By Douglas V. Gibbs
Stephen Colbert's show on Comedy Central, The Colbert Report, likes to have fun with serious topics. Colbert's parody of conservative shows sometimes travels to places that are unexpected, and even a surprise or two sometimes pops up for the actually quite liberal show host. In the case of when Representative Yvette Clarke, of Brooklyn's Congressional District, was on the show as a part of Colbert's "Better Know A District" series, Stephen got a lesson on slavery.
“Who would be enslaving you in 1898 in New York?” Colbert continued on.
Stephen Colbert asked Clarke about the Great Mistake of 1898, which was when Brooklyn decided to join New York City amid fears by the residents that Brooklyn would lose its unique local color.
Clarke, apparently ignorant of the historical episode, and pretty much ignorant of history as a whole, after being asked what she would say to the people of Brooklyn in response to The Great Mistake back in the nineteenth century, responded, "Set me free.”
Set me Free? Curious, and amused, Colbert pressed on for an explanation of what she would have been freed from.
Clarke replied, “Slavery.”
"Slavery. Really? I didn’t realize there was slavery in Brooklyn in 1898," he asked.
“I’m pretty sure there was,” Clarke continued.
Playing along, probably wondering how long it would be before Clarke realized her error, Colbert said, “It sounds like a horrible part of the United States that kept slavery going until 1898,” Colbert responded.
Clarke responded, “The Dutch.”
Kristia Beaubrun, a spokeswoman for the congresswoman, later insisted it was all a joke.
Hmmmm. New York was first called New Amsterdam, and was in fact heavily populated by the Dutch, and belonged to Holland, long before the Revolutionary War. However, in 1674 the Dutch left Brooklyn and New York and handed the lands over to the English, more than two centuries before The Great Mistake in 1898. Also, New York had abolished slavery in 1827, 70 years before the 1898 moment in history Clarke and Colbert was discussing. The United States abolished slavery more than twenty years before as well.
Doesn't seem like she's joking to me. Besides, don't Democrats usually just say they misspoke?
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
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