More revisionist history from a guilt laden white guy

I really hate to keep mentioning my cultural geography professor, but he keeps pissing me off. I can handle different opinions, but I draw the line at factual inaccuracies.

Today we were talking about historical instances of systematic racism in America, and he cited the '3/5 rule' in the South. Just as a refresher for those of you unfamiliar, the 3/5 rule (or '3/5 Compromise') referred to the counting of slaves as 3/5 of a person in regards to representation in congress.

It is generally thought that this was because lawmakers in the South wanted to institutionalize the idea that blacks were inferior to whites. BUT, in all actuality, lawmakers in the South wanted to count slaves as a full person. It was the lawmakers in the North that didn't want to count slaves at all. Does this mean that the lawmakers in the North were the real racists? No.

Applying a little logic to the situation brings about the conclusion that it was actually more beneficial for slaves not to be counted at all. Think about it. Slaves couldn't vote. If they were counted as full people like the southern lawmakers wanted, it would've increased the South's pro-slavery, anti-black representation in congress (if slaves had been able to vote, it would be different because they would have presumably not voted to continue their slavery). However, if they were not counted at all, the South's representation (and thus power) in Congress would've been much weaker. So the 3/5 compromise was actually more pro-slavery (or racist, if you prefer) than not counting slaves at all.

So the next time someone says that it was racist to only count slaves as 3/5 of a person, hit them with a rolled up newspaper, point your finger in their face and say 'No. Bad.' Then put them outside and don't let them back in until they've had time to think about what they did.