Quote of the day

Erik Kain 30 Comments

“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.” ~ from a pledge signed by Michele Bachmann

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes:

We could parse the facts here, or discuss the implicit racism in the notion that by sheer dint of skin color, Barack Obama is responsible for the fate of the black family. We could also interrogate the meaning of "two-parent household" when you, your parents and their home are all property.

We could also note that a slave born into the 1820s had a thirty percent chance of being parted from his parents, not by divorce, but by the auction block. Or we could have a hearty existential debate on the complex interplay of liberty, freedom and happiness in an era of original light.

But it seems to me that we should be compassionate and put this in a dialect which the white populists of America might, if haltingly, understand: Jazz was a lot better under Jim Crow, and before women could vote no one worried about Michelle Bachmann.

To hell with people writing pledges to ‘protect family’ and to hell with people who use slavery for political gain. And to hell with any stupid politician who has the gall to sign something like this. And to hell with pledges in general. There’s one damn pledge that each of our politicians takes and that’s a pledge of allegiance. We don’t need anti-tax pledges, racist pledges, or anti-gay pledges. We will know you by your deeds.

Erik Kain

Erik writes about video games at Forbes and politics at Mother Jones. He's the editor of The League though he hasn't written much here lately. He can be found occasionally composing 140 character cultural analysis on Twitter.

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30 Comments

  1. Dude, are on some kind of blogging steroids? Every time I blink over the past couple of days you’ve posted something new that’s insightful, cool or both. It’s making me tired just watching.

  2. Fish in barrel, but still a hell of a shot.

    I just wish one of these craven Republicans had the guts to say “Fish you and the horse you’re probably dating”.

  3. TNC should indeed “parse the facts” and if they’re accurate, should STFU or better yet, say something intelligent and pithy about the absolute destruction of the black family.

    But easier and more politically correct to go after Bachmann. This is what passes for intelligent commentary from the left? Feh.

    • Wow. You’re really defending this, Tom? Wow.

      Assuming there has been an “absolute destruction of the black family” (which will come as both sad and surprising news to all the black families I know) you really don’t think there might be a better way to approach it than a “I think those kids were better off enslaved” vibe?

      • Wouldn’t the father, his wife, and the slave who’s the child’s mother make a three-parent household?

      • Mr. Kain, clearly going left has robbed you of your sense of irony. That African Americans were better off during slavery is not what is being said here. That the black family is worse off today is ironic and sad, sad, sad.

        I hate to see you resort to these passive-aggressive drive-bys, another signature rhetorical technique of the left. Leftism has hurt your writing. ;-{

        • That the black family is worse off today is ironic and sad, sad, sad.

          That is, false, false, false, idiotic, idiotic, idiotic, and a vile, vile, vile lie.

          And giving in to your purely partisan side has made your writing valueless; we already have a Koz.

          • Get up to speed or get off my back, Mr. Schilling. The destruction of the black family isn’t a partisan issue. Well, actually it is, but it shouldn’t be.

            When Black History Month was celebrated in 1950, according to State University of New York research, 77.7 percent of black families had two parents. As of January 2010, according to the Census Bureau, the share of two-parent families among African Americans had fallen to 38 percent.

            http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/04/AR2011020406557.html

          • What are the corresponding figures for non-black Americans?

          • Mike, RTod (thanks!), E.D., I’m just not getting this. What in the world are you upset about?

            What Michelle Bachmann has said was 100% correct. When you have +75% of black babies born out of wedlock, which is what we have now, compared to the 18% number in 1860, the fact of the matter is, that yes, the chances of a baby being raised by a mother and father in two parent household was substantially greater than the situation we have today. Is it not the truth? She never said anything about it being “better”. You’re putting words into her mouth that she never said or intimated or uttered.

            By the way, hope this doesn’t ruffle any feathers here, but on behalf of the League of Ordinary Gentlemen, I sent the Bachmann Campaign Committee a check for the amount of $10,000. I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that about 97% of Leaguers are solidly behind this lovely lass (or if they weren’t behind her, they’d sure like to be!) I mentioned all the names I could think of, so you will all be getting your thank-you cards soon–didn’t want you to be confused by any mail sent your way from her, of all people. Things are looking brighter, gentlemen!

          • St. F-

            First: Yay! I got my own thanks!

            Second: Why? (Please let it be my boyish good looks!)

            Lastly: I think that my response below might sum up most of my thoughts on why I believe this to be a no-brainer bone head thing for her to have done.

            But to dig slightly deeper… Is it true that 75% of African Americans are born out of wedlock? This seems high; and if it is in fact true I agree that it is both shocking and a horrible thing. I’d like to see you cite that, and not as a challenge – I really would like to know. But for now I am happy to assume you know of what you speak; but it does not erase my three main problems with all of this:

            1. I’m not black and I don’t pretend to have any special insight to being black, but it’s my understanding that most black people are still keenly aware of and not overly thrilled by either slavery or the way they were treated (legally!) for most of their time after emancipation. And not to sound like White Guilt Guy, but these feelings seems pretty reasonable to me. So taking that into context, if you mention the problem of non-nuclear families being equal to or worse than slavery, or if you don’t mean to make such an inference but fail to have your admin guy proofread your pledge and have it look blatantly like you are, you’ve just fished it up, plain and simple. Also, constructing your pledge so that it can see easily be read that you think the main reason is that a black man has been made president isn’t your most shining moment either. Even if you don’t believe any of these things, you should take much better care with what you say in such a public document.

            2. Bachman is running for president, which means that her mission right now is to convince her core that she can retain her current values if put in power, while convincing those outside her core that she can represent all of them as well. Signing this pledge with thes potential issues noted above, she fails so spectacularly at the latter as to make her – in my eyes – a horrible choice to lead. (Not that my opinion is going to matter if this is the way her campaign is going to be run. It will be a non-issue by November 2012.)

            3. I had a different and more specific specific reason to be irritated with Tom, who I’ve grown to like and think of as a really bright guy. And, no, it’s not that Tom is a “racist.” I have chatted with him for too long here to think that. It’s that I firmly believe (and I might well be wrong) that if this exact same pledge had been signed by Clinton, or Kucinich, or Barney Frank, Tom would be eviscerating them, and pointing it out as proof of who the *real* racists in America are. (And before you point out the obvious, St. F, I’ll gladly do it for you… If it had been one of those lefties, the folks at Ballon Juice that I assume are smacking around Bachman for this would come to the defense with lame-ass “they were just being ironic” excuses.) And I think this pervasive attitude on all sides of the political spectrum more than any specific ideology is endangering our ability to solve public problems in this country.

            Of course, those are just MY problems with this mess. Erik and Mike might have others.

          • I’ll vouch for the numbers, more-or-less. Do a search for “unmarried mothers CDC” (no quotes) and you see the CDC’s numbers, which are about 70% for blacks (I’ve never seen 75%), almost 50% for Hispanics, a little over 25% for whites, and about 15% for Asians.

            I can’t find the numbers by race going back to 1950, as Mike Shilling requested, but the overall illegitimacy rates were only 5%, going back to 1960, compared to over 35% now. I don’t know that they broke it down by race prior to 1980.

          • Unmarried mothers isn’t quite the same as one-parent families, since couples that raise families might not be married [1], nor does it count the divorced, separated, and widowed, but it’s probably the best proxy we’re likely to find.

            Overall, the illegitimacy rate is seven times what it was in 1950, and much higher than it was in 1775. Clearly, white people were better off as subjects of the British king than they are now.

            1. In some states, might not be allowed to marry.

          • Mike, are serious?
            Damn, you are. Hey, I will never shrink from admitting something I’ve said was in fact, wrong. It was.

            RTod, I loved your reply to last comment–that was the “thanks” part. You’re quite a fine writer, sir. Always fun and interesting to read and watch. In the meantime, I better do my homework–lots to be learned, yes.

          • “Clearly, white people were better off as subjects of the British king than they are now.”

            awesome

          • Another drive by that by failing to contest my point, concedes it. So like the Right — now you can tell me I don’t have real American values, or call me a feminazi.

        • Well, first off I am not Mr. Kain. (But thanks anyway, I take that as a compliment.) And if I came off as being passive aggressive, I apologize; it was not my intention. I had meant to communicate that I was actually stunned you were defending this. Also, I am not part of any left – rhetorical or otherwise.

          In response to your content, though, two points:

          1. If your defense of Bachman is that she signed this pledge during a presidential campaign to show off her superior command of wit and subtle irony, you are reeeealy reaching. Like, this is the kind of lame apologetics that makes me think even *you* know you’re reaching.

          2. Considering the PR issues the Tea Party movement has with centrists on the “race” issue (and I do concede I think it is more of a PR issue than a refection of the movement at large), if Bachman – while running for president – signed this I can only think of three realistic possibilities as to why (other than your “it’s a cerebral witticism only the most worthy of us gets” theory):

          A. She might actually be racist, or if not than racially insensitive to the point of being indistinguishable. (I confess if this is it I would be truly shocked.)

          B. She is not racist and is in fact very sensitive to race issues, and this is a *very* calculated and cynical dog whistle.

          C. She is just way too flighty or wacko to be taken as a serious candidate.

          Maybe I should add a fourth that considers both B and C to be equally true.

          • I thought I was pretty clear that I am *not* leaping to conclusions of runaway racism.

          • RTod, Even Bill Clinton was race-baited. [SC primary, 2008.]

            The race issue isn’t translatable to mere tu quoque between the parties. For the present, all the GOP can hope for is to neutralize Dem race-baiting when it comes to the white vote.

            I mean that a major newspaper can publish this type of slander…

            In the faces of Tea Party shouters, images of hate and history

            By Colbert I. King
            Saturday, March 27, 2010
            The angry faces at Tea Party rallies are eerily familiar. They resemble faces of protesters lining the street at the University of Alabama in 1956 as Autherine Lucy, the school’s first black student, bravely tried to walk to class.

            Those same jeering faces could be seen gathered around the Arkansas National Guard troopers who blocked nine black children from entering Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957.

            http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/26/AR2010032603335.html

            Well, it’s still 1964, all right. In the minds of the left, not the right, and the left aims to keep it that way.

            [RT, sorry for confusing you with Mr. Kain. And I didn’t think you were race-baiting, but I do think you left the door open to it.]

          • Harvey Gantt was race-baited too. Except that we don’t call it that when it happens to black people, do we?

          • For a big national pledge during a national campaign, I’d fit that into my “too flighty” meme.

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