Republican state lawmaker says having slaves wasn't racist.

[The Romulan Republic]

https://www.insider.com/republican-wern ... ist-2019-7

Werner Horn, a Republican state Representative from New Hampshire, commented on a since-deleted Facebook post this week that owning slaves "doesn't make you racist."

Horn responded to a Facebook post by former state Representative Dan Hynes, who criticized a HuffPost story where a historian said President Trump is tied with Andrew Johnson as "the most racist president in American history."

"If Trump is the most racist president in American history, what does that say about all of the other presidents who owned slaves?," Hynes wrote.

"Wait, owning slaves doesn't make you racist," Horn commented.

He went on to say that "owning slaves wasn't a decision predicated on race but on economics. It's a business decision."

Horn doubled down on his remarks in a statement to HuffPost on Thursday.

"Human beings have been owning other human beings since the dawn of time," Horn said. "It's never been about race."

He clarified that "it's never okay to own another person," but added that his comment was regarding "a period of time when that was how you survived, that's how you fed your family."

"It wasn't 'I want to own a black person today,'" Horn said of his comment. "It was, 'I need to feed my family. I need five guys who can work stupidly long hours in the sun without killing themselves."

New Hampshire Republican state committee chairman Stephen Stepanek told HuffPost that "Representative Horn is wrong and his comments are not based in our platform's belief in free people, free markets and free enterprise. Slavery throughout its history in the United States was a racist, inhuman, and immoral practice."

It's estimated that millions of people died unjustly during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, which brought over 10 million people to North and South America from Africa as slaves. In the US, a well-documented system of racist law and science was used to legitimize the slave trade by painting black people as inferior.

They've already low-key brought back slavery via prison labour and mass incarceration in for-profit prisons. Mark my words, its only a matter of time until they bring it back in full.

[Solauren]

He is actually partially right.

Owning slaves WAS a business decision. How they were treated however, was a personal/morale decision, based on their race.

And since slavery violates numerous international and American laws, I can't see that happening. Lowering minimum wage, yes, slavery, no.

[The Romulan Republic]

He is actually partially right.

Owning slaves WAS a business decision. How they were treated however, was a personal/morale decision, based on their race.

And since slavery violates numerous international and American laws, I can't see that happening. Lowering minimum wage, yes, slavery, no.

Not overnight, no.

If we continue our slide toward full-blown fascism unchecked for another five or ten years... who knows. A lot of laws and precedents have been tossed out already with fairly little outcry.

As I noted above, we already have essentially low-key slave labour (disproportionately of blacks) in the prison-industrial complex (the 13th. Amendment abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude specifically makes an exception for slavery or involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime, ie prison labour). They just need to keep expanding the prison industry and doubling down on the double-standard of our "Justice" system toward black people, and not a law has to be changed. We're half-way there already.

[Solauren]

Excellent Point.

And very disturbing when you think about it, and reflect over all of American history since the US Civil War...

[madd0ct0r]

He is actually partially right.

Owning slaves WAS a business decision. How they were treated however, was a personal/morale decision, based on their race.

Not picking on you specifically Sol, but the idea that morality and buissness decisions are seperate is recent, (and dubious) morale and ethical position adopted by the Chicago school.

The idea derives from no natural law and is merely a decision and value statement. It was not considered true for most of human history, is not considered an accurate model of behaviour of homo sap and is therefore useless as a debating position. The person saying the system of slavery was not racist but business, is either making a bad moral decision (slaves rights are immaterial to my desires) or is making a bad moral decision (i will let morality guide my actions, except where money is involved).

[Zaune]

Also, even if you can compartmentalise so well that your business decisions are completely unaffected by basic empathy and morals, at some point you at least have to factor in public opinion. Being dragged out of your house by an angry mob and held down while someone pours moulten silver down your throat is not profitable in the least.

[Solauren]

He is actually partially right.

Owning slaves WAS a business decision. How they were treated however, was a personal/morale decision, based on their race.

Not picking on you specifically Sol, but the idea that morality and buissness decisions are seperate is recent, (and dubious) morale and ethical position adopted by the Chicago school.

The idea derives from no natural law and is merely a decision and value statement. It was not considered true for most of human history, is not considered an accurate model of behaviour of homo sap and is therefore useless as a debating position. The person saying the system of slavery was not racist but business, is either making a bad moral decision (slaves rights are immaterial to my desires) or is making a bad moral decision (i will let morality guide my actions, except where money is involved).

Some people in history have sold themselves into slavery in order to pay back debts. It was also used as a punishment for criminal offenses.
They had rights. (Invariably linked to who they sold themselves too/the crime they commited). Purchasing them was always a business decision.

American's treated slavery differently. They choose their own behaviour.

I agree, dubious, but there were also enough slave owners that let slaves work to buy their own freedom, and treated them well, that it does become a moral choice to mistreat them.

[Steve]

I'm never surprised at the ignorance of people.

At the very beginning of slavery in the Americas, it was mostly about economic needs: a lot of labor was needed, not enough Europeans were coming as either indentured servants or free settlers, and Native Americans were too thin in numbers from the diseases killing them. Importing African workers thus made economic sense.

But in the English colonies particularly, a racial element developed as more and more black slaves were imported while the forced importation of Irish workers was stopped (the source of all the hubbub about "Irish slaves" some people like to bring up). While French and Spanish and Portuguese colonists could become racist, they tended to fold slavery into their existing hierarchical system, and never developed the ideology that would later motivate the Southern United States in the 19th Century to employ economic, political, legal, and even extralegal power to protect the institution. The entire concept of inferior blacks being no better than children needing guidance was part and parcel of the culture, a culture that Andrew Jackson was a member of and partook in. Hell, his Democratic Party was egalitarian only for white males, and openly so.

Sure, there were some people who probably didn't actively think racist thoughts every day and who were more interested in economic gain. But the racism came baked into the ideology. African-Americans were, as William Freehling puts it in his scholarly works, considered to be "Cuffee", a bunch of man-children needing paternal Christian guidance from their owners, who in turn would get the right to their labor.

Ugh, ignorance is always infuriating...