Senator Tom Cotton has just out-Trumped Trump, calling slavery “a necessary evil” that allowed America to develop, and he wants to retaliate against schools that teach the real history of slavery.
The Republican Senator from Arkansas put it this way … “As the Founding Fathers said, it was the necessary evil upon which the union was built, but the union was built in a way, as Lincoln said, to put slavery on the course to its ultimate extinction.”
So, in essence, what he’s saying is that slavery was needed because it served a purpose but the plan was to eventually end it.
It gets even more outrageous. Cotton wants to withhold federal funds from public schools that promote an initiative by the New York Times called the 1619 Project. It was established in 2019 to mark the 400th anniversary of African slaves coming to America. The point of the project is to tell the real story of slavery and the contributions of African Americans … something public schools don’t do at all.
Cotton says he rejects the notion systemic racism in America is engrained in America from the beginning to the present … something that otherwise seems firmly established.
The Senator has called the sentiment attributed to him “fake news” … “I said that the Founders viewed slavery as a necessary evil.” You decide if his quote embraces the sentiment.