So (as ever, in truly ironic fashion) — leave it to the Powerline boys to purport to stand as would-be judges of people who are less than proud of their ancestors. The back story, without Scott’s deceptive re-editing, then:
In this case, Angela Davis — the celebrated academic, activist and Black Historian has learned from Skip Gates that she is a direct lineal descendent (on the whyte side of her family, of course) from a man most regard as the founding elder of the Plymouth colony — one William Brewster, who sailed on the Mayflower… and from his sons’ sons, who fought in the Revolutionary War.
On video, she expressed both shock and dismay… and it seems she was quickly made aware that Brewster had brought two children (ages 6 and 8, respectively — and likely also whyte) as indentured servants, to the New World with him — against their biological mother’s wishes, as payment for a debt of supposed adultery. [It is unknown exactly from whom in the tangled Brewster trees… Dr. Davis descends.]
It is known that Brewster may have had at least three children technically out of wedlock (with a common law wife, apparently never married in a church) — thus illegitimate, in the eyes of what passed as government then in the 1590s to 1620s. [Bangs, Jeremy Dupertius (2012); The Mayflower Quarterly, vol. 78, no. 2 (June), p. 145.] Scott reports:
…Brewster took two of Samuel More’s children as indentured servants, but I don’t think we know of any crime he committed and Davis in my opinion has her own wrongdoing for which to atone….
So — again, Scott feels that Angela Davis is not allowed to express her own deep concern about how we all come to be… Americans — and about her own blood lines, newly revealed. And yet, Scott Johnson feels he may judge her, for charges she won a complete acquittal on — after a year in jail, in the early 1970s. That’s nearly a half-century ago, in her (and his) life.
Let that sink in. [As a later-bit of addendum, I wish to note that on the Black side of Angela Davis’ family, shortly after the Civil War, her direct lineal forebears filed a civil suit in rural Alabama, to win the unconditional release of three children — orphaned nephews and nieces, then being held in de facto slavery by the same plantation owner, a Mr. Pauling, who had held the brothers themselves for so long. The children were freed — to their uncles — after protracted litigation. That was in the early 1870s, during Reconstruction in the South. Then came… Jim Crow.]
But back to the main arc — Scott thinks… she should not be heard, on her concerns about how it is that children were stolen into the New World, and how she descends (at least in part from rape and genocide against people held in bondage)… and that she should stand and praise Brewster in full throat. [Thus his reference to Faulkner.]
All I glean from it… is that reactionary, old hard right embittered whyte Americans like Scott, And Steve And John (and yes Paul)… have learned very little in over six decades on the planet — about the value of letting each express their own… truths, as they see them.
What a pile of rubbish, Scott.
Rubbish.
Powerline Lies... 