Social media users are clapping back at a Republican who suggested Black people should be grateful to white people for their role in the Civil War and ending slavery.
A Texan man identifying himself as Dave called in during C-SPAN's Juneteenth program on Monday (June 19) to drop his hot take while millions of Black Americans celebrated Black slaves being freed from bondage hundreds of years ago.
"I have not heard one white Democrat apologize for slavery," Dave said in the one-minute clip, that's been shared thousands of times online. "I haven't heard any Black person say thank you to the over 300,000 white men who died to free those Black slaves."
Anchor Greta Wodele Brawner appeared floored and then stoic during Dave's rant, ending his call after he mentioned how his ancestors, who were from Scotland and Ireland, "never owned slaves."
Many viewers and internet onlookers were quick to slam Dave's "ignorant" comments about history. One YouTuber user wrote, "I'm astonished by this caller and his utter cluelessness."
"And this is what it has always boiled down to. Too many white people do not see ending Slavery as something that was done because it was wrong to begin with," Portia McGonagal tweeted. "They demand Black gratitude."
Another Twitter user said, "First of all you want a cookie for ending something you started in this country? Secondly what kind of colonizer enslaver talking point is this?"
According to the National Park Service, over 2.4 million Union troops battled the Confederacy, which included Texas, during the American Civil War. Nearly 180,000 of those troops were Black. Historians estimate at least 600,000 people died in the war, though the numbers can vary by source.
June 19 marks the day when people in Galveston, Texas learned about the emancipation of Black slaves in 1865. The town was also the birthplace of Juneteenth as a holiday, which eventually spread to other communities across the country. President Joe Biden enshrined Juneteenth as a federal holiday last year.
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