Let’s jump right on in, shall we?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – slavery was slavery and slavery is slavery.
But what slavery was…what it is…well, some conservatives are working with a fucked up from the floor up definition.
No, not the pledge of allegiance…this is the vow/pledge some conservative group asked wanna-be GOP presidential nominees to sign in order to get some love from conservatives.
This vow/pledge included the usually shit – mythical code language blaming gays for marriage failures, rejection of Sharia law, and a vow to remain true to one’s marriage vows.
"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."
Pause…sip coffee…continue.
After years of enduring rancid slavery analogies it should be hard to get pissed off at this conservative trend du jour, but amazingly its not!
“Slavery had a disasterous impact on African-American families”
Um, slavery tore black families to bits…prevented black people from being married or families or united…valued black people as property…tolerated the rape and molestation of black women and children…sold children away from their parents, sold parents away from each other, sold and purchased people…and, some black people were bred under slavery like cattle.
A slave does not consent…a slave does not have a say in their family unit…a slave does not read nursery rhymes at bed time…and slaves did not cuddle together and whisper about their dreams for their children’s lives.
Slavery was and is bondage…contrary to popular belief, many slaves did not want to bring children into a system of degradation, violence, and relentless toil.
They had to….were forced to...because they were SLAVES, for the love of accuracy.
That’s the thing about slavery…it was and is a cycle of "have to" and force.
To assert that children born into slavery were likely to be raised by both parents and thus were better off is to perpetuate a lie.
This lie attempts to spruce up slavery and that’s beyond disgusting...absolutely disgusting...so damned disgusting that it makes my stomach lurch.
This lie attempts to erase the sexual oppression that was present under slavery – that a slave is denied consent, that white masters roamed the slave quarters and "used" their “property”, that black women had their children sold as property…and that black mothers knew their female children faced nothing but the same.
And this lie perpetuates the myth that all the problems within some black communities (cause it also doubles down on the whole black monolith bullshit) are due to a lack on man-on-woman sanctified marriage.
Pause…sip coffee…go on.
Oh but wait…there’s more!
“Presidential candidates who sign The Marriage Vow will sign off on support of personal fidelity to his/her spouse, appointing faithful constitutionalists as judges, opposition to any redefinition of marriage, and prompt reform of uneconomic and anti-marriage aspects of welfare policy, tax policy, and divorce law.”
On that personal fidelity to one’s spouse shit…um, how fucked up is it that these people think their organization has a stake in anyone’s marriage to the point that they also want a promise? Isn’t this vow-based bigamy?
On the faithful constitutionalist judges…I’ve just gotta ask how a conservative group can demand that shit when you know and I know that you know and they know that they want judges to get liberal as hell on the Constitution when it comes to reproductive justice. I call bullshit!
But that other stuff…the “prompt reform of uneconomic and anti-marriage aspects of welfare policy, tax policy, and divorce law.”…yeah, that shit should give the masses a serious pause.
See, conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and her minions think that women being able to survive sans a man threatens traditional marriage…by survival I’m talking about a roof over one’s head and $160/ month worthy of food on one’s table.
These people also think that tax policy should favor the married…and by “married” they mean the richest 1% of the population.
Oh and divorce…Lawd knows they want to make it harder to get divorce because misery, incompatibility, or violence are no reason to end a marriage when marriage is all about a woman being able to survive.
Ah…ah yes…do you see it?
If marriage is about a woman being able to survive…and social programs that assist in that are destroyed…and “reforms” revise the tax policy and divorce policy…and those constitutionalist judges do away with Roe v. Wade…
…ah…ah, yes…then these wretched conservatives will have created a modern system of forced pregnancy that they are certain will benefit the masses...
...yeah, yeah...just like slavery did!
Ugh.
Bachmann and Santorum signed this shit in a hurry.
And now the same group that said they would not endorse a candidate that didn’t agree with the entirety of this vow-based pledge has
revised said pledge to remove the reference to slavery.
Cute.
But why?
Its not like mainstream political journalists (I’m looking at you, Candy Crowley of CNN) are going to actually question a candidate who signed the vow/pledge in its original form about the ting they signed.
So fuck it.
Why change it at all?
At this rate of analogy, slavery will have been the best thing that evah happened to anyone evah.
