'Blacks Were Not Able To Free Themselves, Whites Did':David Barton Credits Whites For Ending Slavery

[KamaAina]

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/blacks-were-not-able-free-themselves-whites-did-david-barton-credits-whites-ending-slavery

Glenn Beck had right-wing pseudo-historian and Ted Cruz super PAC operative David Barton on his television program last night to honor Black History Month by uncovering the "real" history of race relations in America. Barton's coverage of this issue was, as always, laughably one-sided and misleading, as he spent a good deal of the opening segment relating tales of white slave owners who supposedly had such friendly relationships with their slaves that they didn't even consider them to be slaves, but rather members of the family.

The slaves, of course, were quite aware that they were slaves but "the whites just thought they were one of the family," as Barton put it, apparently believing that that somehow proves that race relations were not nearly as bad during the founding era as is commonly believed....

"Blacks were not able to free themselves, whites did," Barton stated. "When you get the 13th Amendment, you know, it was nothing but two-thirds of the House, whites in the House were the only ones voting, two-thirds of the whites in the house, two-thirds of the whites in the Senate and three-fourths of the whites in the states that ratified the 13th Amendment to end slavery. And then you have the 14th Amendment, it was nothing but two-thirds of the whites in the House, two-thirds of the whites in the Senate, three-fourths of the whites [in the states.] And so the notion that it's black against white is not borne out by history, but we have made it that way in the way we portray history."

Nat Turner could not be reached for comment.

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. David Barton is a racist's racist.

When he says something racist, it's so bad, the Klu Klux Klan says, "Damn, that shits fucked up."

That speaks loads about Cruz, who is a load...

[Rex]

3. No shit that is why it is called slavery. You don't get a choice in the matter.

I cannot believe how the GOPukers will flip flop all over the place to prove they are not racists...prove it I tell you...nope, not a one of them are racist. Nope nope.

[Marr]

4. HO-ly shit, that is some seriously twisted logic, with some seriously

weird implications.

Men get the credit for women's rights.

Whites get the credit for Civil Rights.

I suppose the Romans get the credit for Christianity.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

5. "Nat Turner could not be reached for comment"...

Neither could Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass or Sojourner Truth.

Sigh...

[monicaangela]

6. Oh yes, they were family alright:

The United States government's support of slavery was based on an overpowering practicality. In 1790, a thousand tons of cotton were being produced every year in the South. By 1860, it was a million tons. In the same period, 500,000 slaves grew to 4 million. A system harried by slave rebellions and conspiracies (Gabriel Prosser, 1800; Denmark Vesey, 1822; Nat Turner, 1831) developed a network of controls in the southern states, hacked by the laws, courts, armed forces, and race prejudice of the nation's political leaders.
It would take either a full-scale slave rebellion or a full-scale war to end such a deeply entrenched system. If a rebellion, it might get out of hand, and turn its ferocity beyond slavery to the most successful system of capitalist enrichment in the world. If a war, those who made the war would organize its consequences. Hence, it was Abraham Lincoln who freed the slaves, not John Brown. In 1859, John Brown was hanged, with federal complicity, for attempting to do by small-scale violence what Lincoln would do by large-scale violence several years later-end slavery.
With slavery abolished by order of the government-true, a government pushed hard to do so, by blacks, free and slave, and by white abolitionists-its end could be orchestrated so as to set limits to emancipation. Liberation from the top would go only so far as the interests of the dominant groups permitted. If carried further by the momentum of war, the rhetoric of a crusade, it could be pulled back to a safer position. Thus, while the ending of slavery led to a reconstruction of national politics and economics, it was not a radical reconstruction, but a safe one- in fact, a profitable one.
The plantation system, based on tobacco growing in Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky, and rice in South Carolina, expanded into lush new cotton lands in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi-and needed more slaves. But slave importation became illegal in 1808. Therefore, "from the beginning, the law went unenforced," says John Hope Franklin (From Slavery to Freedom). "The long, unprotected coast, the certain markets, and the prospects of huge profits were too much for the American merchants and they yielded to the temptation.. .." He estimates that perhaps 250,000 slaves were imported illegally before the Civil War.
How can slavery be described? Perhaps not at all by those who have not experienced it. The 1932 edition of a best-selling textbook by two northern liberal historians saw slavery as perhaps the Negro's "necessary transition to civilization." Economists or cliometricians (statistical historians) have tried to assess slavery by estimating how much money was spent on slaves for food and medical care. But can this describe the reality of slavery as it was to a human being who lived inside it? Are the conditions of slavery as important as the existence of slavery?
John Little, a former slave, wrote:
They say slaves are happy, because they laugh, and are merry. I myself and three or four others, have received two hundred lashes in the day, and had our feet in fetters; yet, at night, we would sing and dance, and make others laugh at the rattling of our chains. Happy men we must have been! We did it to keep down trouble, and to keep our hearts from being completely broken: that is as true as the gospel! Just look at it,-must not we have been very happy? Yet I have done it myself-I have cut capers in chains.
A record of deaths kept in a plantation journal (now in the University of North Carolina Archives) lists the ages and cause of death of all those who died on the plantation between 1850 and 1855. Of the thirty-two who died in that period, only four reached the age of sixty, four reached the age of fifty, seven died in their forties, seven died in their twenties or thirties, and nine died before they were five years old.

http://libcom.org/a-peoples-history-of-the-united-states-howard-zinn/9-slavery-without-submission-emancipation-without-freedom

What kind of family does Barton belong to that treats him this way? I wonder...

[Mister Ed]

7. So I guess, by that logic, when a rapist eventually concludes his crime...

..he should get credit for stopping a rape?



That is some frighteningly sick logic. It's horrifying to think that there is an audience for it in this country.

[yortsed snacilbuper]

8. Down south they called them plantations,

in Germany they called them concentration camps!

[kdmorris]

9. What a fucking moron. Why do these people get on TV? n/t

[bhikkhu]

10. Many did free themselves, but they had no avenue to change laws

Given that the entire government excluded them, what possible history is he imagining where "blacks" rewrote the constitution and ensured their legal freedom?

[Solly Mack]

11. Wow

[craigmatic]

12. Fuck that. Who started slavery in the first place in America?

[Igel]

15. Chattel slavery?

The Spanish. Followed by the French and the British. Taking off from the Muslim slave trade that they'd seen and been subjected to for centuries. Of course, the Europeans didn't routinely castrate their slaves, but did have lower standards for their treatment.

Slavery itself, however, wasn't uncommon among native tribes and the practice was scattered over North and Central America. Probably South America, too, but I've never bothered to check on that. In some few cases, those enslaved were treated more humanely than some view chattel slavery--they were destined as the victims of ritual sacrifice.

When whites took Native Americans as slaves, it may not exactly have been a novel idea for those being enslaved.

Probably not the answer you wanted, so I expect the definitions to be shifted and changed until you can blame the right group and only the right group.

[craigmatic]

17. Actually the Portugese were first.

[HughBeaumont]

13. Fundamentalcase.

Two Grand Cyclops in a sheet.

[Albertoo]

14. In a way, they have a point

yes, the point is weird when applied to the US as it's whites who resorted to slavery to begin with. But seen from a world history perspective, the point is less ludicrous: slavery was widespread in Africa way before western colonialism, and Europeans only came in third as enslavers behind Africans themselves and Arab/Muslim traders. Taking the Sudan as an example, it is western colonizers who abolished age old slavery which has resurfaced decades after independence. So, if I may venture the image, the history of slavery and its abolition is not all black and white.

[Orrex]

16. So if I set an orphanage ablaze, should I be praised for putting out the fire?

[struggle4progress]

18. ... about 180,000 black men .. served as soldiers in the U.S. Army. This was about 10 percent

of the total Union fighting force. Most — about 90,000 — were former (or “contraband”) slaves from the Confederate states ...
http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/black-civil-war-soldiers

[Ilsa]

19. The rebellions concluded with

Hangings and the stake for most of the slaves. Yeah, they didn't have the means to free themselves, not with an economic system that enriched slave owners.

Barton is a moron for trying to twist this around.

[KamaAina]

20. That's "moran" to you.

[Ilsa]

21. LOL. I can't believe I forgot! Thanks. nt

[robhalf4369]

22. What a racist idiot

It's obvious he didn't bother to pay attention in school.

[dlwickham]

23. David Barton is an idiot

Why give him any publicity?