Posted on 10/08/2012 9:59:49 AM PDT by lbryce
Arkansas Republicans tried to distance themselves Saturday from a Republican state representative's assertion that slavery was a "blessing in disguise" and a Republican state House candidate who advocates deporting all Muslims.
The claims were made in books written, respectively, by Rep. Jon Hubbard of Jonesboro and House candidate Charlie Fuqua of Batesville. Those books received attention on Internet news sites Friday.
On Saturday, state GOP Chairman Doyle Webb called the books "highly offensive." And U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford, a Republican who represents northeast Arkansas, called the writings "divisive and racially inflammatory."
Hubbard wrote in his 2009 self-published book, "Letters To The Editor: Confessions Of A Frustrated Conservative," that "the institution of slavery that the black race has long believed to be an abomination upon its people may actually have been a blessing in disguise." He also wrote that African-Americans were better off than they would have been had they not been captured and shipped to the United States.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Oh Sheesh, how stupid and wrong can people be. Another Akin style clean up required in Missouri’s southern neighbor... Come on people, be smarter than this!
It never fails.. just when things start to look up for the GOP, one or two downticket blurt some sh*t out and force two weeks of “walking back” remarks.
Jus' sayin'
There is an argument to be made, but it’s best left unsaid as it is too nuanced for popular consumption.
would people who are here because their ancestors arrived as slaves rather be living in Africa right now?
I don’t think I call it a blessing, but I do note that darn few descendants of slaves would even consider visiting “the old country” let alone trade their miserable lives here for the unlimited opportunity there.
Would you submit yourself and next 15 generations of your descendants to slavery if you knew that in 300 hundred years your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchild would have citizenship in the greatest country on the planet?
If Slavery had not existed when the US was created there would be very few Blacks here and had not they been exported here then they probably would have been killed or died of the barbarism that still exists in Africa.
From a genetics point of view, I believe that the inter mixing of races is a good thing.
So slavery is a good thing in that less people killed, and an genetically improved human.
This is a distraction....all AP-Obama has now is to distract from the disaster of a Presidency.
It was not a smart thing to say for anyone planning to run for political office. But in most cases, it was true.
In the first place, virtually all of the slaves shipped to America were enslaved by Muslim Arabs or fellow blacks, not by the ship captains, who merely received them at the landings.
In the second place, while the life of slaves on plantations wasn’t all roses, it was a lot better than what they likely would have experienced back in tribal Africa.
In the third place, after the slaves were freed, the segregationists wanted to ship them all back to Africa. Very few of them agreed, compared to the number who preferred to stay in America. Why was that? Because there was still oppression, slavery, tribal warfare, and extreme poverty back in Africa waiting for them. Liberia was a relative exception, but even the Liberians found it hard to keep their new freedoms.
In other words, this was a stupid thing to say because the media will inevitably twist it. Even though it’s true. Truth is no longer a factor in the MSM propaganda world.
I knew I’d heard that phrase before and I fount the article from November 2010.
Slavery: Was It A Blessing In Disguise?
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=197377
It is an irrefutable truth that the descendants of slaves are many times better off than if they’d never had a slave ancestor brought to the USA. It is also one of the most politically incorrect things that can be said in today’s PC world. (Even though an occasional African-American will acknowledge it.)
I can’t say I don’t know where you’re coming from or that I disagree with what you’re saying. To the descendants of slaves who live in the USA today they are certainly better off being here. But had there not been slavery their descendants would not be the same people so the argument of slavery descendants vs non-slavery is a tremendously difficult argument to make when comparing what actually happened with a scenario of what might have been.
Don't take this as a defense of slavery, as it's not.
But, the reality is that slaves were mostly sold into slavery by their own people. That's relatively well-known, if not always acknowledged.
However, slaves weren't just picked at random. They were the losers in Africa's own wars of conquest. If they hadn't been sold into slavery, they may have been executed instead.
Since blacks were only enslaved in the United States of America from about 1783 until 1865 and then only in a portion of the United states, you may have overstated the "greats."
A case could be made.
Extraordinarily well said, sentiments of which I emphatically, wholeheartedly agree with.
Wasn’t it Muhammad Ali who said “Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat?”
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