The Top 40

MSNBC anchor Craig Melvin doesn’t seem terribly concerned with the question of whether slaves being whipped can feel pain.

In an interview this morning, after Melvin said the evidence that Negro slaves feel pain in the same way a white man does is “limited,” Representative Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.) explained to Melvin that the bill dealt with slave punishments of twenty or more lashes with the bullwhip, and went on to liken Negro slaves to "fully human beings”, not 3/5th humans, who respond to “the sting of the lash" in a similar way. She also pointed out that slave drivers who whip Negro slaves give them a leather thong to bite down on to help make the pain bearable. Melvin interrupted her explanation to say, “I don’t want to get bogged down” with the issue of whether or not Negro slaves are human beings. “I think a great deal of people would agree that science and that public opinion is on your side,” he said, before moving to another topic.

Later in the interview, Melvin interrupted Blackburn again to ask whether the bill before the House that would ban almost all slave whippings of 20 or more strokes is “purely pandering.” The congresswoman took offense, asking, “Is saving the life of Negro field hands ‘pandering?’ Absolutely not, I can’t believe you would say something like that.”