Over at Jack & Jill Politics (a ” black bourgeoisie perspective on U.S. politics”), they’ve got some harsh words for one of the leading conservative candidates for president. Yesterday, Michele Bachmann signed “The Marriage Vow—A Declaration of Dependence upon Marriage and Family,” an anti-porn, anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion pledge. But then there’s this:
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.
Jill Tubman of Jack & Jill responds:
Given that families were broken up regularly for sales during slavery and that rape by masters was pretty common, this could not be more offensive. I mean, putting aside the statistics on this, which are likely off-base, I could not be more angry. When will Republicans inquire with actual Black people whether or not we’re ok with invoking slavery to score cheap political points? It has to stop. It is the opposite of persuasive and is another reason Republicans repel us. It’s hard to believe that Michele Bachmann would be foolish enough to sigh this pledge.
What do you think? Racist? Factual? Is Bachmann insane? Let us know. This is something that deserves some intelligent discussion.
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I would say it’s an exercise in appalling taste and unlettered insensitivity; I can’t evaluate the data, if such data do exist. I wouldn’t begin to say that Ms. Bachman, whatever her appalling politics, is actually implying that African Americans were better off as slaves. But statements like this are simply evidence of the kind of blinkered, insular narrow-mindedness that assumes that because you nodded through a history lecture or two, you are qualified to pronounce on the complex interplay of history, race, culture and identity.
Couldn’t agree more… though it is a bit of an overreach to lump this all together with the Defense of Marriage Act.
One CAN have thoughtful reservations about porn, abortion and nontraditional marriage while still opposing Bachmann and the self-evident racism in her remarks.
Politics aren’t a package deal.
I can see the point she is trying to make, but also see that she failed to make it with any elegance or thought. I don’t think her base is too concerned about Black history.
This is political theatre. While captivating as a train wreck, it doesn’t elevate the country or give a sense of leadership.
So glad you can see her point, because I sure as hell cannot. Fact is: an African-American child born into slavery in 1860 (if s/he survived) was more likely to be raised on another plantation by the female slave so designated (usually one who’d had her child taken from her and sold) in nothing that resembled a two parent household. If Bachmann was attempting to draw a comparable parallel between the past and present-day socio-economic progress of the African-American Family (something she clearly will never be able to do), she missed it by more than four centuries!
I think Bachmann suffers from simple ignorance, which is not to say that she is stupid, just lacking in basic knowledge about the American history. She has made numerous historically inaccurate statements, and I wonder whether anyone working on her campaign bothers to tell her to check a history book before making public statements.
I hope this will show America that she would take the country back over 200 years. These tea baggers have all the nerve, but none of the brains. The country needs someone who will move this country forward. Obama in 2012!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I found an interesting paper that intelligently discusses slave families (I think it is from a website that encourages essay copying…but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it is intelligent and well-written)
What I took away from the juxtaposition of that paper next to Bachman’s comments is basically a feeling of nausea.
I’m confused as to why we feel such a need to eschew the meanings of words. I am very close to thinking Bachman has some serious mental issues, but what is more odd is that she is listened to. What an odd society we live in!
Just quick: I guess we can’t do links here….the paper (of course) refuted Bachman’s idea completely, and made the excellent point that even when slave owners tried to encourage child birth (after the slave trade was made illegal, thus making it necessary to create more slaves rather than buy them–repugnant, yes) slaves rebelled and took control of their bodies: they didn’t want to create families because their lives were miserable (my liberal paraphrase, of course) infanticide, abortion, etc…were common, for example.
What the heck **could** Bachman have been thinking? Why would anyone want to create family in a dehumanizing society? It makes no sense. And if, weirdly, there were more 2 parent “families” under slavery, how is this even relevant? That alone, if true, makes a mockery of nuclear family and its importance.
You can see the point she is trying to make? What point is that? Bachman’s invocation of the “plantation fantasy” of happy slaves in familial relationships is obscene. She shows a willful ignorance of her own history.
There is no such thing as black history. There is history and then there is the myopia created by racism and white supremacy. Slavery is a gigantic part of the history of America. To deny it is to deny the history of the country. To lie and distort it is to use it for political gain and stoke the fears of blackness that have been a hallmark of the contemporary Republican party. This sort of speech should not be offensive to black people exclusively. It should be offensive to everyone in the country who understands the history of chattel slavery and industrial servitude. She is insulting everyone who fought and died to end slavery.
To me, Bachman is in the same realm as holocaust deniers. Like them, she is saying these things to appeal to the deep seated fears in this country. She is not making a point and calling it theatre is a cynical response to the power of political speech. There is no defending these kinds of statements.
Amen, Steve. Well Said.
The headline for this opinion piece is partisan politics at its worst. She merely pointed out that black children lack the multi-parent upbringing to which many folks (Bill Cosby among them) ascribe to be the cause of many problems in todays society.
Some of the comments imply that “whites can’t mention slavery” … if that is the case then blacks should stop blaming slavery for the struggles blacks fight today. Which means we’ve censored a portion of our history from which there are a great many lessons/warnings/admonishions yet to be gleaned.
She did NOT “IMPLY” blacks were better off while enslaved … the author gratuitiously/maliciously inferred INFERRED it.
She said directly that more black slaves grew up with a mother and father than do today, the implication being that was a better pattern of child rearing (BTW that itself is debated here: http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=42736)
Honestly we quoted from Jack and Jill and left it to readers to decide and discuss:
“What do you think? Racist? Factual? Is Bachmann insane? Let us know. This is something that deserves some intelligent discussion.”
I’m pretty sure that white children in the 1860′s were more likely to belong to a two parent home as well. Where is that mention? If they wanted to make comparison between black families of the past and present, they just as easily could have referenced the 1960′s. The argument also does nothing for the “marriage is best” idealogy since slaves weren’t allowed to legally wed. Slavery was hardly a time for marital bliss.
Invoking Bill Cosby as if he is a voice of authority on black people is telling.
“White” people can talk about slavery all they want; it’s part of the shared history of the country. What NO ONE can do is lie about what slavery was in America. We have the slave narratives as part of the Library of Congress and we have the research of scholars such as Robertt Quarles, Manning Marable, and Douglas Blackmon to provide us with the history and true context of chattel and industrial slavery.
The analogy Bachman makes is political and obscene. The sad part is that good people who call themselves “white” don’t think she is talking about them. She’s insulting the whole country with this bilious comparison.
I suspect her assumption here is simply factually inaccurate, but if it isn’t, it does anything BUT make an argument for her contention that heterosexual married couples are a universally good thing.
Part of what I hate so much about Republicans, and Tea Partiers in particular, is that, for all the shallow rhetoric of freedom and small government, the only thing they actually stand for when it comes to policy is enforcing their narrow minded morality on those who’s lifestyles, circumstances, preferences, and beliefs differ from their own.
“Implying” is nonsense. Either the fact is true or not and there may be enough history around to empirically investigate it.
How about Shelby Steele. Para: “White liberal guilt has done what slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation could not; destroy the black family”. Of course, Steele’s not running for any republican office, so you can ignore that.
Equally bullshit is the pretense that Bachmann wants to ignore the history of blacks in this country. It’s all history. All of us together.
You may want to look at Instapundit a couple of days ago. Kids are saying “That’s racist!” as a joke. That horse is dead. You can stand around beating it, but you aren’t going to convince many folks to put the mortgage on it.
You recall the lies about Limbaugh saying slavery wasn’t all that bad? Worked long enough to keep him out of an NFL deal. But everybody who promoted it was lying like a rug and knew it, and everybody else knew it. You want to join them?
This is lazy. Try something that might actually be relevant.
And what is wrong with what Bill Cosby says?
Racism is a dead horse? Or did you mean calling people out on racism is a dead horse?
Either way, ignoring the fact that we still live in a society with institutionalized racism is like ignoring reality. What Michelle Bachmann said was both factually inaccurate and incredibly offensive and saying it was anything else is, frankly, supporting her ability to be ignorant on this topic when it is so important to be well-educated. There is no excuse for making light of issues like slavery. Ever.
A sarcastic yay for moronic (and regrettably effective) rhetoric.
Justin. The right’s “narrow minded morality” schtick is ooooold. Try something new.
The difference in outcome between two parent families and single-parent families is clear, obvious, and accepted. Calling it narrow minded morality may make you feel better but it doesn’t help with school outcomes, encounters with drugs and the criminal justice system, and future employment. Other than that, though, what the hell.
She even LOOKS crazy.
Bachmann is no different than Sarah Palin, Limbaugh, and other “shock jocks.” I don’t even understand the relevance of the family dynamics of blacks during slavery vs today to the signing of the “Marriage Vow” thing. Was she trying to imply that blacks have ruined family life in America?
She obviously said this for publicity, and its working. Look at how many people (yes, I realize the irony of me writing a comment to say this) are commenting on this story and sharing it on social media. A year ago, few people knew who she was. Now this crazy will probably try to run for president. And by saying all of these insane things, she might end up with a following. Very scary.
LiBra.
Get a clue. She isn’t saying blacks ruined family life in America. Sheesh.
She’s saying that what the Great Society–see my reference to Shelby Steele–has done to the black community is horrid. It’s so bad, in fact, that there may have been more two-parent families even among slaves. That’s how bad it is today.
Now, there are two possibilities. One is that research tells us she’s right. Then we have some conclusions to draw about the data. Might decide it’s not relevant. Might be a useful comparison–”if even slavery didn’t destroy the black family….”.
Or she might be wrong in her history. Candidates and politicians make incorrect statements all the time. See speaking austrian in Austria, for example. Or messing up MOH awardees, unable to recall who’s alive and who’s dead. Or ten thousand people killed in Kansas tornados.
Bachmann also fails to neglect the role that the institution of slavery has played in the modern African-American family. Has anyone taken a gander at the Letter from Will E. Lynch? It’s real people. And it also provides slave-owners with a systematic approach to breaking down the role of man and woman (the core of family) through methods of torture.
In conclusion, she’s uneducated, forms opinions off of little to no information, and is 100% unfit to run this country. Or based on our track record in the last decade or completely fit to run this country. You decide.
The actual quote is strictly about the state and composition of families. It should not be offensive to anyone who is not wrapped in a self-righteously indignant cloak of identity politics that renders one illogical and unthinking. Assuming that the statistics bear out the statement, what is being noted is how sad it is that, in a time so horrendous that families were routinely torn apart against their will as part of the business of slavery, they were still more likely to be together than today, when families are so often not together because of the choices the make. If that is, indeed, factual, THAT’s what we should be lamenting.
Good gracious GOD this woman is a piece of work, I tell you! When you have so called ‘race-baiters’ and know-nothing demagogues spouting nonsense like this that has little basis in unbiased, un-politicized history, this renders the modern American Right’s typically baseless, childish, and YES racist observation that ‘liberal white guilt’ and ‘politics of victimization’ are the African American’s own worst afflictions; these gentile white Patriots, Wall Street/Big Corporate cronies, hardcore Republicans and Teabaggers wouldn’t know true discrimination or disenfranchisement if it bit them straight in the back end, but than again they have all the record-high incomes and salaries to seclude them from the standard of living issues like healthcare, education, personal property ownership, JOBS (not created by obscene tax breaks for the already wealthy) and the like that the rest of us (read: 98% of the national population) have to constantly be in arms about…It would literally be coma-inducing, out-loud funny if they were not so convicted it was the saintly, gospel truth of their myopic ideology and view of reality…
The main problem, contrary to what the wing-nuts trollies who are passionately defending her here and the other anti-Obama fearmongers-in-chief making similar irresposible comments, is that the Madame Tassaud’s wax museum mannequin has NO godly idea what she’s squawking about, and the actually takes pride in that! Making the parallel comparison between one of America’s most horrendous historical aspects and some typically wingnut Religious Right screech contract defending the so-called ‘sanctity’ of marriage from those ‘barbaric’ homosexuals, polygamists, etc. is just disgusting and gives Bachmann and her other crackpots a far more disturbing disservice to their argument than the marginalized groups she’s blithely mentions. As Stephen Colbert so perfectly pinpointed, she IS genuinely sympathetic to the slavery institution in that she sees EVERYTHING as being some equitable plight to it, whether that be completely unrelative and aforementioned matters like our national debt, uber-wealthy tax breaks and even the ‘bondage’ of non-heterosexual orientation, because, lets face it, it in no way involves freedom of will or the hyper-masculine gender politics of the surrounding culture.
As a young African-American male that hails from a single parent household, a solid middle class upbringing and has had a fair share of personal experience confronting and experiencing racism, its just nothing short of earth-shattering stupidity and prejudice for any decent human being with a shred of empathy and of ANY demographic to believe and espouse that African-Americans are ‘worse’ off now after the election of our 1st black President than pre-Civil Rights Legislation! We’re (for the most part) free of being wrongly lynched, barred from schools, restaurants and the rest of public life we’ve always been entitled via the Constitution, having separate and unequal bathrooms, water fountains…we could just go on forever, but you no number of facts or headbutts from reality-based experience can reverse this unabashed anti-intellectualism that is the RULE rather than the exception with the Republicans nowadays! Even when we BASICALLY agree with them they say we’re too moderate or far to the left about, o yeah, EVERYTHING. The only people who take this sort of discourse seriously are white nationalists/supremacists, bigots or ignorant twits that are, more or less, the very embodiment of what liberals, independents and the apolitical continue to observe in these people, or rather, wastes of air and space (excuse the degradation, but I’m trying to be a little polemical about this). Partisan bias of this article notwithstanding, lets get actually intelligent and competent people to discuss, debate and educate (read:enlighten) in the public sphere on these issues, and not these ‘none-of-the above’ asylum cases that are running for a GOP 2012 nom or the chain of fringe fools knows as the Tea Baggers that make up their cheerleading squad. I swear its like they’re HANDING Obama and the Democrats longterm federal domination @ this point, unthinkable for them, I guess fine and dandy for the (more) sane and rational of the rest of the real world, America and beyond. God be with us all PLEASE…
1. We do not know if this is true or not; if there are statistics and information that support her statement, then:
2. She is merely using that information to point out that black families were stronger in what everyone knows was a horrible, inhumane system than they are in a relatively free modern society. If she is correct, then harping on about how much worse it was back then only proves her point–that something is seriously wrong now if there are fewer two-parent homes than there were in 1860.
3. She is not necessarily using slavery as a political tool, especially if her statement is true. While it may be offensive to some people simply because they do not want to hear what she has to say, they disagree with her beleifs, or they demonize Republicans, it is equally innappropriate of readers and citizens to erupt with anger and accusations when they are equally, if not more, uninformed than Michele Bachmann may be.
Thank you MW, for one of the few (Richard as well) sane comments on this blog.