Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam slammed for referring to 'first indentured servants from Africa' instead

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Last edited Mon Feb 11, 2019, 08:48 PM - Edit history (1)

Embattled Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam's media apology tour is off to a rough start.

Northam went on "CBS This Morning" in an interview that aired Monday in an effort to save his political career after reporters uncovered a racist photo on his medical school yearbook page.

At the top of the interview, Northam referred to "the first indentured servants from Africa" who arrived in Virginia, and is now facing backlash from critics accusing him of minimizing historic horrors with a euphemism for slavery.

"Well, it has been a difficult week," Northam said after the first question from CBS' Gayle King. "If you look at Virginia's history, we're now at the 400-year anniversary – just 90 miles from here, in 1619, the first indentured servants from Africa landed on our shores."

-snip-

Commentators on social media sharply criticized his reference to indentured servants.

"Words like 'Indentured servant' is how people try to erase the pain and horrors of slavery. It is how they think it harmless to wear blackface. @RalphNortham is done. If he won’t resign, he needs to be forced out," author Julissa Arce tweeted.

But others defended Northam and said he was correct about the status of the Africans who arrived in Virginia in 1619.

"Folks, learn your damn history. Northam is correct. First black Africans brought to Virginia in 1619 were indentured servants. @GayleKing is wrong. There were no laws for slavery in VA til 1661. The evolution from IS to slavery is essential to understand depth of evil of slavery," author Kurt Eichenwald tweeted.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/virginia-gov-ralph-northam-slammed-for-referring-to-first-indentured-servants-from-africa-instead-of-slaves/ar-BBTrABm?li=BBnb7Kz

Not the first time I've heard this. Some 45 years ago during my Junior year of high school my U.S. History teacher said the same.

[procon]

1. This guy is a idiot, there's no way he can

redeem himself when he's so badly disconnected from history, culture, politics, current events and the world around him.

It's like he's the storybook character Rip van Winkle who just woke up to discover that black people really do exist and now he doesn't know what to do with them. These cringeworthy gaffs are so ridiculously bad that they deserve a facepalm mention for ignorance.

[RockRaven]

2. It's an own-goal by not being prepared to address this topic in a way which avoids this controversy.

In regards to 1619 he was using the "correct" terminology vis-a-vis Virginia, but in a sense they weren't "indentured servants" until the moment they landed. From their experience's perspective, and in the eyes of the Dutch and Spanish, they were chattel, not indentured servants, whilst being transported across the Atlantic.

From Wikipedia:
"The first 19 or so Africans to reach the English colonies arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619, brought by Dutch traders who had seized them from a captured Spanish slave ship. The Spanish usually baptized slaves in Africa before embarking them. As English custom then considered baptized Christians exempt from slavery, colonists treated these Africans as indentured servants, and they joined about 1,000 English indentured servants already in the colony. The Africans were freed after a prescribed period and given the use of land and supplies by their former masters."

[loyalsister]

4. Any and all importation of humans

is part of the foundation for slavery in the US. It's dishonest to try to disconnect any part of a system that relied on even the slightest degree of forced labor arrangements from the economic trade of humans for labor.

[underpants]

3. He was correct

[DonCoquixote]

5. I knew someone would say he was right

(sigh), even here, the idiots come out and wave the white sheets they ha dot keep hidden.

a white indentured servant had hope of freedom, the black ones rarely, if ever did.