann statement, so I won’t get into that). Your argument reminds me of the controversy over Mussolini and the trains. It was quite possible for Mussolini himself to be bad, and yet for him to succeed in making the trains run more regularly (or so I’ve heard — I haven’t verified it).
The same applies to various aspects of slavery. I won’t express any opinion about the religious question, but most American blacks are Christians, and if they’re sincere about that, probably believe that their salvation outweighs any condition of oppression that they or their ancestors may have endured. It would have been better, of course, to have been exposed to Christianity in a more favorable guise, but the undeniably evil act of enslaving their ancestors and taking them away from their homes greatly increased the chances that they and their ancestors would become Christians. And from a Christian perspective, a Christian slave is better off than a pagan master.
Also, switching to the material realm, though the slaves themselves probably lived worse lives than free persons in Africa (if we value freedom highly, and I do), their descendants in the United States ended up being much more prosperous — and more free — than the typical African. That’s a benefit of slavery, indirect but still a benefit.
Then there’s the music of American blacks — black gospel, blues, and jazz. Would that have been anything like it was without slavery? No way.
It’s easy to let our emotions lead us into denying that there are good aspects (or good consequences) to evil things — a few, at least. Nearly everything bad, though, has something good about it. To point that out is by no means the same as advocating the evil itself. The question is how much good — and is there another way to obtain it?
You have a point. Some good things come from evil things sometimes. Still, it’s a point that is NOT worth making.
Hitler really DID make the trains run on time, and there are still Neo-Nazis in Germanic Europe who mumble this proudly to each other.
I love the soulful, gospel, anti-slavery songs that came out of the broken hearts and bodies of slavery. They are moving and they make me cry. But I’d rather have NOT had them than had the people go through what they went through.
When I was little my mom taught me “No More Auction Block For Me” and we both cried when we sang it. I learned all I needed to know (the basic fact) about slavery at 5 years old.
Thanks for your opinion.
I think you over-played the poor Irish thing with the “Irish Slavery” claim. Any factual evidence?
Not saying Bachmann is not all you say. But as they say “she’s not quite ready for Prime Time”. That is not a hit against her. Hope she would run against that fool Franken, she would do much better as a Senator for 2016 or 2020 runs. If she somehow gets the nomination I will be a strong supporter.
I am also a bit watchful toward any politician from Minnesota. That place has a colorful history of electing some real squirrels.
Care to reconcile those statements?
You may be interested that this appears to be an urban legend with remarkably little basis in fact.
Here is a link to one of many actual historical studies, as opposed to anecdotes and legends, on the topic.
http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/no-irish.htm
I'm in the middle of a three-volume history of the Civil War. While there was undoubtedly strong anti-Catholic and probably anti-Irish bias during the Mexican War 15 years earlier, all I've read so far indicates respect and admiration for Irish soldiers on both sides during the Civil War.
The idiotic part of this statement is that whether slave children grew up with their parents or not was not the choice of the parents. In fact they had no input at all on the subject.
If the master told them to live together, they lived together. If he decided to sell one or both parents away, or their children for that matter, that’s what happened.
In fact, by definition slaves could have no families in the sense we use the term, except as imposed or allowed by the master. This was one of the many great evils of the institution.
Nothing “borders on racism”.
Racism is not a county in Louisianna.
Either something is racism or its not.
If someone’s opinion is that a certain aspect of blacks’ lives was better under slavery, then even if its incorrect (which I’m not convinced it is), but even if its an incorrect statement doesn’t mean its racist.
You should learn to think clearly and objectively instead of knee-jerk recitation of “racism racism racism” at the slightest provocation, in the style of various well-known race-baiters in this country.
I recommend a course in math or logic.
Absolutely factually untrue.
Of all slaves carried across the Atlantic during the slave trade era, only about 5% came to what is now the USA. In fact, if slavery had never existed on the N American continent it would have only slightly reduced the total slave trade volume.
“Michele Bachmann reveals a dreadful lack of political savvy.”
Bill Clinton displayed political saavy.
You want him back?
Of course it was. The price of any commodity always reaches its record price just before all demand disappears.
/S
There are no counties in Louisiana.
This pledge thing is out of control. This is the third group in Iowa that has recently requested the presidential candidates to sign a pledge under threat of not receiving the groups' endorsement.
I'm sick of the whole thing. What I'd like to see is a request for these candidates to sign a pledge to not sign any more demeaning pledges.
We learn nothing from them and they only go to put a focus on the group asking for the pledge and they can feel so powerful
“I think its even stupider to marry a guy that lisps.”
This is the most moronic statement on this thread. I think. I haven’t read the rest of the thread yet.
> “Still, it’s a point that is NOT worth making [about some good being found in an evil] .”
Perhaps not, at least for a politician in some contexts (though Bachmann didn’t make it quite as bluntly as I did — her emphasis was on things being even worse now in one particular aspect than they were under slavery, which she emphasized was bad). I would hope that by continually defying the demand for politically correct speech we’d eventually be able to weaken it. In the meantime those who defy it — and are in sensitive positions — may have to pay a price. A good politician needs to know when to be bold and when to be prudent.
I would guess that Obama has as much or more savvy than Bachmann. The point being that political savvy can be a disguise for honesty and forthrightness in many politicians. Today the USA is in dire need for integrity from the politicians. Many and Obama above all fail in this need.
“Stop it. She did NOT rear 28 children. She provided a time limited home for foster children, all teenage girls, for which the bachmanns were paid by the day with funds from the state. Most only stayed a couple of months.”
Well I guess if THAT’s all she did then she’s a self-serving pig.
/sarc
> “When I was little my mom taught me “No More Auction Block For Me” and we both cried when we sang it. I learned all I needed to know (the basic fact) about slavery at 5 years old.”
Well, the basic fact, yes. How much you need to know depends on what aspect of it you’re discussing. I too wouldn’t want people to have to undergo slavery — and be forcibly taken away from their homes — for the sake of music that would come along later, and which I would like (up until rap and the more recent stuff, anyway :-). I’m not quite that selfish. “I know why the caged bird sings...” is a beautiful line by the black poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, but it’s a rather cruel method of producing a particular kind of singing.
Fortunately we’re not considering black slavery as a current proposition. We’re just examining the question of whether in the past, besides its evil results, it produced or contributed to any that were good.
Somewhere between 7,000 and 10,000 to Liberia. Probably a roughly similar number to what is now Sierra Leone, though many of those came from British colonies and intercepted slave ships.
http://www.blackpast.org/?q=aah/american-colonization-society-1816-1964
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