Newt Gingrich Thinks Black Kids Should Be Slave Labor

For a former history professor, Newt Gingrich is awfully ignorant of history, life, and reality.

His latest foray into idiocy involves Gingrich advocating child labor for America's youth. Yes, child labor — the kind outlawed 100 years ago when we, as a country, realized that the worst thing you can do to a child is force them to work to feed their families. But, according to Gingrich, if this country needs anything, it needs more 11-year-olds working their way through their childhood. Yes, that's exactly what this steaming pile of self-proclaimed genius is advocating...for their own good. Of course! It's for the kids! Here is the former speaker, in all his racist glory: “Really poor children, in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works so they have no habit of showing up on Monday,” Gingrich insisted. “They have no habit of staying all day, they have no habit of I do this and you give me cash, unless it is illegal.” Hmm. Now what could children do that would require them to show up Monday morning, ready to work all week long? One that requires attendance and certain hours and rewards the participant for their efforts? I'm pretty sure such a thing already exists. Oh, that's right...School. Kids could go to school! They could go to school Monday through Friday, get a rewarding education and learn the skills necessary to later in life, get a job and be a cog in the economic machine. They'd learn the habit of staying all day and they'd learn to be rewarded for their efforts. It's so genius it just might work! Of course, education is exactly one of the things that Gingrich wants to cut. Why? Probably because a successful education program keeps kids in school and away from things like, oh, child labor. A successful education helps kids get into college, where they mature, learn about different cultures and different ideas, and end up turning off Fox News and voting for sane people. And while we're at it, let's not pull any punches about what Gingrich is doing here. By talking about poor kids in the way he does, he is trying to elicit an emotional, racist response from people who are scared of poor black people. He is trying to "Willie Horton" this issue, to drum up support from Southerners and rednecks across the country. It's something some Republicans have done for decades, and it is disgusting. “It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid,” he went on to say. What the hell, man? How can you possibly argue that child labor laws are anti-children? They keep adults, like Gingrich, from exploiting children. It ensures they keep their childhood and allows them all to have an education and a chance at a better future. In what world would children be served by working as children? At this point, we simply have to ask: Is Newt Gingrich insane, or is he simply playing the part for the cameras? With quotes like this next one, I'm not sure. “Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school,” Gingrich ultimately suggested. “The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they'd begin the process of rising.” Ah, yes. Let's fire people who do actual adult work with dangerous chemicals (like janitors) or specialized skill sets (librarians) and replace them with child slave labor — especially black kids, who are the people Gingrich really means when he says "poor". That should work out really well for everyone, except for the school, the community, the workforce, the children exploited, the child bullied for being the damn janitor at his school, the newly unemployed janitors, and society as a whole. Other than that it's a genius idea whose time has come. Gingrich, when he spoke at Harvard University's Kennedy School last month, said that putting children to work at low wage jobs “is something that no liberal wants to deal with.” I'll deal with it, Gingrich. I'm a liberal and I will gladly debate you on this. Any time, any place, any venue. Your staff can find my contact info on my user page. Let's have a debate where you defend child labor laws, you pseudo-intellectual version of a James Bond villain. When I'm done with you, you'll wish you had stuck to picking on poor black kids.