Democrats Again Choose Style Over Substance

Nancy Pelosi kente cloth
Photo credit Getty Images

It turns out, the efforts of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other leading Democrats to showcase their contrition and wokeness, may have backfired.

Pelosi and others entered the U.S. Capitol Visitor's Center last week and knelt for eight minutes and 46 seconds - the same amount of time that ex-Minneapolis police Derek Chauvin kneeled on George Floyd's neck. They did this while donning traditional West African kente cloths, which garnered criticism from many who labeled it as nothing more than pandering.

To make matters worse, a recent fact check from USA Today has linked those very kente cloths to the African slave trade.

The day after the Dems' little stunt, Facebook user Dave Brandon claimed in a post that received nearly 3,000 shares that the scarves were originally worn by early African slave traders. 

USA Today followed with its own fact check which backed Brandon's claim. 

The kente cloth originated from "the Asante, or Ashanti, peoples of Ghana and Ewe peoples of Ghana and Togo." The Asante Kingdom's first ruler, Asantehene Osei Tutu, adopted the scarf as a royal symbol:

Tutu, who lived from 1660 to 1712 or 1717, unified several small Asante kingdoms to create the Asante empire. He is credited with expanding the Asante throughout most of Ghana and introducing his subjects to the gold and slave trades along the West African coast.The Asante supplied British and Dutch traders with slaves in exchange for firearms, which they used to expand their empire. Slaves were often acquired as tributes from smaller states or captured during war. Some slaves were brought across the Atlantic whiles others stayed in Africa to work in gold fields.
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