Former president Barack Obama was recently interviewed by CNN Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour, who asked him whether the “whitelash” against a Black administration that some feel aided in the election of former president Donald Trump in 2016 had subsided.
The topic of Trump often arose during Amanpour and Obama’s exclusive interview special, “Obama & Amanpour: Will Democracy Win?”
Former Obama staffer and current CNN commentator Van Jones has attributed Trump’s 2016 election to a “whitelash” against Obama, an alleged phenomenon Amanpour questioned in her discussion. After a series of borderline anti-white statements, Obama declared he would not respond to the statements of Republican Presidential contenders. They are free to pursue other interests because he’s not a candidate.
The irony is lost on the man who sees racism everywhere. Obama’s ancestors owned slaves.
A Reuters examination into the family trees of prominent American politicians uncovered a link between slavery and the halls of power in the United States.
Fifteen percent of current and former federal senators, presidents, Supreme Court judges, and governors had slave owners in their family trees.
All living U.S. Presidents except Donald Trump are descended from people who owned Black people as slaves, and that includes Barack Obama.
After slavery was abolished, Trump’s ancestors came to the United States as immigrants.
Reuters reports that Obama, who has white maternal ancestry, joins past presidents Joe Biden, Carter, Bush, and Clinton on the list.
Two of the nine current justices of the United States Supreme Court are themselves direct descendants of slaveholders: Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.
Reuters conducted an extensive analysis of the 536 current members of Congress and concluded that no fewer than 100 are direct descendants of slaveowners. Of them, a disproportionate number serve in the Senate, with 28 senators having direct family connections to slaveowners.
Senators Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell of the Republican Party and Representatives Tammy Duckworth, Elizabeth Warren, Maggie Hassan, and Jeanne Shaheen of the Democrat Party are listed as well.
