On Tuesday's MSNBC Live, anchor Kate Snow hosted liberal political pundit Roland Martin of TV One to trash Dr. Ben Carson over his recent comments including African slaves among immigrants who traveled to America and faced hardships in the past. Martin -- who used to be a CNN political commentator -- called Dr. Carson's words "asinine," "idiotic," "stupid," and a "flat-out lie," and tried to link him to an alleged effort by conservatives to "soften" or "redefine" the history of slavery in America.
In spite of former President Barack Obama's own history of calling African slaves "immigrants," host Snow declared that Dr. Carson had "set off a firestorm" with his comments before showing a clip of the new HUD secretary. She then went to Martin who immediately trashed Dr. Carson as he began:
Well, it's stupid and asinine. The bottom line is Ben Carson -- as Politico is reporting -- has said this for a couple of decades using "immigrants." And it's simply a flat-out lie. It's false, and you simply can't compare the two. I can tell you, last night, when I heard his interview where he tried to clarify those comments on Armstrong Williams's radio show on Sirius XM Radio, I heard those and I said those were idiotic as well.
After asserting that comments Dr. Carson later posted on his Facebook page "made more sense," the liberal pundit then tried to tie Dr. Carson to supposed efforts by conservatives to lessen teaching about slavery from history books. Martin:
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But here's why this is even bigger than Ben Carson. You've seen the efforts in Texas to actually change the textbooks, where McGraw-Hill a couple of years ago published the books where they called slaves "workers brought in from Africa." You've seen the Tea Party in Tennessee wanting to move the fact that the Founding Fathers were slave owners from textbooks as well. So there is this effort by conservatives to somehow soften or redefine slavery, and that's why people are so offended by what Secretary Carson had to say.
His reference to Texas is based on two separate myths -- one of which began in 2010 when liberal activists in Texas distorted the re-wording of the state syllabus when the state board of education removed a redundant usage of the word "slave" and introduced a new term in a sentence that already contained the word "slavery."
The original text had read: "explain reasons for the development of the plantation system, the growth of the slave trade, and the spread of slavery," which was changed to "explain reasons for the development of the plantation system, the Atlantic triangular trade, and the spread of slavery." The term "Atlantic triangular trade" was an added term that referred to a larger trade pattern that included the slave trade as one of three components.
The second part of the myth originated in January 2012 after liberals objected to a sentence in a McGraw-Hill textbook that similarly had already used the term "slave trade" once before then using the word "workers" -- presumably to avoid repetition of the same word -- although "forced laborers" would have been a more appropriate synonym: "The Atlantic Slave Trade between the 1500s and 1800s brought millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations."
Brian Williams, Chris Matthews, and Stephanie Ruhle were other MSNBC anchors who joined CNN in highlighting the Carson story on Tuesday. Ruhle on MSNBC Live called his comments an "absolute unforced error" as she recalled the issue for a brief "lightning round" discussion. Matthews on Hardball found the comments "strange," leading guest April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks to fret:
They were slaves stolen from their families, ripped from their country, put on the bottom of ships -- I mean, stuffed in ships. Locked -- yes -- and the strongest survived. Not only that, The shark pattern changed on the way to this country because they were throwing the slaves off of the ships. So this was not an immigrant journey. We are a nation of native slaves and immigrants. so this is not -- it was not a pleasant, sweet journey where we're carrying a basket of fruit into the country.
Below are transcripts of relevant portions of MSNBC Live with Kate Snow and MSNBC's Hardball from Tuesday, March 7:
#From MSNBC Live with Kate Snow:
3:01 p.m. ET
KATE SNOW: And later on, the Carson controversy. In his first address to his new department -- Housing and Urban Development -- the secretary, Ben Carson, referred to slaves as "immigrants." A lot of blowback over his comments.(...)
3:24 p.m. ET
SNOW: Up next, Ben Carson's first full week as secretary of Housing and Urban Development. It's off to a rough start as he faces a flood of backlash for comments he made likening slaves to immigrants.(...)
3:30 p.m. ET
SNOW: Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson set off a firestorm after referring to slaves as "immigrants" during his first speech to HUD employees on Monday. Take a listen.DR. BEN CARSON, HUD SECRETARY: That's what America is about, a land of dreams and opportunity. There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships who worked even longer, even harder for less. But they, too, had a dream.
SNOW: For more now, I want to bring in Roland Martin. He's host and managing editor of News One Now on TV One. ... I do not have to tell you that this has exploded online. It's really blown up. A lot of people not happy about what he said. Your take?
ROLAND MARTIN, NEWS ONE NOW: Well, it's stupid and asinine. The bottom line is Ben Carson -- as Politico is reporting -- has said this for a couple of decades using "immigrants." And it's simply a flat-out lie. It's false, and you simply can't compare the two. I can tell you, last night, when I heard his interview where he tried to clarify those comments on Armstrong Williams's radio show on Sirius XM Radio, I heard those and I said those were idiotic as well. Then, later, then Carson posted a further explanation on his Facebook page -- on his personal Facebook page -- that was -- that made a lot more sense.
But here's why this is even bigger than Ben Carson. You've seen the efforts in Texas to actually change the textbooks, where McGraw-Hill a couple of years ago published the books where they called slaves "workers brought in from Africa." You've seen the Tea Party in Tennessee wanting to move the fact that the Founding Fathers were slave owners from textbooks as well. So there is this effort by conservatives to somehow soften or redefine slavery, and that's why people are so offended by what Secretary Carson had to say.
(Segment cut short for breaking news)
(...)
#From Hardball:
7:49 p.m. ET
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Those slaves had a dream to survive the ship ride across the Atlantic. Anyway, the NAACP responded to Carson's comments with a single tweet: "Immigrants???" This was an immigrant experience? They just couldn't wait to find the new country. They had no idea where they were being taken -- they were slaves.APRIL RYAN, AMERICAN URBAN RADIO NETWORKS: They were slaves -- they were slaves stolen from their families, ripped from their country, put on the bottom of ships -- I mean, stuffed in ships. Locked -- yes -- and the strongest survived. Not only that, The shark pattern changed on the way to this country because they were throwing the slaves off of the ships. So this was not an immigrant journey. We are a nation of native slaves and immigrants. so this is not -- it was not a pleasant, sweet journey where we're carrying a basket of fruit into the country. This was bondage at its worst.
MATTHEWS: I know. Well, thank you. That was a strange -- I'm going to say a strange perfuming of history there, I thought, by Dr. Carson.
RYAN: The fragrance was ugly.
