Bachmann's View on Slavery: It Gets Worse

The American Prospect blogger Adam Serwer takes up the revelation that Republican presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann's unusual stand on slavery wasn't a political gaffe but a "world view."

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!

Read Adam Serwer's complete post at the American Prospect.

Like The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.   

 

Tweet