by Robert M. Traxler
In the age of the cancel culture, I pen this column with a good bit of trepidation. Any facts stated in this piece could be attacked, even if true. In the era of the cancel culture, stating facts is not allowed without the writer being called hateful names.
According to PolitiFact, the claim that Democrat Vice Presidential Candidate Senator Kamala Harris is descended from a slave owner in British Jamaica is likely true. In their rather lengthy fact check on her lineage, they concluded, “It seems possible that Kamala Harris is as likely a descendant of a slave owner as she is an enslaved person.”
Please take Senator Harris’ name and change it to any Republican running for office; what would happen? The media would work overtime to condemn her for something she has no control over. However, since she is not a Republican they just dismiss it or ignore it.
The tragic history of the trafficking of human beings from Africa is long and sordid. Of the millions enslaved over the 400-plus years of slavery from Africa, 3.6% of the human beings came to what is now the United States. In the Caribbean, 1.2 million went to Jamaica and 4.8 million to the South American nation of Brazil, almost 40% of the total worldwide; Brazil did not end slavery until 1888. Interesting that race is not a significant factor in Brazilian politics.
On Jan. 1, 1808, the U.S. passed a law that was strictly enforced that banned the importation of slaves. I will wager most of you do not know that fact. In 1794 the congress banned American flagged vessels from transporting slaves. This set of facts may be news to most of us, as we have been led to believe that the Unites States and only the United States was involved in the despicable act of human trafficking in African slaves.
The numbers are no excuse for our history of allowing slavery, but they are facts, the left even blaming our nation for slavery before we became a nation. Our nation is blamed for slavery even before we became a British colony, when the Dutch in new Amsterdam (New York City) had slaves in 1655. It is somehow the fault of the United States. Folks, you cannot make this stuff up.
The Portuguese started trading in human beings from Africa in or around 1526, some 250 years before we became a nation and some 59 years before any Europeans lived in what would become the United States. Think that one over, all my liberal friends who blame our nation first and only for slavery.
The sale of humans from Africa did not end until 1926 and many say it still exists in different forms, especially in Mideastern nations, mostly with Muslim theocracies or monarchies.
Should Senator Harris be blamed for her ancestors owning some 200 slaves? Not no, but hell no. If Senator Harris were a Republican, would she be blamed? Does the sun rise in the east? Yes, yes she would. The progressives would march in the streets and a few radicals would loot, rob, burn and attack the police in protest.
We are told that the United States never atoned for the sin of slavery, 200,000 dead (2,000,000 normed for our population today). Casualties in the Union forces, more than 90% white men, spilling over 300,000 gallons of blood after the Emancipation Proclamation was announced (when the Civil War was changed to a war to free the slaves) and even more blood from the wounded seems a large price to pay.
One in four southern white men, 258,000, died in the Civil War, along with more than 50,000 civilians (500,000 normed for our population today), the price the south payed for slavery. Will we as a nation ever stop the practice of racial politics? Never, not as long as it helps or hurts one side against the other.
A question: Is President Trump a xenophobe for banning travel to and from China at the start of the pandemic, or incompetent because he did not do it sooner? The American left wants both to be true. They cannot both be true at the same time, but with the media’s help they somehow are? Common sense is not so common.
It is certainly possible that Trump could be an incompetent xenophobe, despite your assertion otherwise. He may be both at the same time, one or the other, or neither. I’m not saying one way or another, at this moment, but he certainly has shown tendencies in both directions.
Mr. Basura,
Sir,
Your TDS is showing. It is one or the other not both at the same time, over the same issue.
Thanks for the comment.
Trying hard to make slavery justified is normal for a oppressor of people. Slavery is the blame of this bad country. Others could have had slavery, but only because the U.S. did it first. I know you are lying if you write it in this crap-filled crap of a blog.
Bad country….. If America is so bad, there are other options . America has sacrificed hundreds of thousands of our sons, daughters, fathers and mothers saving the tails of other countries. Recent example would be the vermon called ISIS. Enslaving women and very young children for the most deviant things our world has seen. I pray you see what a blessing it is to be called an American.
Mr Jones, do us a favor and move. If it’s so bad here in this country, move away. Please. I will help you pack.
The answer to your question, in my opinion, is this:
Banning travel from China was not xenophobic, in and of itself, when viewed from the point of view of stemming the tide of an unknown disease. Other actions by the president have been enough to highlight his xenophobia.
Trump’s incompetence was in allowing 40,000 travelers from China into the US during the months following the ban, and in the countless other ways he undermined a strategic approach to the spread of SARS-CoV-2, and continues to foul up any strides that are made to control the virus.
Ms. Mandaville,
Lets face it– the left told us to go to Chinatowns in NY and Cal and hug someone; the Governor of New York and the Mayor of New York City also called the President a xenophobe for the travel ban it at the time he did it. How did that ‘hug a Chinese national’ workout for New York City? Folks from New York City that hugged folks in Chinatown traveled around the nation; President Trump’s fault? The Governor of New York told us to ignore the virus, that the President overreacted with the travel ban, it was a small problem he could handle.
So what did you think of the other 95% of the column?
Thanks for the comment.
Mr. Traxler,
Who is the elected leader of the United States of America? Who is responsible (despite his own declaration that he doesn’t feel responsible for any of it) for leading us toward safety and well-being in the country? Is it the mayor of NYC? Is it the governor of NY? No. It is the president to whom we have traditionally looked for guidance during a crisis. “The left” is not responsible for us going to Chinatowns anymore than “the right” is. Neither the left nor the right have been relied upon to give us such guidance. We don’t elect a nebulous, biased group of people to act as the most powerful individual in the free world. We elect a single individual to provide the strength, intelligence, and foresight required of such a position. It’s quite a cop out to cast blame on a nameless, faceless entity in order to deflect blame from where it rightfully belongs, at the Resolute Desk of the White House.
Slavery in the United States isn’t complicated. It’s about settlers from European countries who chose to go to Arkansas, Alabama, the Carolinas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
The settlers had a lot of land with the potential of creating major economies based on natural resources like lumber and agriculture. But trees don’t cut themselves, cotton doesn’t pick itself, etc. They needed labor and people selling slaves knew a market when they saw one. Slavery was an accepted way to get cheap labor and there were slave traders. It was considered a legitimate business underwritten by major insurers such as Lloyd’s of London.
It’s not complicated unless one is trying to connect slave owners in Jamaica 150 to 200 years ago to U.S. Senator Kamala Harris in 2020. That must be exhausting.
Until I see the Trump Organization give back the millions they collected for name branding and development of The Trump International Golf Club Bali, Indonesia which had run out of money until President Xi (the Chinese President President Donald Trump liked in May 2018) approved a $500M loan from the Chinese government to keep the project afloat, I can’t take President Trump’s puffery seriously.
Until I see Ivanka Trump relinquishing her 18 registered Chinese trademarks she applied for in 2016 and were granted in fourth quarter 2018, I can only see fake outrage with no real sacrifice.
Until I see the Trump Organization reject the 38 provisional Chinese trademarks it was granted in March 2017 it’s nothing but the same old leadership by chaos and misdirection President Trump has used since he was shipping in non-union Polish nationals to tear down the Bonwit Teller Building without permits until after demolition was well under way.
China is one of the the bogeymen President Trump needs to be re-elected, but not a big enough bogey man for the Trump Organization to relinquish any money making opportunities in China afforded to the Trump Organization by the Chinese trademarks. The American public up is supposed to sacrifice. The Trump Family not so much.