Fox News guest argues that slavery ‘was never a race thing’

The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday

Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice

An Illinois conservative YouTuber, invited on a show on Fox News, has invited the wrath of social media commentators by claiming that slavery was never about race.

Ty Smith — brother of conservative author and talk show host Candace Owens — told Fox News host Martha MacCallum that “slavery was never about race.”

Mr Smith has also previously objected to the Critical Race Theory (CRT) and one of his videos where he talked about CRT recently went viral.

On the show on Tuesday, when Ms MacCallum asked him about his thoughts on the narrative that America was founded on the idea of systemic racism, “that it’s built into every single institution in America, even in the military,” Mr Smith responded: “It’s absolutely absurd because nobody really wants to get the real history of it. America was not founded on racism.”

He continued: “Don’t get me wrong, yeah, there was slavery going on but slavery itself was not initially a racist thing. It never was about race initially, so to sit there and take it like America was founded on racism is a complete lie.”

He added: “Slavery was going on in all the world. It never was a race thing. So why are we making it a race thing now?”

Previously, Mr Smith had, in his viral video, said that including the Critical Race Theory in school curricula “teaches youth to hate each other based on skin colour.”

In yet another interview with Fox News, Mr Smith had also said that critical race theory was “a whole bunch of nonsense, virtue signalling, playing off people’s emotion.” He had said that “the only race there is, is the human race.”

Meanwhile, on social media, many commentators were angered by his views on critical race theory. One user commented: “If the violent subjugation of people belonging to a single race (in order to treat them like subhuman servants) is not racist, then the concept of racism has no teeth at all.”

The user said Mr Smith was “dangerous” and “I hate that there are people out there who’ll believe & agree w/ him (sic).”

Another user said: “The prize for most ridiculous thing uttered so far this century goes to Bloomington IL radio host Ty Smith on Fox News for declaring that slavery wasn’t racist.”