Jim Brown, Asshole of the Day for March 14, 2014
What goes through the mind of someone who comes to the defense of slavery? We really want to know. What gets someone to say this?
In a post on his Facebook page that was—in theory, anyway—about federal spending, Jim Brown, who’s running in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District, compared modern-day “entitlements” to slavery. But even more disturbing, perhaps, he denied that slavery was, first and foremost, a brutally violent institution:
Back in the day of slavery, slaves were kept in slavery by denying them education and opportunity while providing them with their basic needs .. Not by beating them and starving them. (Although there were isolated cases if course) Basically slave owners took pretty good care of their slaves and livestock and this kept business rolling along.
This flies in the face, of course, of all credible historical accounts, including the recent Academy Award-winning film 12 Years a Slave. Brown’s comments, therefore, not only make him sound woefully ill-informed but—more troubling for Republicans—also make him and his party sound extreme, rendering him a potentially toxic candidate in a winnable district.
It seems like it should go without saying that Gone With The Wind wasn't a documentary. It's a whitewash. It's wishful thinking. It is not representative of reality. I'm at a loss as to how people come up with this shit.
But there's more to Mr. Brown's story-- since the outcry over this statement he posted this "apology":
I made a post yesterday implying that the entitlement state being created in our country is similar to to the method slave owners used to keep their slaves under control. (Taking care of their basic needs while denying them real education and opportunity) Some people read this to mean that I didn't think slavery was that bad. I believe that slavery is worse than death - yesterday, today and tomorrow. I apologize to anyone I offended. If I had it to do over I would have been more careful with my wording, but you don't get do overs in politics. So, I'll have to pay the price for this. My platform is "responsibility" and I accept the responsibility.
He still doesn't get it. Slave owners didn't keep their slave owners under control by "taking care of their basic needs while denying them real education and opportunity." They kept them enslaved with whips and chains and beatings and terror. They kept them enslaved by enlisting the state to hunt them down with the Fugitive Slave Act. To think your argument could be misunderstand presupposes that it's a valid argument to make-- that the comparison has some basis in reality, which it doesn't.
And that's not the half of it-- this argument of his is half-plagiarized from Sarah Palin, who last fall said that the national debt Obama was racking up was like slavery, and then doubled down under criticism to accuse black people of not understanding her definition of slavery.
So for pretending that slavery wasn't so bad for purposes of a weak, forced argument, and then getting indignant when people get outraged, Jim Brown is the Asshole of the Day.
It is Jim Brown's first time as Asshole of the Day. He's not the first slavery apologist to be featured on the site. Unfortunately.
Full story: The Root