Alabama is once again at the center of internet chatter after a video featuring people from the state insisting slaves were not treated badly went viral.
The video, first posted by @chris_notcapn on Tuesday, has garnered over one million views.
“Please help me understand what I just watched. ‘Cause I’m speechless,” he said in the tweet.
In the video, which comes from an episode of comedian Chelsea Handler’s 2016 series Chelsea Does, a man appears to compare slaves to farming equipment.
“People were taken care of. Would you take a tractor that you just bought brand new and tear it up, misuse it? No, you’re going to take care of it, ‘cause you just spent a pile of money on that,” the man said in the clip. “Those people produced their crops, worked their fields, so you’re not gonna mistreat something like that.”
In the episode, Handler goes around asking residents of Tallassee various questions about racism, slavery and southern stereotypes. One resident insists that she’s not racist because she attends a church where Black people and white people worship and that Hollywood got a lot of things wrong about slavery.
“There may have been one that would do that to their slave just because they’re a mean, bad person, but the majority of them would not do that,” she said. “They were part of the family.”
Quite a few celebrities and Alabama-natives reacted to the clip.
“Racism, miseducation and delusion served with a smile! Tallassee, AL ladies and gentlemen,” comedian and Birmingham-native Jermaine “FunnyMaine” Johnson tweeted.
Ice-T added to the comments, “‘Would you take a Tractor that you just bought brand new and tear it up??’ (Or a slave) Wow.. #Logic?”