Tucker Carlson’s Strange Attempt to Condemn Slavery

Last updated on: August 23, 2017 at 10:08 am by Libby Anne

Tucker Carlson’s Strange Attempt to Condemn Slavery 2017-08-23T10:08:32-04:00 Libby Anne

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A Facebook friend captured this moment on Fox News this week:

20882843_10155711196729791_5258568475035077768_n

Tucker Carlson stands by text boxes labeled “Tucker’s Thoughts”:

Slavery is evil

Until 150 yrs ago, slavery was rule

Plato, Muhammad, Aztecs all owned slaves

Slaveholding common among North American Indians

I know this game. I’ve played it before, opposite people like Carlson. I played it most recently just last week, actually, when a relative stated that the African slaves brought to the U.S. were sold to white slavers by other Africans. The problem is not that this is untrue. The problem is not that it is untrue that the Aztecs or Native Americans owned slaves. The problem is that these comments are typically made disingenuously, in the interest of scoring points and not in the interest of better understanding an issue.

Carlson’s comments are especially disingenuous.

Let me start with an admitted nitpick: Carlson’s claim that slavery was the “rule” until 150 years ago. Yes, the Civil War ended 152 years ago. However, slavery was banned in the northern U.S. states decades before this, and in Great Britain in 1833. Indeed, most Western European nations banned slavery prior to 150 years ago—and many other countries banned slavery years after slavery ended in the U.S. Carlson’s statement that “slavery was rule” until 150 years ago assumes the world revolves around the U.S.

What of Carlson’s statement that Plato, Muhammad, the Aztecs, and Native Americans owned slaves? The problem here is twofold. First, it reads as excuse-making. Remember the context: this coverage came immediately after a Nazi and KKK rally. There was no reason to follow “slavery is evil” with a laundry list of other groups who also owned slaves.

It’s a sort of “you also” statement. They did it too!

But second, Carlson’s bullet-point list erases the differences in how slavery has been practiced in different cultures and at different times. Slavery has not always looked the same in every group and at every period.

Slavery in the American colonies was not initially generational—at one point, a slave’s children were born free. This was also how slavery was practiced among the Aztecs, and in much of Africa. People were not typically born into slavery, generation after generation. In fact, it was not initially clear in the colonies that slavery was for life rather than for a period of years (another way slavery has been practiced around the world). These questions were answered in the colonies’ evolving legal codes.

Initially, black slaves in the American colonies worked alongside white indentured servants, bound to servitude for a period of years. Slaves and indentured servants ran away from their masters together, and freed slaves went on to own white indentured servants. At the same time, there were Chinese slaves and Indian slaves in Portugal, and European slaves in the Ottoman Empire. Slavery and servitude crossed lines of color.

Prior to the antebellum period, slavery typically took place independent from any idea that the enslaved were racially inferior to those who enslaved them. Slaves were taken in war, or enslaved due to debt. Being a slave was seen as an unfortunate product of one’s circumstances, not something inscribed in one’s genes. By the antebellum period, however, black slaves were seen as mentally inferior, not capable of governing themselves, and even created for enslavement by God himself.

Perhaps the problem is with the terms “slavery” and “slave.” We use these terms to reference very different practices. What it meant to be a slave in the antebellum South was drastically and substantively different from what it meant to be a slave among the Aztecs, but we use the same word—“slave”—to describe each. Being a slave in Virginia in 1620 was completely different from being a slave in Virginia in 1820—and yet we use the same term for each.

Statements like Carlson’s obfuscate all of this in what reads like a deliberate effort to downplay the particular evil that was antebellum Slavery. Slavery as practiced in the antebellum South wasn’t par for the course. It wasn’t slavery as slavery had always been practiced. Antebellum slavery was different: It was race-based and generational.

It is perhaps unsurprising that Western nations banned slavery when they did (and not before). Antebellum slavery put the moral evil of slavery in stark relief.

I have a Patreon! Please support my writing!

Politics

history

slavery

Previous Post

August 22, 2017

You Cannot Be a Patriotic American and a Confederate

Next Post

August 24, 2017 Right-Wing Pastor Blames Obama and BLM for White Supremacism

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Atheism Evangelicalism/Fundamentalism Family Feminism Homeschool Meta Parenting Patriarchy Politics Purity Quiverfull Social Justice Uncategorized Worthwhile reads

Select a Month February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What did God put in Isaiah's mouth in his vision to cleanse his lips?

Select your answer to see how you score.

A burning coal Oil A scroll Honey