So Michele Bachmann has signed a pledge to support families that’s got some very creepy stuff in it. In particular, there’s this:
“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.”
Others have noted just how brain-curdlingly offensive this is, and I agree 100% with what they’ve written. But I want to pause for a second and look at the numbers behind the claim.
The pledge cites an invalid source — the 1880 census doesn’t have great data on slave family structures, it turns out — but the standard estimate for the number of slave families broken up by the sale of children away from one or both parents is about one in three. With life expectancy so much lower in the 19th century than it is today, I’d guess that about half of all slave families in the antebellum US were ones in which children were living with both of their parents.
And yes, the percentage of two-parent households in the black community today is a little lower than that.
But again, let’s pause for a second. Contrary to stereotypes, most African American fathers who don’t live with their kids are involved with them on a regular basis. Almost half see their kids or speak to them by phone at least once a week, and fully two-thirds spend face-to-face time with them at least once a month. (This percentage, by the way, is significantly higher than the analogous stat for white fathers who don’t live with their kids: 67% vs 59%.)
So when you compare slave families to black families today and wring your hands about the decline in the two-parent household, you’re not just ignoring the fact that slave children lived in “households” where their white master, not their own parents, had final authority over them. You’re not just ignoring the fact that many of them saw their parents savagely beaten and their mothers repeatedly raped. You’re not just ignoring the fact that their parents were in many cases prohibited by law from reading them a bedtime story. You’re not just ignoring all that.
You’re also saying that a family destroyed by the sale of its children is functionally identical to one in which the kids sleep at their mom’s most nights but have a bedroom in their father’s place, cereal in his cupboard, and drawings taped to his walls.
You’re saying, not to put too fine a point on it, that my ex-wife and I, by amicably separating and choosing to raise our children together while living apart, behaved comparably to the slaveowner who tore a toddler screaming from her mother’s arms and sold her away forever, permanently severing the bond between parent and child.
That’s what you’re saying. And it’s an repulsive insult to every parent in America.
Update: Santorum signed the pledge too. And Pawlenty is apparently considering it.
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July 8, 2011 at 3:31 pm
S. montgomery
Michele Bachmann does not know what she is talking about. Most of the fathers (southern Slave holders) of Slave children did not acknowledge their children. Now some of the Slave holders children did work in the homes of the Slave holders. The number of Slaves in this country went from 1 million to 4 million after Slaves were no longer imported into this country. All different shades and colors of Black people were the result of White southern Slave holders impregnating Slave women and keeping their own children as Slaves.
These would not be considered two family homes.
Why does Michele Bachmann consider herself an expert on Slaves? She needs to hush. She just shows how ignorant of history and the plight of Slaves in the United States she is.
July 10, 2011 at 3:40 pm
Sunday Reading « zunguzungu
[…] On Michele Bachman’s slavery nostalgia. […]
July 10, 2011 at 9:31 pm
Joseph
That’s like saying there was a lower Jewish crime rate in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.
July 12, 2011 at 2:03 am
Bobby
What I don’t get is why some people phrase things like this in that way when they KNOW full well that the left is itching to find any possible hint of racism in anything that can be even remotely linked to the right. “Oppression” is a big part of their voter base, and that kind of thing helps them along.
That aside. If you actually read the document in question, you see that they were clearly pointing out a problem with single-parent families and making a dramatic statement on the (very true) statistic that over 2/3 of African-American Children are born into single-parent homes. In no way shape or form does it even remotely imply that they want to go back to Slavery.
But they should have known it would be read that way, and changed that line to simply provide the facts, which would have been equally as true, and more compelling. Basically, it’s a good point phrased totally wrong.
July 13, 2011 at 12:22 am
Michele Bachmann: Moron
[…] […]
August 31, 2011 at 4:04 pm
evetteforeuclidboard
In slavery children were SOLD…there was no two Parent Household EVER
October 12, 2011 at 12:17 am
Tarik
LIBERAL WHITE AGENDA ANYBODY?
evetteforeuclidboard: Engage in some serious historiography. The likes of two-parent households did exist among slaves however perverse the may have been.
To everyone excluding Bobby: get off of your high hoarse the left is responsible for a lot of the glossing over, the lip service, and the general disingenuous/ “righteous” b.s. that does nothing to effect change. While we should all strive to engage in respectful discourse it should also be illuminating. To speak to Bobby’s point, what was presented were immutable facts – I don’t care how you want to spin it. Black folks have progressed from where we once were but lets not pretend that the majority of our communities don’t have to answer for some jarring ills (don’t get me wrong, our country and the whole of western Europe should as well).
December 2, 2011 at 10:29 pm
tiffany
The real point here is that slavery still exsist. Instead of cotton, it’s factories. instead of slaves , it’s maides, instead of God laws it’s men laws ect, and only 10% is right.We are all slaves. census keep a count on us dont forget we are worth money picking cotton or working a 9 to 5. Gov, have control of running the u.s small letters here. But we as people have to know that they dont have controll of our mind.Dont forget thats why we have ss# and birthcert. So with that being said let’s stick with truth and realitiy.Single mom of three who can pat myself on the back, sayng job well done. I took up the pieces of being their mother. father. and much more, they are all grown, college degree. we have to cut the cord on that back them mess.