C-SPAN Caller Gripes, ‘I Haven’t Heard Any Black Person Say Thank You’ to Union Soldiers

One of the low-key worst duties in television is taking calls on a live program where literally anyone can call in and say anything. This was reconfirmed on Monday when C-SPAN’s Greta Brawner fielded a blazing hot take about Juneteenth from “Dave in Texas.”

Many across the nation had Monday off in recognition of Juneteenth, which Congress made a federal holiday in 2021 to commemorate the end of slavery in America.

But a caller decided to mark the day by grinding axes.

“Dave in Texas,” Brawner said. “Republican. Good morning.”

“Hi, good morning,” he said before getting to his “point”:

I really appreciate your show. It certainly enlightens me [about] how Democrats think. I have not heard one White Democrat apologize for slavery. I haven’t heard any Black person say, “Thank you” to the over 300,000 White men who died to free those Black slaves. I just, I’m astonished. I realize we’re focusing on slavery. My descendants are from Scotland and Ireland. We never owned slaves.

Brawner interrupted the caller and moved on.

Interestingly, while some states have officially apologized for slavery, Texas – where Juneteenth has its origins after the last slaves in America were freed there – never has.

Conservatives often focus on the fact that the Democratic Party in the South was once pro-slavery. However, they ignore subsequent political realignments that culminated in the mass exodus of Southerners from the Democratic Party over civil rights legislation passed in the 1960s during the Democratic administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

Dave from Texas echoed sentiments similar to those of a 90-year-old woman who called into C-SPAN way back in 2010 to ask the Black host a question.

“I am 90 years old and I just wanted to ask the colored man, why don’t colored people, instead of saying what we did to them, why don’t they say what we did for them?” she asked. “They talk about the slavery, but since then they have given them welfare, free medicine, free everything.”

Watch cringe above via C-SPAN.