Ben Carson. Talking about slaves. Well, in a manner of speaking, very bad speaking. I have no idea how this man ever got a degree of any kind, but this level of stupidity should be lethal.
At one point during the talk, Carson reflected on how America was a land of “dreams and opportunity.”
“There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships who worked even longer, even harder for less,” Carson noted. “But they too had a dream, that one day their sons, daughters, granddaughters, great-grandsons, great-granddaughters might pursue prosperity and happiness.”
So, slaves were people who just jumped on a ship, stuffed themselves into chains in intolerable conditions, and just worked for less once they arrived here to happy immigrants land. Could we at least get a law which prohibits people this astonishingly dense from speaking in public? Please?
Via Raw Story.
Caron exudes white supremacy talking points. This one is a basic erasure of black history. Makes it sound like slaves were just like European immigrants, intentionally coming to America, sacrificing their own comforts so their future generations could have a better future.
Fuck you, Ben.
Yup. American slaves were just immigrants with dreams of “school choice” for their kids. Alt-History.
He reminds me of the blind racist character in Chappelle’s Show: he hasn’t realized that he’s black. I wonder if anyone has mentioned it to him. Perhaps he hasn’t put the whole puzzle together, yet?
There’s probably a term (I don’t think it’s stockholm syndrome) for when someone identifies so strongly with their abuser that they whole-heartedly adopt the ideology of the abuse. A lot of religious believers do that, too: their self-hatred becomes the justifying truth of the ideology that denigrates them. It’s a basic cognition fail, I suppose.
“It becomes clear — for some — that the more closely one resembles the invader, the more comfortable one’s life may become.” -- James Baldwin
Link up with the Irish slaves myth, the intentional confounding of slavery with indentured servitude.
In Germany, Holocaust denial is a crime. Slavery denial should be one in the USA.
System Justification Theory?
Seriously, fuck you Dr Ben Carson.
Malcom X has a speech where he talks about House Negros and Field Negros that comes to mind literally every time I see Ben Carson, and especially whenever I see that authoritarian asshole Sheriff Clarke.