As if on cue, Limbaugh had to insert himself into the Democratic Convention in the most unusual method this week. Normally not one to hide his racism well, he stepped into a rather sticky predicament when he had this to say on the President’s heritage:

Among the usual claims against the president, Rush made the claim that President Obama lacked any slave ancestry at all, therefore should not be considered back. Claiming that the President was not “Authentically Black” due to lacking slave ancestry? Less than 40 days ago, there was another story making the rounds on the president and his ancestors, documented evidence to tie the president to an indentured servant in Virginia who was later tried and convicted of escaping his servitude. His punishment, lifetime servitude, Americas first slave:

As found by the genealogists at Ancestry.com, not only is President Obama descended from slaves, one of his ancestors is the first documented slave, John Punch, as revealed by the New York Times.

The story of John Punch appears to have been lost on Mr Limbaugh. Originally an indentured servant in Virginia in the service of a man named Hugh Gwyn, Mr Punch and two other servants escaped after very cruel treatment. They were then captured days later. While the other two received sentences on whippings and added time on to their servitude, John Punch was sentenced to life servitude, becoming the very first documented African slave upon the new continent. Eleven generations later, the first American slave’s descendent would stand before the Chief Justice and say those words unimaginable back in colonial Virginia, the swearing in of the first African-American President of the United States:

At the time of the enslavement, the law determined the free or slave status of a child by the mother’s status. At the time, few women from Africa had entered into servitude or slavery in the colonies, so John fathered several children with a white woman. These children became the Bunch family of Virginia. Prominent landowners in the late 1600′s, the Bunches were listed as “white” in Virginia, but when one branch to North Carolina they became listed as “mulatto” on official records in that colony.

Limbaugh was trying to sound important, and smart, but instead made himself look like an ill-educated fool. Par for the course for the aging comic as he continues to lose sponsors and radio stations.

Related posts: