Reuters helpfully checks Congress for slaveholding ancestors

Well, isn’t THIS fun! It’s like an episode of “Finding Your Roots,” only no one asked them to do it.

And go figure.

Couldn’t possibly be an ulterior motive, could there?

Then, when a Reuters rep contacts a justice, senator or congressman to say, “We’re here to tell you, hundred and fifty or so years ago your family owned slaves, whether you knew it or not. HAH! HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT?!?” Why, their noses are all out of joint when a majority – something like 67 out of the 100 they contacted – doesn’t want to talk about it.

“Few were willing to discuss the subject: Only a quarter of those identified as having slaveholding ancestors offered any comment to Reuters.” And why not??? More than 100 U.S. political elites have family links to slavery https://t.co/hSTTwbHdqm

— Schemin’ for Justice (@BrooksRakim) June 27, 2023

Go. Figure.

A blind man could see this setting up. Even as they use a Henry Louis Gates Jr. (host of the aforementioned, fascinating “Finding Your Roots” program) quote, repeating that people are not responsible for the sins of their ancestors…

…Gates said identifying those familial connections to slaveholders is “not another chapter in the blame game. We do not inherit guilt for our ancestors’ actions.”

…Reuters takes right off asserting that these descendants of “enslavers” really should be answering for how that ancestry affects their governing and race perceptions.

…The Reuters examination is different. It focuses on the most powerful U.S. officeholders of today, many of whom have staked key positions on policies related to race. It reveals for the first time, in breadth and in detail, the extent of those leaders’ ancestral connections to what’s commonly called America’s “original sin.” And it explores what it may mean for them to learn – in personal, specific and sometimes graphic ways – the facts behind their own kin’s part in slavery.

Few were willing to discuss the subject: Only a quarter of those identified as having slaveholding ancestors offered any comment to Reuters. Among the silent are politicians who previously have spoken publicly, sometimes eloquently, about the legacy of slavery and the need for racial healing. The reticence underscores the enduring sensitivity of slavery as a political issue, an unease that genealogist Burroughs suggests is greatly amplified for many people when one’s own kin are linked to the brutal institution.

“You probably have a lot of people who are struggling” to process the information about their families, said Burroughs. He said the granular detail Reuters provided the leaders – names, places and circumstances linking their families to slavery – makes the information especially powerful. “But it’s hard for them to be in denial when they have the specific facts in front of them.”

The Reuters team is damn proud of their gotcha, and they want the lawmakers squirming under the stigma of deeds done by people who have been dead for centuries.

Especially if they’re Republicans.

…Reuters found that at least 8% of Democrats in the last Congress and 28% of Republicans have such ancestors. The preponderance of Republicans reflects the party’s strength in the South, where slavery was concentrated. Although white people enslaved Black people across Northern states in early America, by the eve of the Civil War, slavery was almost entirely a Southern enterprise.

I really enjoyed that clever wordsmithing there – Republicans reflect the party’s “strength in the South, where slavery was concentrated” with the implication plain as the nose on Lincoln’s face. How many Democrats, wallowing in their ignorance to this day, think Lincoln was a Democrat and every Confederate/KKK member a Republican? And here is an “respected, unbiased news” organization letting that hang out there in the wind.

Of the presidents who tested positive for ancestral enslavers, it had to torch some shorts that Obama was a positive and, out of all of the modern era presidents, Donald Trump was the ONLY negative. That’s a frickin’ hoot.

The one thing the press can’t try to nail Trump for is owning slaves.

Then there’s the real problem of the not-so-subtle little nudges of intimidation throughout the entire piece.

…The new insights into the political elite’s ancestral links to slavery come at a time of renewed and intense debate about the meaning of the institution’s legacy and what, if anything, lawmakers should do about it.

THE NEW INSIGHTS no one asked for helpfully brought to you just because, followed by reminders of GEORGE FLOYD! REPARATIONS! BLM! CONFEDERATE MONUMENTS! Don’t forget, Republicans who don’t want any special carve-outs for anyone.

Did we tell you how many GOP members were enslavers of human beings back in the day? Let us draw you a picture in granular detail.

If what their ancestors did for a living gets out, you know…well…might make a difference how the voting public looks at them, JUST SAYIN’.

…A Reuters/Ipsos poll for this report suggests that a politician’s links to slavery might sway some voters. In a national survey, almost a quarter of respondents – 23% – said knowing that a candidate’s ancestors enslaved people would make them less likely to vote for that candidate. That number rose to 31% among respondents who identified as Democrats, and 35% among Black respondents. What’s unclear is how significant the topic is compared to race relations more broadly or other hot-button issues such as abortion.

And it’s not Reuters’ fault these scurrilous people exist in the backgrounds of mostly Republicans. We’re just here with the facts.

…The White House had no comment on the efforts by the activist groups or on Biden’s ancestral ties to slavery. The president’s great-great-great-grandfather enslaved a 14-year-old boy in 1850, census records show.

None of the 118 leaders identified by Reuters disputed the findings that at least one of their ancestors had enslaved people. In a letter describing the project to them, Reuters made clear that it was not suggesting they were “personally responsible for the actions of ancestors who lived 160 or more years ago.” Even so, few leaders were willing to discuss their family ties to slavery.

Reporters contacted each of the 100 current or former members of Congress and the 18 presidents, governors or justices, providing the letter along with a family tree and documents showing their ancestral link to a slaveholding forebear. Many were contacted multiple times, by email and phone, in office visits and by certified mail or FedEx.

The team doing the research no one asked for which has zero bearing on anything centuries later also dogged the crap out of the non-participants attempting to get some sort of reaction.

Helpfully, they have a sort of Hall of Silence and Shame section with examples of lawmakers who didn’t feel like emoting to repeated Reuters’ requests, no matter how many times they contacted them. And believe me, the little pissy fitters at Reuters – in the interest of pure journalism – let you know how many times.

WAAH

There is one redeeming – okay, two redeeming nuggets in this virtue-signaling hit piece, which is basically how I look at it.

The first is that Reuters has nakedly exposed both themselves and the shameless pursuit of their agenda yet again. So, what, right?

I know, but there it is.

The second is a really helpful genealogical prompt if you can stomach the whole piece to get to it. For families who might have slave records still in a trunk or box of ancient hand-me-down family papers and are of a mind, upload those to a public site like Ancestry, or find one that’s open source, vice subscription. There are lots of serious ancestor diggers who run into a dead end (no pun intended) (okay, maybe a little one) if they have enslaved or indentured ancestors, and those records aren’t available. It can be a big help to another family and you learn tons digging through those papers yourselves. I love ours.

For now, I anticipate this “reporting” will be weaponized exactly as they intended it to be.

Every single Republican should be well prepared to counterattack in granular detail, to wit:

“Wasn’t me. Next question?”