Michelle Bachmann Is a Racist Nutcase

While the blogosphere debates whether or not the Newsweek cover photo of Michelle Bachmann is sexist, a much less flattering portrait of Bachmann has managed to slip under the radar.  In recent months a picture began to emerge of a racially insensitive candidate, who is oblivious to her country’s brutal history of white supremacy.  The first pixels in this image began to form in July, when Bachmann signed a pledge titled “Marriage Vow: A Declaration of Dependence upon MARRIAGE and FAMiLY”.  The four-page pledge was sponsored by The Family Leader, a conservative Christian group based in Iowa.  It was intended to affirm the candidates’ commitment to marriage discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but the authors gratuitously inserted a line claiming that Black children were better off during slavery than under the Obama administration because “a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA's first African-American President.”  [Given that slave masters routinely split up families by selling individual family members to the highest bidder, along with the fact that many slave children were conceived through the rape of their black mother by their owners, the notion of the nuclear slave family would be laughable if it weren’t so offensive.]

But as we learned this week, the Marriage Vow pledge was just the latest in a pattern of racist statements attributed to, or endorsed by, Michelle Bachmann.  Around the same time that the Newsweek article came out, The New Yorker magazine published a profile of Michelle Bachmann written by Chris Lizza.  Although the New Yorker article garnered considerably less fanfair, its depiction of Bachmann is equally, if not more, unfavourable due to its exposure of Bachmann as a racist lunatic.  Exhibit A is a book called Christianity and the Constitution, written by Bachmann’s erstwhile mentor John Eidsmoe.  While studying Law at the prestigious[i] Oral Roberts University, Bachmann served as Eidsmoe’s research assistant for the book.  In it, Eidsmoe writes that “many Christians opposed slavery even though they owned slaves.” But, he claims, they were compelled by their sense of compassion to keep their slaves in bondage because “it might be very difficult for a freed slave to make a living in that economy; under such circumstances setting slaves free was both inhumane and irresponsible.”

Lizza also reveals that for years the list of “must read” books posted on Bachmann’s website included a 1997 biography of Robert E. Lee written by J. Steven Wilkins.  In the book, Wilkins condemns the abolitionist movement and praises southern slave owners for their efforts to “treat their slaves with respect and provide them with a sufficiency of goods for a comfortable, though—by modern standards—spare existence”.  Wilkins also claims in the book that the Africans who were brought to America as slaves were lucky because “Africa, like any other pagan country [sic(k)], was permeated by the cruelty and barbarism typical of unbelieving cultures.”  Wilkins writes that it was necessary to delay emancipation until “the sanctifying effects of Christianity” had a chance to take hold so that blacks could become equipped to handle freedom.

Any journalistic depiction of a public figure is inevitably a mere snapshot of the whole person.  Newsweek’s cover photo is no exception.  Yet, amid all the rancour that has followed its publication, it is important to note that Bachmann submitted to being photographed and likely even posed for that picture.  As unflattering as it may be, it is an accurate depiction of her likeness and it is an image which she deliberately projected, albeit gracelessly, at that moment in time.  The same is true of Bachmann’s depiction in the New Yorker piece.  For better or for worse, it accurately[ii] depicts Bachmann’s views at various stages in her career.  What’s ironic is that those who are accusing Newsweek of sexism are more preoccupied with the way she is pictured in a cover photo than with what she is quoted as saying in the actual articles.  Both portrayals are ugly, but one is substantive and the other superficial.  One might look at this state of affairs and draw conclusions about what society and the press feel is most important when it comes to appraising female candidates.  Alternatively, one might make inferences about the seriousness with which the media views statements that negatively distort and vulgarly trivialize the history and experiences of African Americans.  Either way, it’s not a pretty picture.