That’s what Adele Ferguson, a columnist at the Kitsap Peninsula Business Journal thinks:

Remember Ronald Reagan’s story about the kid who had to shovel a huge pile of manure? He went about it with such joy he was asked why and said, “With all that manure, there’s got to be a pony in there somewhere.”

The pony hidden in slavery is the fact that it was the ticket to America for black people. I have long urged blacks to consider their presence here as the work of God, who wanted to bring them to this raw, new country and used slavery to achieve it.

Wait… is she fucking kidding me?  Setting aside the invalid metaphor about ponies buried in their own shit, is she really saying that, uh, slavery was God’s way of bringing blacks to America? 

And what were those slave auction blocks all about?  God’s way of introducing blacks to the free market system, I suppose, right?

The whippings and beatings subjected on slaves?  God’s physical education system.

And let’s not forget the rape of slavewomen by their slaveholding tyrants.  What was God trying to achieve with that?

Never mind.   I don’t want to know.

Adele’s point (other than the one at the top of her white hood) is that she is mystified why blacks aren’t flocking to the Republican Party.   I think she needs to look into the mirror for those answers.

But before she gets to that, she compares the experience of slaves to other immigrants who came to America.  Those other immigrants, you see…

…suffered hardships and indignations as indentured servants. Their descendants rose above it. You don’t hear them bemoaning their forebears’ life the way some blacks can’t rise above the fact theirs were slaves.

Well, Adele, that’s because other immigrants, for all their hardships and indiginations, were never actually SLAVES.  They came here of their own free will, and once here, they were never, according to the founding documents of this country, three-fifths of a person.

Besides freedom, a job and a roof over their heads, they all sought respect. But even after all these years, too many have yet to realize that to get respect, you have to give it.

The treatment given President Bush at Coretta King’s funeral was shameful. And these weren’t poor, uneducated black people who “dissed” him. They were among the country’s top-drawer blacks, there to bury black royalty. While Bush got the cold shoulder, former President Clinton was welcomed as if he still held the office.

It mystifies me why the black population remains in thrall to the Democratic party.

Let’s see, Adele.  You just told blacks that slavery was a gift from God, and then you chastize blacks for not showing due respect for President Bush, a man whose policies have a greater comparative negative impact on blacks than for people colored like you.

And you’re mystified why blacks don’t jump on to (the back of) your bus?

Jesus’ General responded to Adele, in an open letter on his blog:

I think you answered your own question about why black people aren’t flocking to the Republican Party. If, as you point out, slavery was a godsend to them, then surely, they’re still angry at Lincoln, the first Republican president, for freeing them. If it wasn’t for him, they’d still be enjoying all of the fruits slavery had to offer, things like: hand-me-downs from the big house; forced breeding; free scarification; the joy that comes from seeing your children selected for housework or sold to a master who doesn’t beat them during rape; and the comfort that comes from knowing one’s place in the world.

Heh.

For those of you who want to respond to Adele Ferguson, but don’t feel like blogging about it, you can let her know your views by writing her at  P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340.