Apparently the gentleman above, Arkansas Rep. Jon Hubbard, has written a delightfully racist book called “Letters to the Editor: Confessions of a Frustrated Conservative.”
As we all know letters written to the editor of various newspapers are a typically the forum where conservatives are at their MOST articulate and reasonable (cough, cough) so of course it makes sense to take those angry diatribes and put them into a book.And lawsy this book certainly does NOT disappoint!
Here are some excerpts courtesy of the Arkansas Times:
Slavery was good for black people:
“… the institution of slavery that the black race has long believed to be an abomination upon its people may actually have been a blessing in disguise. The blacks who could endure those conditions and circumstances would someday be rewarded with citizenship in the greatest nation ever established upon the face of the Earth.” (Pages 183-89)
Yeah black people! We saved you from a life of freedom and happiness, by dragging you over here to work on our plantations so that you could eventually be Americans. Stop being so damn ungrateful!
If you think slavery was bad, you should have seen Africa:
African Americans must “understand that even while in the throes of slavery, their lives as Americans are likely much better than they ever would have enjoyed living in sub-Saharan Africa.”
“Knowing what we know today about life on the African continent, would an existence spent in slavery have been any crueler than a life spent in sub-Saharan Africa?” (Pages 93 and 189)
For sure, we have cable television and wi-fi. Do African people have cable television and wi-fi?
They do? Oh.
Well yeah but were they subjected to segregation and repressed by powerful white people?
Oh they were? Okay so what is the difference again?
Oh yeah, Americans paid for them to be ripped from their homeland and shipped over the ocean to be treated like animals in a country completely foreign to them. And then they have had to suffer withering racism in the decades since they were set "free"from their chains, and NOW they are accused of being ungrateful to their white masters for having subjected them to all of that.
Black people are ignorant:
“Wouldn’t life for blacks in America today be more enjoyable and successful if they would only learn to appreciate the value of a good education?” (Page 184)
I wonder if he means the good education that southern whites fought long and hard to keep the black children from accessing, which eventually forced President Eisenhower to send in the Arkansas National Guard to escort black children into classrooms, past the mobs of white people spitting at them and calling them "niggers," so that they could finally benefit from the kind of education that had been previously ONLY available to white Arkansas students?
Is THAT the education that the black folk of America should now value?
You know I don't know WHY we keep thinking that Southern Republicans are simply racists. Clearly they are UBER racists!
But the truly sad thing is that there are people who will read this and agree with its argument 100%. Racism in this country is clearly not dead, in fact it may currently be enjoying the kind of resurgence that gives David Duke and Newt Gingrich wet dreams.
By the way there is MUCH more to find objectionable about this book besides it KKK inspired argument about the benefits of slavery, and you can read those for yourself by clicking the Arkansas Times link.
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