A Republican lawmaker in Kentucky described her white father as a “slave” as she spoke to a local NAACP chapter about her effort to ban schools in the state from offering diversity and inclusion programs.
State Rep. Jennifer Decker (R) spoke before the Shelbyville Area NAACP earlier this month to tout a bill she introduced that would defund diversity, equity and inclusion offices and trainings and ban race-based scholarships at public colleges and universities in the state. Decker has argued such initiatives, known as DEI programs, are “misguided” and make colleges “more divided, more expensive and less tolerant.”
Republicans have worked to dismantle DEI programs around the country in recent years, while civil rights organizations have said the removal of such programs will only make it harder for already marginalized people.
During a Q&A at Decker’s NAACP appearance, an audience member asked the lawmaker — who is white — if her family had any role in the slave trade.
“My father was born on a dirt farm in Lincoln County,” Decker, 68, replied, according to audio first obtained by the Courier Journal. “His mother was the illegitimate daughter of a very prominent person who then was kind enough to allow them to work for him as slaves.”
“So, if you’re asking, did we own slaves? My father was a slave, just to a white man and he was white.”
The Courier Journal adds that Decker’s father was a white preacher born in the 1930s, nearly 70 years after slavery was outlawed in America.
A columnist for the newspaper asked the lawmaker for clarification on her comments last week.
“Well, my father was born into poverty,” she explained, adding her father’s upbringing was a “great equalizer.” “There was a very influential man who allowed them property and then they worked on it.”
She went on to say her claims were “probably overstated.”
“Was I saying that it was kidnapping and abuse the same as the slaves? No,” she said. “He was a child and his family all worked there.”
HuffPost has reached out to Decker and the Shelbyville Area NAACP for comment.