colt and this is direct impact the we here in america have this log cabin mentality, right. it was taught to us in grade school, when many of us were in classrooms where there was literally a blast of abraham lincoln to remind us that even a poor farmer who lived in a log cabin could grow up to become the president of the united states is he's actually exceptionalism of america. no royalty here, no clash structures here, right? well hold up the whole whole bad thought because reuters recently put out of study that seems to confirm just the opposite of that. and what it finds is that a 5th or more of all,

the political leaders who rule america today come from families who were slave owners, slave owners, the numbers when we break it down even further. well, really does seem to dispel that which we of americans. i've always believed differentiates us from the other places, especially the european countries that we broke away from it. it's what was ingrained in us, you know that in europe, everything is based on your class, your lineage, your status, but not here. by golly, so here's what the study did. it looked at the family records of members of congress, the supreme court, the governors of all the different uh, 50 states and the living presidents. and here's what it found. of the 536 members of congress right now, 100 of them. i have family members or descendants who own slaves. right?

in the senate, 28, out of a 100. come from families who own slaves. and of the 9 members of the supreme court to amy connie baron neal gorse, which our descendants of the slavery business was a big numbers right between 20 to 25 percent across the board of all the people who are in power in this country, head slaves and why is that important? well, you know why, you know, why? because part of the civil war, the number of people who own slaves in this country was 2 percent. 2 percent. how many is the vast majority of americans do not come from families who own slaves? but our leaders don't. we don't, they do? think about it. more than 25 percent of the senate, 20 percent of the house of representatives, 22 percent of the supreme court. all come from families who own slaves. and what that makes clear to me anyway, is that families who had the privilege,

the power and the money to be able to afford slaves a century ago, are the same people who still have the money, the privilege and the power over us today. think about that and if we ponder this next question that i'm about to pause and kind of becomes almost creepy. it's not, you know, ominous. and here it is. here's my quandary. if those are the people who come from families that somehow got our ancestors as americans to kill each other during assuming more to protect their economic interest, what are they willing to do now? what will their grandkids, these folks and power now? right? what will they do with wars? now, you know, the kind of wars that we seem to see now that never seemed to end. it makes you wonder, right?

same people doing the same things a specially you might have all the wars and all the money being made on those wars of light. so let's talk about the study. this study by writers also finds that nearly all the living presidents, interestingly enough, george bush, bill clinton, jimmy carter, n. yes. even brock obama, on his mother's side are all descendants of slave owners. only donald trump is it? and interestingly enough, who knew right? only donald trump is not a descendant of slave owners, and that's because his family came to the united states after slavery had already been abolished. if you're wondering, by the way, were reuters got all this data? believe it or not, it's easy to get the same cyber. it was a business to business enterprise and people were essentially property. so they were all purchased and sold and all those purchases in sales or are written down there, documented whether it's a chair or

a human being. i got an example. look at this, this is lindsey graham, former, or not former. she's popular senator from south carolina, who had a great great grandfather named joseph maddox. he had 8 slaves and look at the look at this document right here that we're showing you right now. you can read their names right there. it's on the contract, right? sam, z law, reuben james, and one described only as negro man, sam. he sold for a $155.00, which by today's calculation, which be about $6000.00. joining us now to talk about this is a kelvin dark. he's not only a political analyst, but you're going to find out during this interview and stay with me here, that there could not be a better guess to have this conversation with then. calvin dark, for reasons that you will find out during the sooner to year when it's a. it's

a pleasure to join not to have calvin joined us today. yeah. how are you, calvin? i'm doing well. it's hot and i'm doing great about the summer time. exactly. so listen um what, what do you think of the study that basically what the study says is one 5th, depending on what you look at, but anywhere between a 5th to a 4th to something like that of all political powerful leaders in the united states come from families who were slaveholders was that when you 1st read that report, what did you fix as well, the 1st thing i thought is people are probably going to misinterpret what really matters about this. you know, it turns into like the blame game, but i think it, it tells us 2 things that are really important. one is that slavery and its aftermath is not that long ago. you know, we tend to think out of centuries and centuries ago, i would hope that these members of congress who, you know,

if they didn't know the people they knew the people that knew the people. i have that in my family, or my great aunt talked to me about her grandmother who had been a slave. so i would hope that it would warrant show them to show the american people that it's not that far back in our history. the 2nd thing is, is i would hope no matter what political party that they are part of that understanding the after effects of slavery would in form. they are policy decisions . and that is actually very serious. and we don't see enough law makers doing that, you know, we're still trying to, as a country to decide if systemic. racism is a thing. but you don't want, you know what, you know, what really the reason this story has struck me and made me think, and maybe it's even been one of those counter intuitive moments for me, which, you know, i should have had a kind of thing. was when i started thinking about this, i've always been so proud to be an american in that i've always felt that as an american, i lived in one of the few countries on earth where you can literally grow up poor.

and you know, the whole log cabin abraham lincoln thing. you can have no money and become president. the people make it big in america are not there because they are like the europeans, like those people in england where everything is class. and you know, you have to be part of the royals or the dukes and we don't have any of that here. anybody can just go up and be anything. and our leaders don't come from the gilded age or anything like that. they, they just start people who've worked harder than the next guy. and guess what? after reading the study, i now think that that thought process that i grew up with, and most of us grew up with, is bullcrap as well. you know, i tend to be optimistic, i agree with you that we have an ideal, but we're not quite there. and i know for asking americans, it's kind of, you know, 2 sides of a coined where on one hand, i knew i grew up like a lot of african americans knowing that whatever i sought to achieve, i was going to have to work a lot harder. just because of the perceptions you my color, my skin,

and the racism that we haven't dealt with in this country. but that's exactly my point kelvin. you just, you just made my argument well, trying to disagree with me. i had to work twice as hard. they didn't, and we're not talking about a small percentage form, right. less than 2 percent of americans during the civil war, had slaves, less than 2 percent. and yet up to 40 percent up to 25 percent of the people in leadership today had slaves. just think about that number real quick. i mean, 25 percent of the people come from families who had slaves happen to be extremely successful and are the leaders of the united states of america. while only 2 percent of the time actually even had slaves. the math does not add up what it says is, we're no different than the europeans. we may not call them kings and queens and dukes and all that crap, but we're no different as well. i, here's what i think. first, you know, the positive side of all of that is,

i think it's possible and i hope it will get better. i think brock obama is a good example of that. yeah, this dichotomy of we have racism been in some ways is becoming more apparent. but then, you know, we've had an app american president, but i think on that number about, you know, the number of people that, you know, had slaves in my research during about my family working on my book. i talked to a lot of white people who had assumed slavery and its aftermath had nothing to do with them. because they said, you know, my family was poor at that time, or we didn't have slaves or my family came after the slavery was ended. but what i try to explain and then is you have the people who own slaves. but then you have the people that benefited from that system. and you have the people that, you know, even if they didn't have slaves, they understood that they could benefit from the system in the after a map that it created. so it affected a lot more than those just those 2 percent. by the way, you mentioned brock obama. here's a lie or any for you. among all living presidents,

only one does not come from parents who had slaves, and that's not brock obama. it's donald trump. and the only reason for that, by the way, is that donald trump is family, did not emigrate to united states until after slavery was done, so he could not have had slights. you know, uh meanwhile, president obama, on his mother's side comes from a family of slave slave holders or. yeah, for me and a lot of african americans. that's not really a surprise because my great great great grandfather was a slave on. and he essentially rate one of the slaves and the baby from that incident was my great great grandfather. and so it's a very reopened biggest i want, i want to just stop for a moment. i want, i want our, our viewers are around the world to listen to what you just said. it's just because it's, it's pretty amazing what you just said well,

and also it ties into the fact that my last name is dark. b a r k. my name came from the fact that once slavery was over and you had these mixed families, you know, in this country, you know, if you had one drop of black blood, you were black. so some of my relatives are very light skin. and what happened was they couldn't take the name of the white slave owning family, so the name dark was made up. that's my name today because of that. and so i think there are a lot of african americans that have the stories. now one thing i want to say on a former president, trump, i think that what we have to remember to, even though his family came after slavery, i think he has something that he could have done for 2 reasons. one, his family built their fortunes on the, the system that was set up after slavery. and specifically, we know during the 70s he and his father had a lot of dealings with the justice department on discrimination in housing. okay.

yeah, it was a really big thing and, and what enabled them to even do it in the 1st place where things like red lining that came after slavery. so black people couldn't live well, white people live. yeah, so i think that's one reason i also think for president trump had a responsibility as president, you know, regardless of what he personally did to see that the after effects the stomach, racism is somebody needs to be address and i think not only didn't he address a bit exacerbated in some cases. yeah. but. so here's the thing and look at trust me. i'm not going to get into an argument with you about president trump. so moral of moral standing when it comes to this as a hispanic myself. i've heard some of the things that he said including. busy all the mexicans crossing the border are rapists and criminals, quote on quote specific words, by the way, and those words about it. but you know what, here's what i'm going to give the presence of the past. what this cutting tells me

is struck may be that over below hard, who says the things and does the things that are that we can put a finger on and say, wow, what a racist action. wow, what a racist statement. but if you really that much different from all the other people in the system that this, that this, this, this, this report shows us were 25 percent of the senate come from families, which were slaveholders. and even today, we tend to see that their, their, their, their, their nuanced actions also reflect the same things that were taking place more than a 100 years ago. know, right, and i think that if you look at the case of lawmakers to test a something you have in particular south carolina, mississippi, georgia, alabama. that the people who represent those districts not only are from states that you know were at the heart of slave holding our country. but

as the study showed, many of them descend directly from slaveholders. yet they tend to be the ones that are pushing back the most against things like, you know, promoting diversity, addressing systemic racism. and so i, i'm off until one of my friends, if you could name a slight hold in your family tree, then you are not ever speak of gets that there isn't systemic racism. so in that sense, i do believe that they are even more responsible because not only are they in power as former present trump was, but in additionally they know what's in their family tree. and so they can't say, didn't realize the problem exist. i want to talk to you in just a moment about the personal side of this. first of all, as i teased at the very beginning before i started my interview with you, i'm absolutely fascinated by the fact that on your grandfather's side, you can, i'm from slave holders on your great grandmother's side. however many years you

want to go back, i don't know how many grades we have to and put in front of the word grand. you come from slaves. that is such a unique and fascinating perspective to carry with you throughout your life. and i think that's something that's also worth part of the conversation. i want to share with you as well. what it's like for me as a latino, we are minorities in the united states of america. we love our country, but we also are not afraid to point out its blemishes. so i want to get into that a little bit because i think this is a good topic for that type of conversation between 2 guys. like you and me, we're gonna come back in just a minute. with this conversation with calvin dark. by the way, i'd like to continue this conversation with you. we can do so on twitter. love to talk to you on twitter or x or whatever the hell they're calling it these days more handle their it's rick sanchez tv. that's rick sanchez, tv and i'll look. busy to hearing what you have to say,

in particular about this story. but when we come back, so on the question of who had slaves prior to the civil war? who do you think that more republicans or democrats, and want to take you through the, the russian states never is as tight as one of the most sense community best. most all sense and up in the system must be the one else calls question about this. even though we will then in the european union, the kremlin mission, the state on the russians cruising and split the ortiz full neck, even our video agency, roughly all the band on youtube tv services. for the question,

did you say even twist, which is the known in vietnam era to the vietnam war last, it's almost 2 decades and dragged in numerous countries. not any time now. and then you don't see it now. why didn't all i'm empty. hundreds of thousands of american troops was sent to the country to back the south vietnamese on me. and the american soldiers miller did resist, as most of the slaves burned down entire villages and spread dangerous chemicals.

and even lee by all right, did the americans ever fully acknowledge what they did and on the vietnamese veterans ready to forgive? yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, that's a ways to the late but yes, the quarterback, i want to mention something else that reuters also did when it broke down this study. they also looked at party affiliation, but they found is this 20 percent of republicans come from families that own slaves while only 8 percent of democrats that but before you come to the conclusion that this means that republicans are more races. let's examine the why is a,

the vast majority of elected republican officials come from southern states. that's where they've been elected recently in southern states. the south is where slavery was ramp, but because it was more profitable there. so it follows that there are more apt to be defendants if they're from the south. just as northern elected officials today will be more apt to come from families who are part of a non agricultural businesses like manufacturing. so let's get back to this conversation with calvin dark. and before we went to break, i mentioned this about you calvin. i think it's fascinating that you actually represent both sides of his argument. you don't need to guess, cuz you can literally stick for both what it's like to come from. knowing that you come from slave holder family. because you know, well knowing that you also come from slaves in your family, which you do deal with that and what, what, how, how does that shape you? if it does, oh,

it definitely shapes me and i'll add one other interesting dynamic to that. the town where i grew up, i have very close relationships with the white people who are part of the slave owning family because we're gonna have to remember, these are rural areas. we literally grew up across the street from each other. wait, no, no, no, you're not telling me that they have reclaimed. you have they? i mean your, your white ancestors have embraced you and said you are a part of our family like family get togethers and stuff like this. it's, it's either one or 2 extremes. the more common extreme is people that i've known growing up for wife who didn't really know for sure that we were related, right? even though our families, you know, are connected by location and everything like that. i, in my research, you know, especially doing some like genetic geology where i was able to like, actually prove it. yeah. i wanna extreme was just distance thing. and i,

i really got the impression that they didn't know what they, what was expected of them. you know where they got to be, i apologize. what should they do? on the other extreme, this is less, so wait a minute, take, take me back. i think i lost you a little bit there. and i think maybe the listeners and viewers did to uh, you're saying you, you had opportunity to confront or maybe confronted the wrong word. embrace. meet your ancestors on your on father's side and when you and when you, when you reached out to them and told them you and i are related. how did they respond? what, what did they say? did they say b. s? i don't believe you. you can't be your black, i'm not. know, most of them had ideas. you know, they never confirmed it. and it was, i didn't get any real negative reaction, but i did it kind of standoffishness like they were afraid to really pursue it because they didn't know what that opened up. and they didn't want to really know

the details of those slaveholding relationships. because like i said, these are people that i grew up with. now will say on the other extreme, i had a couple of people who, when they heard about my research or you know, relatives or people i contacted called me. and you know, one lady apologized for her relative, she even said she was hoping that her relative, we weren't a part of, you know, the slavery institution of slavery. and i had one of one of those white relatives who happens to be married to an african american man. insure, it told me that her way of rebelling against the racism that had been in our family used to be married. a black man and their children are african american, you know, and they're met. so that's something that i've had to really grapple with. and you know, kind of, you ask you to have that kind of informs me and what i do, i see connection with that. when you mentioned your situation here, because my friends and latino community,

i've always been jealous of the one thing in particular. uh huh. and that is not being able to point to exactly where my culture comes from. you know, i can point roughly to a cotton, you know what i mean? and that was intentional. it's because you know, that identity was stripped away. and one of the things that it's made me kind of grapple with is because i did research on the side of the go to insulate and the install laborers. i know from in northern ireland, the towns where the dance labor was from. i've had to ask myself, do i claim them to have a right to claim them? do i want to claim them? and so those are issues that are no, no, no, no, no, you're not coming out of this. you just asked a very important question and i'm going to fire that right back out that you, you know, that you had a man in your defend and see who was a rapist. uh and as you referred to him and then slaver. and it's, it's funny that you're using that word because it has some very negative

connotations. do you accept the fact that he was just a man of his generation? or do you think he was a son of a bitch? well, i think in his particular case, he was a, uh, he was in the system, you know, and he didn't fight back against it. however, what started my research project was on his deathbed. because you know, we had the 2 slaves, the want, the, the, the psych woman and then the child that resulted me, they were going to be remaining in slavery after he died. and so he kind of had of the last moment this a tiffany, i guess you want to call it freedom and well, he tried to north carolina. they like many southern states. it was illegal to free year slaves unless you pay like a huge bon. they want to discourage free black people in those states. and so i, i make sure that i give him credit for that at the end. but that i recognize that, you know, even with that,

i don't think he saw them is equal. i don't think he saw them is fully human beings . and i think that that unfortunately, after slavery was over, that carried out carried on and to our laws in our society. and we still haven't addressed it. you are a delightful guest. thanks so much for rank. you taking us through this conversation, like i said earlier, regarding the big developers and have this conversation with thanks again, my friend. thank you. have enjoyed being here to hey, before we go, i want to remind you of something our mission. it's simple, really. we want to the silo the world. we've gotta stop living in these little boxes with one set of rules over here. one set of troops over here, one set of troops over there are no troops don't live in boxes, they're everywhere. i'm research. i'll be looking for you again right here, where we hope to provide a direct impact the

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