Journalists-Turned-Genealogists Claim McConnell’s Family Owned Slaves, Ignore Obama’s Family

The genealogy craze hit America a few years ago, but it has recently really hit America’s newsrooms.  Now, instead of trying to hold an out-of-control federal government accountable for their spending, or lauding the Trump administration’s common-sense prison reform, they’re digging into Republican leaders’ family trees.  

They’ve dug up the dirt.  NBC News’s breathless exclusive shows that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is the descendent of slave owners. “Sen. Mitch McConnell’s great-great-grandfathers owned 14 slaves, bringing reparations issue close to home,” the headline read.  The subtitle was, “McConnell has opposed paying reparations to descendants of slaves, though census records show his family, like many others, benefited from their labor.”

What a “get!” All over Twitter, people shared more information about the Kentuckian’s family, and #DitchMitch trended online: 

In the 1850 census, his great-great-grandfather Richard Daley owned five female slaves ranging in age from 2 to 22. Four are classified as “mulatto” — a now-offensive term for mixed-race people. Their ages were 2, 4, 18 and 20. One 22-year-old slave was identified as black. None of them are named in the document.

Little is known about the four female slaves listed in the 1860 census who were owned by another of McConnell’s great-great-grandfathers, James McConnell. They are identified in the records only by their ages, which were 1, 3, 4 and 25, and by their race — “mulatto.”

Richard Daley, in that same census, owned five slaves, three females and two males.

Two of those females, ages 30 and 11, were classified as mulatto, according to the records. The other woman, who was 39, was listed as black. Both males, one who was either 10 or 12 years old and one who was 7, were listed as mulatto. None are identified by name.

In the 1850 census, four of Daley’s five slaves were also marked as having escaped, so it appears that he acquired additional slaves between 1850 and 1860.

It’s amazing how in depth their coverage was over his family tree.  If you’d rather not dig into the morass of Ancestry.com, you could just run for office as a Republican and the media will research your family for you!

Here’s what the NBC article did notmention. Barack Obama’s family also owned slaves, and he wasn’t supportive of reparations either. Erick Erickson pointed this out:

… it is worth remembering that Barack Obama’s ancestors owned slaves in Kentucky and the media did not make it a big, sensational story that he opposed reparations.

That’s right, Obama opposed reparations.

The media studiously avoided the topic against him. But now that Republicans are in charge, the very media that refused to hold Obama’s slave owning family against him for his opposition to reparations is doing the exact opposite to Mitch McConnell.

Of course they are, because their political shenanigans are just a show.  Bullying, even.  It makes one suspect they aren’t really all that concerned with the plight of the antebellum slave, but are only focused on power after all.

The best response to all of this nonsense was T. Beckett Adams’s.  Upon discovery that McConnell’s ancestors owned slaves, he responded:

“whoa — there are Democrats in McConnell’s family line?”

Hat Tip: NBC News

Image Credit: Gage Skidmore on Flickr