Party of
A lot of political points
are scored by painting Republicans as racists, and by dividing rather than
uniting us. They blame us for church burnings, and blame Bush for dragging
James Byrd to his death. Yet when Senator Fritz Hollings (D-SC) called
Hispanics “wetbacks,” and hoisted the Confederate flag over the statehouse, we
heard silence. Senator
Robert Byrd (D-WV) recruited members for the Ku Klux Klan and
uses the n-word, yet he was elected #1 Democrat over and over.
Harry Belafonte smears Colin
Powell in a way that no Republican could ever do or would want to do, and he’s
applauded. None of this is to excuse or defend what Trent Lott said, which
you cannot just brush aside. But there is a clear double standard on the
race issue. Strom Thurmond was a Democrat when he held those segregationist
views. Democrats – including Al Gore’s own father – stood in the way of the
1964 Civil Rights Act. More Republicans voted for it than Democrats, or it
would’ve failed. Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower integrated the
schools.
The stereotype of the GOP – the Party of Lincoln – as the segregationist,
racist party may be one of the biggest political sleights of hand in history.
Likewise, this is not a racist nation. A racist nation doesn’t make Bill Cosby
and Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan icons in their fields, nor does it elevate
Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Rod Paige and so many other people of color to
positions of national leadership. Yet for their success, such people are called
sellouts – or far worse. What’s going on?
We’re not the ones saying
that people of African decent can’t be racist, or trying to defeat foes by
throwing around the term at anyone whose ideas we fear. I rolled George W. Bush’s
comments condemning Lott, and I want you to hear them in the audio link below.
I then asked, “How many of you out there think Trent
Lott is a racist?” That’s a fundamental part of this argument, because false
inferences or accusations that someone is a racist are just as heinous as
racism itself.
Wallace, Maddox, Connor – all
segregationists, all Democrats. The Kennedys secretly
tapped Dr. Martin Luther King’s phone calls to blackmail him. It was our first
Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, who wrote and issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and we’ve been fighting for equality
and judging people as individuals rather than members of groups ever since. No,
we’re not the ones who benefit from racial strife. The other guys are.