MSNBC’s Velshi spreads misinformation about black history (BHM – Part 3)

This is the second commentary in an open-ended serious in celebration of Black History Month.  Not only is the full story of black history not being told in the current culture, but there is the spread of disinformation.  This commentary deals with one such example.

Ali Velshi is one of MSNBC’s more insidious propagandists.  He not only deals in selective information to build his mendacious narratives, he outright misinforms … lies.  He has done it again in dealing with Black History Month – this time addressing the 3/5ths provision in the Constitution.

You may recall – but probably not – that the Constitution originally provided that for the purpose of the census, slaves would be counted as 3/5ths of a person.  

Velshi quoted from a book “South to America” by Professor Imani Perry to explain the 3/5ths issue.  Of course, Velshi was totally wrong because the good professor’s explanation was without basis in the real history.  It was, at best, Perry’s opinion – and not an informed one, to be sure.  

(A little background on Perry.  She was stopped for speeding and was found to have a suspended license for failure to pay a previous ticket.  She claims she was targeted for being black.  The police cam and the facts said otherwise.  It appears the good professor is one of those fraudulent victim types.  That may explain her baseless opinions expressed in the book. The fact that Perry is a professor molding the minds of impressionable kids is scary, but that is a much larger issue suitable for a future commentary.  But I digress.)

Perry claims that virtually all the previous historic writing about the 3/5ths provision is wrong.  Only she has the correct explanation.  In her book, Perry writes that it is NOT about the representation of slaves in Congress.  Well Duh.  Of course not.  Slaves were NOT represented in Congress, in state legislatures or anywhere else in government.  They were considered property for most purposes.

Rather Perry argues that the 3/5ths Compromise was to make white folks more valuable – giving them dominion over the slaves.  The Compromise was created to completely nullify slaves – to establish that white folks were completely superior to blacks – that they count for MORE in terms of representation.  Nothing in the historic record substantiates Perry’s cockamamie theory.  But that did not keep Velshi from embracing uncritically.

While slaves were not entitled to representation, the southern politicians wanted them counted for the purpose of their respective states’ representation in Congress.  The more people the more members of Congress a state gets.  The southern Democrats did not want them counted at all for the purpose of taxation – arguing that they were property not people.  Not even 3/5ths of a person for accounting purposes.  But, when it came to representation in Congress, they wanted slaves counted as people.

Weeell … as you can imagine, the free-states folks saw through the hypocrisy immediately – and said that if you say slaves are property – and not counted – when it comes to paying taxes to the federal government, then they do not count as people for the purpose of distributing congressional seats among the states.  After a lot of heated debate, the 3/5ths Compromise was agreed to.

In free states, Negroes were counted as people for the purpose of determining congressional representation. The Compromise actually reduced the power of the Democrat white establishment in the southern states.  In terms of congressional representation, a white person in a slave state was less “valuable” than a white person in a free state.

Despite that fact, Velshi went further to say, “making black people worth 3/5ths of a person allowed for MORE representation in Congress for slave states.”  And he added that, “The enslavers were able to use the people they kept in bondage to tighten their grip on power in the federal government.” 

That is where you see Velshi’s ignorance or his prevarication.  The very purpose of the 3/5ths provision was to REDUCE the number of legislators from slave-owning states – to weaken their power. Obviously, Velshi is ignorant of the history he reflects on his show, or he is lying to reinforce his own propagandized views with utterly false information.  

This is the kind of shoddy black history you get from the radical left.  And while Velshi may just be a dupe in this matter, Professor Perry should know better.  She studied it – and wrote a book spewing false information.  She is promoting false white supremacy and creating division.

As I indicated in the opening commentary, I would occasionally draw on portions of my manuscript.  This is one of those occasions.  From the manuscript:

“The myth that the Three-Fifths Compromise was racially motivated is widely held today – especially in black communities.  This is despite the 1860 explanation by prominent black abolitionist Frederick Douglass.  In explaining the Three-Fifths Compromise, Douglass said:

‘It is a downright disability laid upon the slaveholding states; on which deprives those States of two-fifths of their natural basis of representation.  A black man in a free State is worth just two-fifths more than a black man in a slave State, as a basis of political power under the Constitution.  Therefore, instead of encouraging slavery, the Constitution encourages freedom by giving an increase of two-fifths of political power to free over slave States.  So much for the three-fifths clause; taking it at its worst, it still leans to freedom, not to slavery’.”

Did you get that?  Taking the 3/5ths compromise at its worse “it leans to freedom, not slavery.

Douglass went on to argue that were it not for the 3/5^ths Compromise – and the added strength it would have given the slave-owning states in Congress, slavery, itself, may have carried on for much longer.

The Velshi/Perry version of the 3/5ths Compromise is 100 percent wrong … an exercise in disinformation … indoctrination over education.  

The pop version of black history is riddled with such inaccuracies – and with academic sins of omission. The Democrat version of black history is too often founded on political propaganda – and Velshi is a pusher of that propaganda.  For my part, I will take Frederick Douglass (and the historic record) over Perry and Velshi.

So, there ‘tis.