Michele Bachmann signed marriage pact suggesting black families were better off during slavery

[TheRealJuliane]

From the Daily Mail
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2013089/Michele-Bachmann-signed-marriage-pact-suggesting-black-families-better-slavery.html#ixzz1RibeqrY9

Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has caused outrage after signing a controversial marriage pact that suggests black families were better off in times of slavery.
Bachmann, along with fellow GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum, signed two-page document, The Marriage Vow - A Declaration of Dependence Upon Marriage and Family, last week.
It condemns gay marriage, abortion, infidelity and pornography but by far the most controversial paragraph was on slavery.

’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,’ the document read.
Now Iowa-based conservative group, The Family Leader, has agreed to remove the passage amid growing pressure.
‘After careful deliberation and wise insight and (name removed by moderator)ut from valued colleagues we deeply respect, we agree that the statement referencing children born into slavery can be misconstrued, and such misconstruction can detract from the core message of the Marriage Vow: that ALL of us must work to strengthen and support families and marriages between one woman and one man,’ Bob Vander Plaats, head of The Family Leader, told Fox News.

‘We sincerely apologise for any negative feelings this has caused, and have removed the language from the vow,’ added Vander Plaats.
The ‘candidate vow’ on the document - which Bachmann and Santorum signed - did not mention slavery and it is not clear whether either candidate realised the controversial passage was part of the document.
A spokesman for the Bachmann campaign, told Fox News Bachmann had had no second thoughts about signing the candidate vow portion, which doesn’t mention slavery.
‘She stands by the points that are outlined in the pledge,’ the spokesman said.
‘Particularly the ones for strong marriage. She’s been happily married for 32 years. That’s the focus of the pledge.’
Some are not so willing to overlook the potential oversight however.
‘Given that families were broken up regularly for sales during slavery and that rape by masters was pretty common, this could not be more offensive,’ Cheryl Contee wrote on her blog, Jack and Jill Politics.
'When will Republicans inquire with actual Black people whether or now we’re OK with invoking slavery to score cheap political points?
‘It’s hard to believe that Michele Bachmann would be foolish enough to sign this pledge,’ she added.

The statement was very clearly written. There was NO REASON to retreat, except the people involved were afraid of being labeled racist. If people could actually READ what was written, it was clear that the statement was 100% true. It said that a child born into slavery in 1860 was MORE LIKELY to be raised by his mother and father than a child born now. It said NOTHING about slavery being a better condition IN GENERAL, just that there were more intact families then than there are now. If you think about it, that says a lot about what black families were then and are now. If black Americans would just open their eyes and look around, and see what 60 years of Democrats’ “help” has netted them…LBJ who started “The Great Society” was a classic Southern Democrat racist, well known for his racism. Very well known.

 

[Ahimsa]

The statement was very clearly written. There was NO REASON to retreat, except the people involved were afraid of being labeled racist. If people could actually READ what was written, it was clear that the statement was 100% true. It said that a child born into slavery in 1860 was MORE LIKELY to be raised by his mother and father than a child born now.

You say that this statement is true. I have yet to see any data on this issue.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

We know that under slavery 400,000 black children a year were not being killed.

:sad_yes::clapping::clapping::clapping:

That says it all.

 

[Personanongrata]

This is surprising to me because Bachmann has been running a very discplined campaign of late and has done a good job of staying on message. That went some way toward dispelling the impression that she is an extremist, but incidents like this could quickly undo all that work.

On the substance of the statement, its worth noting that both the organization and Bachmann have distanced themselves from the statement, so apparently both realize that (at best) it was horribly framed and at worst simply wrong. Slave marriages had no legal standing whatsoever, and slave owners had no legal requirement to keep children with their birth parents or to recognize slave couples as married. Under slavery the slave owner was legally enititled to split up married couples, take children from their mothers, take sexual liberties with the women they “owned,” deny slave husbands the right to see or spend time with their wives and children, and on and on. It was not a “stable” family unit because neither the owner nor the law recognized that slave families were families at all.

Well said!!

 

[_Abyssinia]

How many of those families under slavery were broken up when one parent was sold off? Black families had no security at all under slavery. The pledge was poorly written.

I agree, they should of just said prior to the 1960s, but the pledge does not say that Black families were better off during slavery like the title suggests but that were more two parent families. They didn’t even need to mention slavery, because a post slavery Black family had more chance of havng two parents than today: freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2655099/posts

 

[_Abyssinia]

Prove it

“Although slave marriages and family ties lacked legal sanction, and owners were free to sell husbands away from wives and parents away from children, most African Americans married and lived in two-parent households both before and after emancipation. Fathers played a larger familial role than previously thought. The nuclear family received support from an involved network of kin. Indeed, the kinship system forged under slavery would continue to function in twentieth-century rural and urban communities as a source of mutual assistance and cultural continuity.”

pobronson.com/factbook/pages/417.html

A study of 1880 family structure in Philadelphia shows that three-quarters of black families were nuclear families, comprised of two parents and children. In New York City in 1925, 85 percent of kin-related black households had two parents. In fact, according to Herbert Gutman in “The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom: 1750-1925,” “Five in six children under the age of 6 lived with both parents.”

jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams060805.asp

 

[_Abyssinia]

This is surprising to me because Bachmann has been running a very discplined campaign of late and has done a good job of staying on message. That went some way toward dispelling the impression that she is an extremist, but incidents like this could quickly undo all that work.

On the substance of the statement, its worth noting that both the organization and Bachmann have distanced themselves from the statement, so apparently both realize that (at best) it was horribly framed and at worst simply wrong. Slave marriages had no legal standing whatsoever, and slave owners had no legal requirement to keep children with their birth parents or to recognize slave couples as married. Under slavery the slave owner was legally enititled to split up married couples, take children from their mothers, take sexual liberties with the women they “owned,” deny slave husbands the right to see or spend time with their wives and children, and on and on. It was not a “stable” family unit because neither the owner nor the law recognized that slave families were families at all.

I agree problem is that it is badly framed and makes it sound like they meant Black people were better off in slavery because there were more two parent households, and I do not thik it is what they meant.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Well, apply that same reasoning to other sources!

Huh?

 

[Ahimsa]

A study of 1880 family structure in Philadelphia shows that three-quarters of black families were nuclear families, comprised of two parents and children. In New York City in 1925, 85 percent of kin-related black households had two parents. In fact, according to Herbert Gutman in “The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom: 1750-1925,” “Five in six children under the age of 6 lived with both parents.”

jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams060805.asp

The Bachmann letter referred to slaves in 1860, comparing them to Blacks today. I have yet to see data on the 1860 claim.

 

[RACJ]

This is surprising to me because Bachmann has been running a very discplined campaign of late and has done a good job of staying on message. That went some way toward dispelling the impression that she is an extremist, but incidents like this could quickly undo all that work.

On the substance of the statement, its worth noting that both the organization and Bachmann have distanced themselves from the statement, so apparently both realize that (at best) it was horribly framed and at worst simply wrong. Slave marriages had no legal standing whatsoever, and slave owners had no legal requirement to keep children with their birth parents or to recognize slave couples as married. Under slavery the slave owner was legally enititled to split up married couples, take children from their mothers, take sexual liberties with the women they “owned,” deny slave husbands the right to see or spend time with their wives and children, and on and on. It was not a “stable” family unit because neither the owner nor the law recognized that slave families were families at all.

No, all it means is that the usual leftist suspects are screeching about racism, and uninformed people who can’t or won’t read or comprehend the original statement are foolish enough to believe them. Again, the statement is TRUE, and another indicator that liberal ideas are abject failures. Rob

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

“Although slave marriages and family ties lacked legal sanction, and owners were free to sell husbands away from wives and parents away from children, most African Americans married and lived in two-parent households both before and after emancipation. Fathers played a larger familial role than previously thought. The nuclear family received support from an involved network of kin. Indeed, the kinship system forged under slavery would continue to function in twentieth-century rural and urban communities as a source of mutual assistance and cultural continuity.”

pobronson.com/factbook/pages/417.html

A study of 1880 family structure in Philadelphia shows that three-quarters of black families were nuclear families, comprised of two parents and children. In New York City in 1925, 85 percent of kin-related black households had two parents. In fact, according to Herbert Gutman in “The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom: 1750-1925,” “Five in six children under the age of 6 lived with both parents.”

jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams060805.asp

Sounds like black families were doing just fine until liberals decided to jump in and use the government to “fix” all of their problems.

 

[Beau_Ouiville]

Huh?

Check the accuracy of the headlines on some of your frequent threads.

 

[estesbob]

No, all it means is that the usual leftist suspects are screeching about racism, and uninformed people who can’t or won’t read or comprehend the original statement are foolish enough to believe them. Again, the statement is TRUE, and another indicator that liberal ideas are abject failures. Rob

Meanwhile, the latest polls show Bachmann ahead in Iowa. . So much for signing the pledge destroying her candidacy

 

[_Abyssinia]

The Bachmann letter referred to slaves in 1860, comparing them to Blacks today. I have yet to see data on the 1860 claim.

Apparantly the 1860 date was a mistake and it is not clear whether Michelle Bachmann was aware of the slavery passage when she signed the declaration. It is also not clear whether Santorum was aware of the passage before signing the declaration accordng to Fox news.

This is where The Family Leader appears to have gone wrong. First of all their controversial statement talks of a child “born in 1860” having a greater chance of being raised by two parents.

Well one fact that is not controversial is that a black child born in 1860 would no longer be a slave by their fifth or sixth birthday thanks to the Union victory and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. Neither would their parents.

Had The Family Leader said a child born in, say, 1840, they might have been on to something. As it is what they should have said is that newly freed slaves had a better chance of having stable two parent families than African Americans today.

If this were not mistake enough it seems that the group made a real howler in that,
according to Nate Silver of the New York Times, the research used to back up their claim actually covered the years 1880 to 1910, well after the 1860 date and the abolition of slavery in 1865.

It does not appear, from the language used, that The Family Leader or Ms Bachmann intended to give an endorsement to slavery. Nevertheless such poor use of facts and language mean that any noble motives behind the pledge have been tarnished if not lost in the mini media storm.

All this of course distracts from the main point, that family breakdown is a very serious problem, especially among African Americans. It may or may not be true that slave children were more likely to be brought up by both parents but if research really does show that black American families were in better shape a hundred years ago, when they still faced severe discrimination, than they are today, then it does not seem like such a bad thing for Ms Bachmann, or anyone else for that matter to be concerned about it.

uk.ibtimes.com/articles/177860/20110711/michele-bachmann-family-breakdown-and-the-benefits-or-not-of-slavery.htm

 

[SalesianSDB]

The statement about the horrible dissolution of the majority of black families (and a staggeringly high percentage of all families) is TRUE. So you, as a Republican, will vote for the ruinous BHO over a candidate who has signed this pledge? Now, I’d never sign a pledge written by someone else myself, were I a candidate. But why you are offended that someone has signed a simple statement of fact is beyond me. I’m tired of pandering and walking around on eggshells. npatrol: Rob

I wouldn’t vote for BHO, I’d rather vote for a third party candidate.
cinemablend.com/pop/Analyzing-Marriage-Vow-Why-I-Won-t-Vote-Any-Candidate-Who-Signs-It-33377.html
This article pretty much states my view on the matter.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Sounds like black families were doing just fine until liberals decided to jump in and use the government to “fix” all of their problems.

Economist Thomas Sowell has said regarding the War on Poverty policies:

* Black families disintegrated under a generous welfare system that subsidized unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life.
* Government housing projects created for the poor degenerated quickly into violent slums, trapping countless families in a life of misery and despair.

ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=540

In his essay The War on Poverty economist Dr. Thomas Sowell, makes his point on the War on Poverty:

“In the liberal vision, slums bred crime. But brand-new government housing projects almost immediately became new centers of crime and quickly degenerated into new slums. Many of these projects later had to be demolished. Unfortunately, the assumptions behind those projects were not demolished, but live on in other disastrous programs, such as Section 8 housing. Rates of teenage pregnancy and venereal disease had been going down for years before the new 1960s attitudes toward sex spread rapidly through the schools, helped by War on Poverty money. These downward trends suddenly reversed and skyrocketed. The murder rate had also been going down, for decades, and in 1960 was just under half of what it had been in 1934. Then the new 1960s policies toward curing the “root causes” of crime and creating new “rights” for criminals began. Rates of violent crime, including murder, skyrocketed. The Black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination, began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that subsidized unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life.”

 

[_Abyssinia]

Check the accuracy of the headlines on some of your frequent threads.

You mean LifeNews, they are usually accurate.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Conservative Group Removes Slavery Language From Marriage Pledge Amid Controversy

Responding to a growing controversy, an Iowa-based conservative group has removed a passage in a marriage pact signed by two GOP presidential candidates that suggested black families were in better shape during slavery.

“After careful deliberation and wise insight and (name removed by moderator)ut from valued colleagues we deeply respect, we agree that the statement referencing children born into slavery can be misconstrued, and such misconstruction can detract from the core message of the Marriage Vow: that ALL of us must work to strengthen and support families and marriages between one woman and one man," said Bob Vander Plaats, head of The Family Leader.

"We sincerely apologize for any negative feelings this has caused, and have removed the language from the vow, " added Vander Plaats, who is known as a king maker in Iowa.

Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum signed the two-page document entitled “The Marriage Vow - A Declaration of Dependence Upon Marriage and Family,” on Thursday, but their campaigns emphasized that the “candidate vow” portion of the pledge that they put their stamps of approval on didn’t mention slavery. Instead, it condemned gay marriage, abortion, infidelity and pornography.

The most controversial passage was in the opening statement on the first page of the document, which compared the state of the black family in the slave era to today.

“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,” the opening statement reads.

**It’s not clear whether Bachmann was aware of the slavery passage on the first page. Alice Stewart, a spokeswoman for the Bachmann campaign, had told FoxNews.com that the Minnesota congresswoman had no second thoughts about signing the “candidate vow” portion that doesn’t mention slavery.

“She stands by the points that are outlined in the pledge,” she said. “Particularly the ones for strong marriage. She’s been happily married for 32 years. That’s the focus of the pledge.”
**
But some commentators focused their criticism on the slavery passage.

“Given that families were broken up regularly for sales during slavery and that rape by masters was pretty common, this could not be more offensive,” Cheryl Contee wrote on her blog, Jack and Jill Politics, which offers a middle class African-American take on politics.

“When will Republicans inquire with actual Black people whether or now we’re ok with invoking slavery to score cheap political points?” she added. “It has to stop. It is the opposite of persuasive and is another reason Republicans repel. It’s hard to believe that Michele Bachmann would be foolish enough to sign this pledge.”

**It’s not clear whether Santorum was aware of the slavery passage when he signed the pledge. But he has invited controversy before by linking slavery to abortion. **

In January, he questioned why Obama is denying civil rights to fetuses by supporting abortion rights. He told the Christian Broadcasting Network that for decades, slavery allowed blacks to be treated like property. He said fetuses are denied the right to life because they are considered property.

Read more: foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/09/bachmann-stands-by-marriage-pledge-that-links-slavery-to-black-family-values/#ixzz1Rou2HmBG

It is not clear whether Santorum or Bachmann knew of the slavery passage before signing the pledge.

 

[Ahimsa]

Apparantly the 1860 date was a mistake…

It does not appear

I should hope not!

 

[agnes_therese]

Where did they state that black children were better off?

Even with the possibility of being bought and sold like furniture the black family unit was more likely to be “whole” in the time of slavery than today. Quite trying to add something that isn’t there.

I’m not adding something that isn’t there. You have every right to believe that being a “whole family” while owned by someone else is better than being in a single-parent family that is recognized as human. But I don’t have to agree.