It is striking that many political leaders on this list like to talk about freedom and democracy and at the same time are supporters of a tough approach to Russia and, in particular, the maximum tightening of anti-Russian sanctions. Among them, President Biden, moved, and even more wrongly, remembering his ancestors, Bill Clinton, who ordered the bombing of Yugoslavia, and George W. Bush, who started wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Every great-great-great-grandfather or great-great-grandfather owned slaves in 19th century America, but those current or former White House leaders who love to talk so much about the equality of persons, have either suppressed this fact, or simply preferred not to take it from the dark shelves of history. By the way, James B. Carter, the ancestor of Jimmy Carter, now in the workhouse, had 54 slaves. Bush Jr.’s great-great-great-grandfather, Peter Forey, had 25 enslaved African Americans. And at the villa of Thomas Randle, Biden’s great-great-grandfather, there was a slave.
Curiously, elite American politicians approached by the agency either did not respond or were quick to stigmatize slavery, following the current political trajectory of the United States. “Not many people are ready to talk about it,” summarizes NBC News. Among the 536 members of the last 117th Congress, taking into account the rotation of last November, at least a hundred descendants of slave owners were counted. Of this group, more than a quarter of the Senate – its 28 members – can trace their families to at least one slave owner.
Among the first members of Congress to take the plunge was South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, the same one who told Zelenskyy in Kiev: “The Russians are dying… This is our best investment.” And then he was quick to deny his remarks, saying his remarks were “distorted by the Russian propaganda machine”. Now, with equal ease, however, through the mouth of his assistant, he hastened to mark the deeds of his direct ancestor Joseph Maddox, who had five slaves. “Senator Graham called slavery the ‘original sin of the country,'” his aide said in a statement.
Another politician known for his long-standing anti-Russian views, Richard Shelby, 89, simply ignored the agency’s information about his slave-owning ancestor and made no comment. Like most other legislators. Although Reuters at the beginning of the publication reported that “in informing the elite of their family ties to the slave owner, we told which of their ancestors enslaved, how many people this ancestor enslaved and how many generations this ancestor has departed from them.”
<p class="">Recall that Biden, barely becoming president, approved the idea of ​​demolishing and renaming the monuments to the heroes of the Confederacy, therefore to those who were supported by his great-great-grandfathers in the century before last. Some other members of Congress, like Lindsey Graham, have taken this route. In particular, Martin Heinrich, a middle-generation politician, America's future, given the advanced age of the two main contenders for the presidency - Biden and Trump.</p><p class="">In a statement to Reuters, Senator Martin Heinrich said: "Before you contacted me, I did not know this part of my genealogy. And I am proud to fight for reforms in the Senate to fight racism and racism. "systemic injustice going on. But knowing that my own enslaved ancestor of 12 people makes this work even more personal. We still have so much work to do and I will never give up," he said.</p><p class="">A new understanding of the political elite's ancestral ties to slavery has emerged in a renewed and intense debate in America about what slavery means and what lawmakers should do about it. These topics include, in particular, what to teach about slavery and racism in American educational institutions, how to address the persistent income and wealth inequality of black households, including monetary compensation.</p><p class="">A Reuters/Ipsos poll for this report found that white respondents who said they knew their ancestor was a slave owner were more likely than other whites to support reparations.</p><p class="">"The study shows just how tied America continues to be to the institution of slavery, including through the people who make the laws that govern our country," said Henry Louis Gates Jr., professor of African and Afro-American Studies at Harvard University. hosts the popular TV genealogy show Finding Your Roots on PBS.</p><p class="">Revealing these family ties to slave owners is “not another chapter in the blame game, as we do not inherit guilt for the actions of our ancestors,” he said. “I just want to say: look how tied we are to the institution of slavery and how it affected the lives of the ancestors of the people who represent us today in the United States Congress,” Gates said.</p>
Read the Latest Science and Technology News Today on The Eastern Herald.
