When the reporter persisted, Decker explained that her father—a preacher born around 1933, according to the Courier Journal, or 68 years after slavery was outlawed—was “born into poverty” and worked for free with his family on the property they lived on. (It’s unclear whether the adults were paid, though the Courier Journal notes that it sounds more like “Decker’s father was forced by his parents to do chores” and that the family were tenant farmers.)
“My dad had to do chores when he was growing up 😭😭” - KY State Rep. Jennifer Decker
My father was born on a dirt farm in Lincoln County. His mother was the illegitimate daughter of a very prominent person who then was kind enough to allow them to work for him as slaves. So, if you’re asking, did we own slaves? My father was a slave, just to a white man and he was white.
I wish the Courier Journal had simply asked her, "was your father able to leave whenever he wanted?"
There were landowners who were abusive to their tenant farmers, or her dad could even have grown up in a sharecropper family. You know what eventually ended sharecropping and tenant farmers? FDR's New Deal. She should study history more.
“My father was born on a dirt farm in Lincoln County. His mother was the illegitimate daughter of a very prominent person who then was kind enough to allow them to work for him as slaves. So, if you’re asking, did we own slaves? My father was a slave, just to a white man and he was white.”
This is the best response to this. Slavery is kind of at that "Hitler point". Like, if you don't like somebody they're literally Hitler. If you had hardships it's literally slavery.
No folks, you don't have to have the most extreme take to bring legitimacy to a problem. In fact, it really invalidates your point.
I mean, the argument that there are/were white slaves does have some merit, but I wouldn't expect any of these people to either A) know about it or B) argue it in good faith.
Big difference between allowing someone to work on your farm, vs owning someone and forcing them to work and they can’t leave. What a total piece of shit with a dumbass false equivalency.