Slavery was 'necessary evil,' claims U.S. senator who also called for state violence last month
A U.S. senator, who penned a column advocating for state violence against anti-racism protesters, is now saying American slavery was a “necessary evil upon which the nation was built.”
The statements from Republican Sen. Tom Cotton come after the New York Times pushed for a reframing of how schools teach the nation’s founding, creating new curriculums targeted for primary and secondary schools.
In schools, the year 1776 is labelled as the country’s official birthdate, however the Times’ 1619 Project, reframes the birth of the nation as when the first slave ships sailed onto American shores, whereby those Black slaves were forced to build America.
Cotton last week introduced legislation that would cut federal funding for the program, which won a Pulitzer prize for commentary.
“The entire premise of the New York Times’ factually, historically flawed 1619 Project… is that America is at root, a systemically racist country to the core and irredeemable,” Senator Cotton said.
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“I reject that root and branch. America is a great and noble country founded on the proposition that all mankind is created equal. We have always struggled to live up to that promise, but no country has ever done more to achieve it.”
The journalist and creator of the project responded back to Cotton’s comments on Twitter. “I f chattel slavery — heritable, generational, permanent, race-based slavery where it was legal to rape, torture, and sell human beings for profit — were a “necessary evil” as (Sen. Tom Cotton) says, it’s hard to imagine what cannot be justified if it is a means to an end,” Nicole Hanna-Jones tweeted.
More lies from the debunked 1619 Project.
Describing the *views of the Founders* and how they put the evil institution on a path to extinction, a point frequently made by Lincoln, is not endorsing or justifying slavery.
No surprise that the 1619 Project can't get facts right. https://t.co/nLsb73X3Gi
— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) July 26, 2020
In June, the New York Times gave Cotton their platform, where he advocated for the state’s use of military violence to quell protesters at growing anti-racism protests across the country.
The protests ensued following the death of George Floyd, a Black man who suffocated to death by the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer.
Cotton’s editorial, titled “Send in the Troops,” ignited emotions, not only from readers, but from racialized journalists at the New York Times, who interpreted the column as advocating actions that would put protestors and reporters in danger.
The column ultimately resulted in the resignation of several high-profile opinion editors at the paper, including James Bennet and Bari Weiss and the paper’s publisher admitted there was a “significant breakdown in (the) editing processes.”
