Friday, July 8, 2011

I Didn't Know My Ancestors Had it So Good

If one is going to claim that black children were better off in 1860 than in 2011, because they were "more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household," then I need that person to explain precisely what he/she means.  That is a claim made by a random Christianist group in Iowa in a pledge regarding heterosexual marriage (among other things, related to marriage and sex), that has been signed by GOP presidential contenders Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum. 

Unless I missed something in my academic training in American history, children in slavery could be, and were often, sold away from their parents at the whim of slaveholders.  I don't think that "better off" even comes close.  That pledge was likely put together in direct response to marriage equality coming to New York, as well as marriage equality in Iowa (and as far as I can tell the state has not descended into Hell fire), so why not just keep to the basic subject of fundamentalist Christianist understandings of marriage and sex (or the lack thereof), instead of wading even more unnecessarily into an area the group clearly knows little about.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

These "pledges" are media-friendly tools of control.

Shame in not being an obedient puppet will haunt any signer who dares to have their own thoughts, and act accordingly.

Fair and independent minded Republicans in New York chose reason over shame when they voted for marital equality. Those brave elected officials also stood up to the fear of retribution in the next election.

These pledge peddlers are the last vaguries of privileged white men who want women subordinate (starting with attacks on a women's POWER to determine her destiny). The pledge people do not want anyone of color running the country (that POWER is reserved for their "leader ideal", another wealthy blue-eyed white man). Furthermore, the pledge posse would like their own implied social superiority to be reasserted as the norm (that's what "taking back our country" really means).

Marriage equality in New York has given POWER to all consenting adults. Homosexuals can no longer be shamed, or disenfranchised. To the religous right this is an assault on their way functioning. Without shame and discrimination they find themselves with no leverage, no power, no control.

The ignorant become obsolete when history passes them by.

TC said...

Is there a reason you chose to ignore the big preamble to the statement: "Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families?"

It seems to me that the drafters would readily concede everything you said about the evils of slavery after that and -- and they would probably laugh at your strawman language "better off."

Nothing in that vow makes me believe that the drafters of it believe that black children were "better off" in 1860 than in 2011.

Without that, you got nuttin' here...

hscfree said...

@TC: The key point is that the driving force of that pledge, which I did read in it's entirety, was a reaffirmation of heterosexual marriage, and sexual prudence. Why on earth was there a need to bring race into the discussion? Why did the authors of the pledge, in trying to score a dig at the current President decide to invoke anything related to race? My "nuttin" is in fact something, and it is something that you should ask that group in Iowa. I think many would love to know what they were thinking.