Richard Land – History His Way

Richard Land… incase you don’t know who he is, he is the president of Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina. Dr Richard Land also was the former president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. He stepped down after he was caught plagerizing articles and for his racist remarks. He is also a crazed homophobe, but that’s not the reason for this post.

Take a listen to this sound byte that a friend sent to me earlier today.

Ok now, let’s pick this a part shall we?

Movies and books like Dinesh D’Souza’s book ‘America’ are so important because if you are younger than forty and you’ve been taught in the public schools, you have not learned the real story of America.

First off, we all have been lied to anyway! First of all, you can’t discover a place people are already living.. that is like me going into your yard, walking up to your porch and claiming that your house is now mine because I “just discovered it”.

Also, it’s fact that the Vikings (Leif Erikson to be exact) showed up to the America’s long before Columbus and crew made a wrong turn to the “West Indes”, by almost 500 years! Columbus came here in 1492, Leif and the crew showed up in 1001. By the way, in case you didn’t know, October 9th is Leif Erikson Day. In 1964 the United States Congress authorized and requested the president to do this long after the State of Wisconsin passed it in 1929. So the reality of it all, Leif Erikson and friends were the first white people to step foot on the Americas, and meet us aboriginals.

Another thing we aren’t taught in school.. Christopher Columbus was also a slave trader. Not only did he document it in his own journals, Bartolome de Las Casas, a Catholic priest traveling with Columbus documented this intel in his journals too…. just saying.

Just a few of the many facts we are taught wrong in school… I will leave that for another post.

Ok, let’s continue with more Richard Land spew shall we?

You have been taught a lie about America as a colonial power, as a rapacious power. As Dinesh points out, we ended slavery, we didn’t bring slavery to North America. Slavery was there, the Native Americans were enslaving each other before we got here.

Uhhh… what? This dude has been smoking some REALLY GREAT STUFF! Talk about “Passin the buck, passin the bowl”!

Ok I would like to now direct your attention to The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade website.

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database has information on more than 35,000 slave voyages that forcibly embarked over 12 million Africans for transport to the
Americas between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. It offers researchers, students and the general public a chance to rediscover the reality of one of the largest forced movements of peoples in world history. ===== From the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade Database.

When you look at the tables of facts below, you can see this spew that is coming out of Richard Land’s mouth is absurd! An estimated 305,326 Africans embarked on a slave ship bound for NORTH America, and sadly, many died on their journey. (Estimated 252,653 disembarked). Remember, this is only an ESTIMATE! There are ships that the site states have no actual manifests. I am sure due to this the numbers are much higher. Click the graph to look at it larger.

Another fact for you, according to the 1860 census, at the time of the Civil War, around 4 million people lived as slaves!

Now, I am going to touch on that subject about Native Americans and slaves.

Most Native American tribal groups practiced some form of slavery before the European introduction of African slavery into North America; but none exploited slave labor on a large scale. Indian groups frequently enslaved war captives whom they used for small-scale labor and in ritual sacrifice. Most of these so-called Indian slaves tended to live, however, on the fringes of Indian society. Although not much is known about them, there is little evidence that they were considered racially inferior to the Indians who held power over them. Nor did Indians buy and sell captives in the pre-colonial era, although they sometimes exchanged enslaved Indians with other tribes in peace gestures or in exchange for their own members. In fact, the word “slave” may not even accurately apply to these captive people.

— Taken from Slavery In America, you can read the rest of the article over there.
Another interesting factoid for you to read about Native Americans and Slavery.

Continuing on with the history his way from Richard Land:

Eventually, we ended slavery.

Correct me if I am wrong, it wasn’t until the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution that slavery was abolished in the U.S. The Senate passed this April 8, 1864, the House, January 31, 1865 and it was officially adopted and proclaimed December 18, 1865. So the only REAL fact that spewed out of Richard Land’s mouth during that sound byte is that Americans did end it.. 200 years after they started it…

Knowing that they didn’t come to the US on their own free will, having that many enslaved people in the country at that time (200 years after our forefathers started ripping them from their homeland) they had to get to North America somehow, and yes, it was the colonists that did it. Certainly wasn’t them “Injuns”… (Note: I am Native American, and yes I know this is a derogatory name for us, but in context of this article it seemed fitting, especially after we got the blame for the slave trade in North America).

And finally:

We have been a civilizing influence in the world.

Yep… Wounded Knee, Trail of Tears… and in this last 100 years, No Gun Ri, Korea, My Lai, Vietnam, Abu Ghraib, Iraq… yep.. that’s civilized…..

So in closing, Dr Richard Land, please put the bong down… history your way doesn’t work for the rest of us. The intelligent people of the world know the truth and will not bow down to your “suits my needs” version of history.

And with that, I am proud to give you the Chronically Moronic and Perpetually Stunned award, because Sir, you are.