"the negroes on a well-ordered estate, under kind masters, were probably a happier class of people than the laborers upon any estate in Europe." -- from George Alfred Henty's book With Lee in Virginia, currently printed, sold, and promoted by Republican Arthur B. Robinson's Robinson Books.
Art Robinson is campaigning to represent Oregon's 4th Congressional District in Congress
Improbably, the smackingly racist writing of 19th Century British author George Alfred Henty -- whose boys adventure novels had kind words for slavery, described Africans as having the intelligence of ten-year old children, and featured a comedic description of a slave being tortured with red hot irons (
see quotes, below) -- may become an issue this year in an Oregon congressional race.
"The Henty books provide training in history and in many of the highest aspects of human character... American young people should read not a few Henty books, but all 99 of them." -- Oregon Republican congressional candidate Arthur B. Robinson, from http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com
"The intelligence of an average negro is about equal to that of a European child of ten years old. A few, a very few, go beyond this, but these are exceptions... They are absolutely without originality, absolutely without inventive power. Living among white men, their imitative faculties enable them to attain a considerable amount of civilization. Left alone to their own devices they retrograde into a state little above their native savagery." -- from G. A. Henty's By Sheer Pluck, a Tale of the Ashanti War, printed and sold by Robinson Books
"The negro struggled as the men approached him, and gave a terrific yell as the hot iron was applied to his sides.
"I will tell you, sars--oh! have mercy upon me and I will tell you eberything!" " -- from the G.A. Henty novel True To The Old Flag, printed and sold by Robinson Books
"All [of the G.A. Henty novels] followed the same basic formula: A boy-hero, generally age 15, finds himself on his own as a result of family circumstances; he meets up with a great man in whose company he has an adventure; in the course of the historical crisis he meets and rescues a girl destined to be his wife; the crisis is resolved, the British triumph...
To the modern reader, Henty's books are notable for their hearty imperialism, undisguised racism, and jingoistic patriotism." -- from PBS biography of novelist George Alfred Henty
Backed by the Koch brothers-funded group Americans For Prosperity in his insurgent
bid to defeat longtime incumbent Democratic Representative
Peter DeFazio and represent Oregon's Fourth District in Congress, Republican Art Robinson doesn't just
recommend G.A. Henty's boys novels, and he goes beyond merely including them in his homeschooling
curriculum - Robinson
prints and sells hardcover paper editions of all the 99 novels of G.A. Henty, whose zesty, militaristic tales of plucky boyish adventure celebrate British colonialism, depict darker-skinned peoples as stupid, savage and childlike, and romanticize slavery.
My new report examines Arthur B. Robinson's homeschooling curriculum, especially its considerable racist content, as well as Robinson's extensive and intimate ties to the theocratic Christian Reconstructionism movement, which helped develop the Robinson Curriculum.
At the heart of the Christian Reconstructionism project is the Christian homeschooling movement. Not surprisingly, Christian Reconstructionists typically want to abolish public education and on this count, and many others, Arthur B. Robinson's stated policy positions coincide quite neatly with those of Christian Reconstructionists as well as with the positions of a political party closely affiliated with the CR movement, the Constitution Party - which has in the past endorsed Arthur Robinson as a candidate.
Robinson has extensive links to the Christian Reconstructionism movement, which advocates radically libertarian laissez-faire capitalism and the imposition of decentralized Christian theocratic government structures that would impose Biblical law -- including capital punishment, by "Biblical" methods such as stoning or burning at the stake, for a range of alleged crimes including witchcraft, blasphemy, adultery, female un-chastity (intercourse before marriage), homosexuality, and incorrigible teenage rebellion.
Christian Reconstructionism aims to literally reconstruct society, to create a new cultural and political order based on Biblically-derived legal principles as determined by founder R.J. Rushdoony and his fellow Reconstructionist theorists, among them Art Robinson's friend Gary North.
In a 1998 article in the libertarian magazine Reason titled "Invitation To A Stoning", author Arnold Murray described Gary North's view on, well, stoning,
"[Christian] Reconstructionists provide the most enthusiastic constituency for stoning since the Taliban seized Kabul. "Why stoning?" asks North. "There are many reasons. First, the implements of execution are available to everyone at virtually no cost." Thrift and ubiquity aside, "executions are community projects--not with spectators who watch a professional executioner do `his' duty, but rather with actual participants." You might even say that like square dances or quilting bees, they represent the kind of hands-on neighborliness so often missed in this impersonal era. "That modern Christians never consider the possibility of the reintroduction of stoning for capital crimes," North continues, "indicates how thoroughly humanistic concepts of punishment have influenced the thinking of Christians." And he may be right about that last point, you know."
Read the full version of my report,
Slavery wasn't so bad, says book published by OR Republican for Congress