Bachmann's Views On Slavery Are Worse Than You Thought

[jefferson_dem]

Bachmann's Views On Slavery Are Worse Than You Thought
By Adam Serwer | Posted 08/08/2011 at 11:30 AM

Months ago, there was a small controversy over Republican presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann signing a pledge put forth by social conservatives in Iowa that stated "black 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."

However well intended, many people were understandably offended by the implication that black people were better off as property. But this isn't the first time Bachmann has put forth a perspective on slavery that is at odds with the historical record -- previously she "suggested that the Founding Fathers "worked tirelessly" to end slavery, before citing John Quincy Adams as an example (he was a child at the time of America's founding).

Ryan Lizza's profile of Bachmann reveals that Bachmann's odd perspective on slavery isn't a series of gaffes, but rather "a world view." Lizza explains that Bachmann is a believer in a kind of Christian conservative reimagining of slavery, where "many Christians opposed slavery" but owned them anyway and didn't free them because "“it might be very difficult for a freed slave to make a living in that economy; under such circumstances setting slaves free was both inhumane and irresponsible.” How charitable of them!

She is also a fan of Robert E. Lee biographer J. Steven Williams whom Lizza describes as a "leading proponent of the theory that the South was an orthodox Christian nation unjustly attacked by the godless North." Wilkins "approvingly" cites Lee's conviction that abolition was premature because it was necessary for "the sanctifying effects of Christianity” to take their time “to work in the black race and fit its people for freedom.” Not only that but as Lizza reports, Williams hates abolitionists and thought slavery was awesome:

Slavery, as it operated in the pervasively Christian society which was the old South, was not an adversarial relationship founded upon racial animosity. In fact, it bred on the whole, not contempt, but, over time, mutual respect. This produced a mutual esteem of the sort that always results when men give themselves to a common cause. The credit for this startling reality must go to the Christian faith. . . . The unity and companionship that existed between the races in the South prior to the war was the fruit of a common faith.

<SNIP>

http://prospect.org/csnc/blogs/adam_serwer_archive?month=08&year=2011&base_name=bachmanns_views_on_slavery_are

[CakeGrrl]

1. So, it was "responsible" to keep slaves and gays/lesbians should be in camps.

And some of the far Left doesn't think there'll be much difference with the GOP in the WH.

If they fall for that, they deserve what's coming.

[Bluenorthwest]

3. As a gay person, Bachmann's associations with the 'ex gay'

industry are not better than Obama's endorsement of them, and his willful employment of 'ex gay' hate preachers as his personal surrogates. You think I should care which haters get me? That is it somehow mitigated if it the McClurkin branch of Exodus, rather than Bachmann's, that is listened to?
I know thousands of people who, unlike both Obama and Bachmann, have zero ties to bigoted 'ex gay' and 'anti gay' so called 'ministers'. Obama is the first and only Democrat I have ever heard defend them, much less employ them to speak on his behalf. The two share that common ground. Most Americans reject such hate groups, a few politicians pander to them and lavish them with praise, Bachmann and Obama being the current two who are most involved with that sick scene.
And this 'they deserve it' bullshit is a product of those who think they have the right to 'preach' against minorities they do not like, and are then shocked to find they are not given impunity or instant forgiveness for vicious hate speech and slanders.
Sick of seeing our issues co-opted by the same set that brought us the Ex Gay Preacher Tour.

[AndyTiedye]

4. But the Rest of Us Don't!

And some of the far Left doesn't think there'll be much difference with the GOP in the WH.

If they fall for that, they deserve what's coming.

But the rest of us would be stuck with her too. :hide:

[CakeGrrl]

7. I realize, but we've been at the mercy of uninformed/apathetic voters before.

That's the massive downside, admittedly so.

My hope is that 2010 gave enough people a taste of GOP crazy that they know better than to let them have any more power.

[Armstead]

2. A Recommended Movie related to this -- C.S.A.

Spike Lee produced it. It is a fictitious version of television today if the south had won the war. (Confederate States of America.)

Although exaggerated satire, it is uncomfortably close to the vision that is being pushed by the right wing in today's real world.

[roguevalley]

5. this man is a fucknut and represents himself. The God I love would not

love him.

[BackToThe60s]

6. "Reimagining" is the key word

It describes her whole batshitty Universe.

[Solomon]

8. As a black person, I have to admit, this is the kind of shit that

really pisses me the fuck off. The view point is not as uncommon as you might think. When I was in college we studied historians who were in the process of writing books painting a "kindler gentler" view of slavery for mass consumption. The Bachman book is just an extreme example of it, but the move was made in academia some forty years ago.

[Igel]

9. I haven't heard anybody address kids born to slaves in 1860.

I've heard them talk about 1830, 1840, 1850. But a couple of years after 1860 there was the Civil War. If the family wasn't broken up by slave owners in 1865--when the kid would be under 5 years old--it would be war and economic dislocation that was responsible for any breakup. I don't know what condition the trading/selling of slaves during the war was: I imagine in Union-held areas it was pretty low, but I can imagine all sorts of things. I also have no idea what the state of families fleeing slave states was, or how common it was. Again, I have no info.

I have absolutely no idea what conditions were like then for former slaves, and precious little for non-slave poor whites.

That's what this particular claim is. I simply haven't seen anybody get over their outrage to provide any evidence for an inference.