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 ...
OH, hey, let's not me accurate...let's say something like:
Ever since the massive expansion of the welfare state in the 1960s, the African-American family has been a stable, strong, powerful force in society. African-American children enjoy a wonderful family life since the Great Society was enacted, and the parents in those families suffer not from divorce or dependence upon the state.
There you go, kiss-ass media and hand-wringers galore. Feel better, now?
http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/articles/99/Blaming-the-Past.htm
Dr. Walter Williams:
The "legacy of slavery" explanation for today's weak black family structure loses all manner of credibility when one examines evidence from the past. Even during slavery, most black children lived in biological two-parent families. One study of nineteenth century slave families (Herbert Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom: 1750-1925) found that in up to three-fourths of the families, all the children had the same mother and father. In New York City, in 1925, 85 percent of kin-related black households were double-headed. In fact, "Five in six children under the age of six lived with both parents." Both during slavery and as late as 1920, a black teenage girl raising a child without a man was rare among blacks. Historian Herbert Gutman, also found in analyzing data on black families in Harlem between 1905 and 1925, that only 3 percent of all families "were headed by a woman under thirty." Thomas Sowell found, "Going back a hundred years, when blacks were just one generation out of slavery, we find that census data of that era showed that a slightly higher percentage of black adults had married than white adults. This fact remained true in every census from 1890 to 1940."
And how could slaves have more of anything in a “home,” when they didnt have a home?
They certainly did have shelter and lived together as families.
The child of a slave mother was still a slave, even if the father was a free man.
Inaccurate or not, it’s a damned stupid thing to sign on to.
Again, these stats only go back as far as 1890. Where is your data to show what percentage of slave children grew up with both parents in their “shelter?”
I like Michelle but it is getting too darn easy to paint her as an extremist. That is just not going to fly with most Americans. Funny how Obama is the most extremist President we have ever had but most Americans aren’t aware of it thanks to our left wing media.
You're attacking what is a common argument by black conservatives to attack Bachmann and it is pathetic.
Somehow I doubt slave owners kept many records. From the 1880 citation you can infer a lot about what was happening earlier.
Every slave owner a heartless ogre bent on breaking up every slave family. There are a few we think pretty highly of.
Failing to demonize every aspect of slavery from 1700-1865 is not apologizing for it nor will you wake up tomorrow morning to find it has returned because you failed to preach against convincingly enough.
Doing what you are doing amounts to moral exhibitionism: Demonstrating your superior morality by weighing in on an issue that was settled more than 150 years ago. What's next, tying Bachman to Roman coliseum violence?
I could also say that the black family was in at least that good shape during Jim Crow (black entrepreneurs were definitely far more numerous) but with today’s biased PC media, how could any halfway aware GOP candidate expect to get anything but hell for saying it??
Michele’s gaffe meter just keeps on running.
Accuracy is beside the point. The pledge is but a two-page document titled, "The Marriage Vow – A Declaration of Dependence Upon Marriage and Family." In two pages they managed to bring up slavery and Obama. That's absurd.
This is marriage vow? Bachmann was foolish for signing it and will be foolish to continue defending it.
Actually, that is not the point that Walter Williams is making. He is making the point that in 1925, 85% of black families had two parents. Those parents were likely born at the turn of the century to people born just after slavery to people born during slavery. So those families in 1925 were 3 generations away from slavery.
The point he is making is that black families were better off (having 2 parents) in the 1st quarter of the century than are are now. None of his argument suggests that they were better off during slavery, and he is actually suggesting that current black race hustlers stop blaming slavery, because the black families were able to overcome it within 3 generations, just to fall back into it after the welfare state.
No where does he say that “slavery didn’t harm the black family as measured by the census after it occurred....”
“How many Africans brought to America as slaves-or born into slavery here - went back to Africa and the life they lived prior to slavery?”
I’d suspect that if the U.S. government offered free one-way tickets for ANY American of ANY race to ANY other continent, the program would end up costing less than one Obama White House Party. And we could charter a Piper Cub for the Africa destined.
The facts that show that slaves grew up with both parents. And you just said you doubt that those records exist, so how can you try to say that current stats are worse, when you dont even know what the old stats were.
The rest of your post is just you projecting. I never said Bachmann (not Obama) was a racist. I said she was stupid for signing something making a factually positive claim without showing any facts to back up that claim.
Blacks keep bringing up slavery...so let’s keep doing it, too.
“They were free to move out of the cities and settle land in order to enjoy the fruits of their labors and LIBERTY. “
Not really. My Irish ancestors in Georgia worked the fields right next to the blacks. They had no ability to own any land. My mother worked those fields until 1957 when she then marrid my dad and moved away.
“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.”
I can name one: Blacks enjoy American citizenship while blacks in all of Africa live in far inferior conditions and are subject to war lords and mass killings. Unfortunately, they also try to live that way in their own neighborhoods right here in America. I see gangbangers as no different than the thugs in Africa waging war all the time.
I concede.
The survivors of slavery live better than nearly any African resident.
Those that did not survive, well, the statement validates itself.
“It’s amazing how politically-correct the Bachmann haters get in order to attack her.”
Good point.
For crying out loud, the statement in question is about the unbelievably horrible condition of the black family TODAY.
It’s not an endorsement of slavery, for God’s sake.
It’s an indictment of the current system and the tragically wasted potentials of Freedom.
The only way to find racism in that quote is to see it before you read it.
Look around this room. Count the heads.
Then note who exactly you can count on to comprehend and analyze ideas honestly. And note as well who instead reflexively filters through a perception of conditioned guilt.
And thank the Lord in heaven that we have at least one brave and honest presidential candidate on that first list.
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