REALLY

Republican State Lawmaker: ‘Owning Slaves Doesn’t Make You Racist’

New Hampshire State Rep. Werner Horn claims it was merely a shrewd “business decision.”

If you were writing a list of things that are and are not racist, slavery should probably be pretty close to the top of the “are” section. But not for a Republican state lawmaker from New Hampshire, who claimed in a Facebook post that owning slaves was based on economics, not racism. State Rep. Werner Horn has deleted a Facebook post on the matter, but has repeated his opinion in multiple interviews since. Horn was responding to a post from state House member who asked: “If Trump is the most racist president in American history, what does that say about all of the other presidents who owned slaves?” Horn replied: “Wait, owning slaves doesn’t make you racist... owning slaves wasn’t a decision predicated on race but on economics. It’s a business decision.” He later told HuffPost: “[Slave owners] weren’t enslaving black people because they were black. They were bringing in these folks because they were available.”