White US politician tells primarily Black audience that her father born in 1933 was a white slave

By Abby Amoakuh

Published Feb 15, 2024 at 12:59 PM

Reading time: 2 minutes

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Image courtesy of Jennifer Decker

It is one thing to attempt to rewrite America’s history of slavery and the forced displacment of millions of Africans to the North American continent. It is a completely different thing to do so during Black History Month at a meeting for the National Association for Advanced of Coloured People while attempting to make a point about diversity and equity programs being unnecessary.

On 1 February 2024, Jennifer Decker, a 68-year-old white Republican state representative, claimed that her father, who was born in the 1930s, “was a white slave.”

Decker made the comment at a Shelbyville Area NAACP meeting that was discussing a state education bill she is sponsoring. If passed, the bill will prohibit state colleges and universities from offering diversity programs aimed at helping African Americans and other underrepresented students.

The politician’s comment occurred during a question-and-answer session, in which Decker was asked if her family played any role in the slave trade, according to The Daily Beast, who obtained an audio recording of the session.

“So, if you’re asking, did we own slaves? My father was a slave, just to a white man and he was white,” Decker said before the predominantly Black audience.

Despite their understandable astonishment at these statements, Decker insisted that her father was born on a dirt farm. According to her, his mother was the illegitimate child “of a very prominent person who then was kind enough to allow them to work for him as slaves.” Yes, sounds like he had a heart of gold.

Decker’s father was a white preacher, as reported by the Courier Journal. Decker senior was also born sometime around 1933, as aforementioned, which was 68 years after the 13th Amendment outlawed slavery.

In conversation with the journal, Decker clarified that her father was essentially the same as a slave because he was born poor and worked on someone else’s land.

Decker admitted later on that calling her father a slave was “probably” too much (probably?!?!?). The GOP representative went on to note that her father did not experience the same abuses that enslaved Africans and their descendants endured every day.

“A white slave in the mid-20th century? Talk about recreating history! Maybe this makes sense in the alternate supremacist reality that is Kentucky, but nowhere else. Jennifer Decker and her Republican friends lie about and distort everything else, why not this?” University of Louisville Pan-African Studies Professor Dr Ricky Jones said on X, formerly Twitter.

Many netizens also took to social media to share their outrage about the comments, accusing Decker of blackface and appropriation.

Republicans in general have tried to remove diversity and inclusion initiatives in the past few years, claiming that they offer unfair advantages to people who are not white, queer, immigrants, or differently abled.

This effort culminated in the majorly conservative Supreme Court overturning affirmative action in college admissions in 2023. Affirmative action are policies and practices seeking to benefit particular groups that were historically discriminated against, underrepresented, mistreated, or suffer from lack of public support.

To many, Decker’s comments highlighted how desperately these programs and, let’s be honest, better history lessons for public schools, are needed.