I included the response I would have sent, were the thread not locked. This is how coward libs argue. They're calling the well-known study by Purdue demonstrating that the US is a oligarchy a "far left news source", for context.

    • KurtVonnegut [comrade/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      The Madison story sounds improbable at first, but the overwhelming amount of evidence of slave owners taking advantage of their female slaves (especially part-white slaves) makes it much more believable. I mean, Jefferson's black descendants actually do have solid DNA evidence on their side, so Madison wouldn't be the first president to be a documented r*pist. Sally Hemmings was 15 when that started, BTW.

      • Biggay [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Jefferson was also really gross in describing black women as ideal too or something right? LIke in his personal diaries I remember hearing there were some weird shit he wrote about it.

        • KurtVonnegut [comrade/them]
          ·
          1 year ago

          Well, Sally Hemmings was only 1/4 black and 3/4 white, and her children were 1/8 black and 7/8 white, but because of America's racist laws and cultural attitudes, they were all seen as "black" and all were enslaved. Jefferson was publicly against slavery, but also did nothing to actively fight against it, unlike Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine, who were both part of the Pennsylvania abolitionist society. (Pennsylvania had a lot of anti-slavery Quakers even before 1776.) Jefferson viewed himself as a progressive liberal, much like the French Jacobins. He even started a nailery at Monticello and pitted slaves against each other in a "free market" competition. Slaves who made more nails there were rewarded with nice clothes, management positions at the plantation, etc. Slaves who made less nails were whipped. By the way, most of the slaves who worked in the nailery were children! Here's a link for more reading: https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/nailery/