One of the most comforting parts about writing about the many facets of racial strife in America is the reality that I’m rarely at a loss for material. Unfortunately, it appears that the same cast of characters reappear with different degrees of foolishness. Earlier today, I penned a warning regarding the idiotic thinking of Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas); I never imagined that I would be addressing this imbecile at the latter portion of the same day. Yet, here we are.

I have chosen to revisit this matter because I consider it as dangerous, if not more than the murder of black people in American streets.

Just in case you missed it, Senator Cotton has doubled down on his efforts to “Make American School Curriculums Great Again” by offering the following quote to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

We have to study the history of slavery and its role and impact on the development of our country because otherwise, we can’t understand our country. As the Founding Fathers said, it was the necessary evil upon which the union was built.

I have always subscribed to the belief that if you listen long enough, a fool will always reveal their foolish ways. Senator Tom Cotton perfectly fits this description.

As I mentioned in the earlier post, there is an element of truth found in Senator Cotton’s reasoning regarding the importance of history. He offers a similar truism in the above quote. I have no problem with his contention that

We have to study the history of slavery and its role and impact on the development of our country because otherwise we can’t understand our country.

My issue with Cotton and those who agree with his infantile understanding of history and even worse application of logic is that they are not interested in studying the central role of slavery in the development of America. His kind are seeking to explain away black economic exploitation, physical misery, and elongated racial inequality by crafting an opportunistic narrative that borders on lunacy. Such people are seeking to equivocate and use half-witted logic to simultaneously deny or severely downplay the African Holocaust, an event that exceeds all other human atrocities on the planet, while celebrating the perpetrators as “Founding Fathers.”

Let me be clear on this matter, the British colonies would not have flourished without the labor of stolen Africans, Thomas Jefferson is a hypocrite and a rapist for penning the words that “All men are created equal” in the daylight and continuing his status as not only a slaveowner by night but also a rapist who victimized Sally Hemings for decades. Trust that I could go on and on regarding the atrocities that the “Founding Fathers” perpetrated against people of color on behalf of their God. Yet, I am going to step aside and allow Frederick Douglass, a figure who experienced what Senator Tom Cotton considers a necessary evil address this matter.

If provided the opportunity I am certain that Frederick Douglass would inform Senator Cotton that his equivocating and desire to silence black voices is not only nothing new, but also aimed at creating

a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. Go where you may, search where you will, roam through

all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every

abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this

nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns

without a rival . . .

There is really nothing more than needs to be said about Senator Tom Cotton’s dastardly attempt to relegate the greatest genocide known to mankind the level of a “necessary evil.”

Dr. James Thomas Jones III

© Manhood, Race, and Culture, 2020.