
<p>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.</p>



<p>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.</p>



<p>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. ; ;</p>



<p>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. ; ;</p>



<p>(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.)</p>



<p>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.</p>



<p>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.</p>



<p>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.</p>



<p>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.</p>



<p>In free states, Negroes were counted as people for the purpose of determining congressional representation. The Compromise actually <strong>reduced </strong>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.</p>



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



<p>That is where you see Velshi’s ignorance or his prevarication. ; The very purpose of the 3/5ths provision was to <strong>REDUCE</strong> the number of legislators from slave-owning states – <strong>to weaken their power</strong>. 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. ; ;</p>



<p>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.</p>



<p>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:</p>



<p>“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:</p>



<p><em>‘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’.”</em></p>



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



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



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



<p>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.</p>



<p>So, there ‘tis.</p>

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