In a book certain to ignite serious controversy, Arkansas State Rep. Jon Hubbard opines, among other things, that: slavery was a blessing for African Americans; integration hurt white people; and black people don’t appreciate education.
The Arkansas Times published some of the more incendiary statements from Hubbard’s 2009 book, “Letters to the Editor: Confessions of a Frustrated Conservative.” The book also includes a prediction of a national race war similar to what was seen in Nazi Germany.
Some of Hubbard’s most racially charged findings:
“… the institution of slavery that the black race has long believed to be an abomination upon its people may actually have been a blessing in disguise. The blacks who could endure those conditions and circumstances would someday be rewarded with citizenship in the greatest nation ever established upon the face of the Earth.” (Pages 183-89)
Hubbard asserts that one of the reasons black folks should be so happy to have been enslaved in the United States is because of how awful he says Africa is.
African Americans must “understand that even while in the throes of slavery, their lives as Americans are likely much better than they ever would have enjoyed living in sub-Saharan Africa.”
“Knowing what we know today about life on the African continent, would an existence spent in slavery have been any crueler than a life spent in sub-Saharan Africa?” (Pages 93 and 189)
Arkansas Republicans were quick to distance themselves from Hubbard’s views.
“The statements that have been reported portray attitudes and beliefs that would return our state and country to a harmful and regrettable past,” U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford, who represents northeast Arkansas, told the Associated Press.
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