Sunday, March 06, 2005
Sen. Robert Byrd, racism, the KKK and the spectacle of (God help us all) black Republicans.
This is an open thread for those folks who, while members of the Republican party, want to yammer on about the rasicm of Democrats. Go figure.
The comments leading into this can be found here. Feel free to take it from there.
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7 comments:
Dizzy, my boy:
Man, you just don't get it, do you? I'm not laughing at you because you're black, or because I disagree with almost everything you write, or because you're such an obvious imbecile who couldn't debate his way out of a wet sack.
I'm laughing at you because you've made such a big deal with your phony, contrived outrage at racism and prejudice and yet you, a young, black male, made a deliberate and explicit choice to join, of all things, the Republican party, a political organization that oozes racism and prejudice from every pore.
This is the party of the Republican "Southern strategy"; of George Bush I's race-baiting "Willie Horton" ads; of Ronald Reagan's 1980 kickoff campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi (a small town known more than anything else for the murder of three civil rights workers where Reagan extolled the virtues of "states' rights" -- nudge, nudge, wink, wink); of George Bush II's racist smear campaign against John McCain and his "dark-skinned" (actually, adopted) daughter; of Trent Lott's fond pining for the days of Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrat party; of race baiting, gay baiting and the Confederate flag.
And you, as a black man, joined this party?
At this point, you don't have the moral standing any longer to complain about bigotry or prejudice. Not when you consciously make the decision to associate with its perpetrators.
In short, you chose to make your bed with people like that. Now you should stop complaining about the kind of behaviour they're known for.
CC
P.S. And, no, you don't have the right to complain about Robert Byrd. You have absolutely no grounds to bitch and moan about a man who publicly renounced his decades-old membership in the KKK if you continue to hang out with people who are openly and publicly racist to this day.
No one's going to take you seriously anymore. Sure as hell not me.
Have you ever taken me seriously?Pretty much, no. Not since your first posts, your complete lack of understanding of Social Security and your hero worship of "Jay Gatsby". That sort of pigeonholed you nicely.
But saying that I don't have the right to be taken seriously because I'm black and conservative...is just ridiculous. And, might I add, racist.Not at all. It's pointing out the hypocritical absurdity of your position. Joining the Republicans because you're terribly, terribly concerned about race and civil rights is as ridiculous as joining them because you're an advocate for the poor and/or homeless and thinking they're going to give a shit about that.
It's as absurd as becoming a Republican because you're a big believer in gay rights (and if there's anything as hilarious and self-contradictory as the Log Cabin Republicans, I've yet to run across it.)
You are saying that unless I'm black, and a certain kind of black, I don't have the right to talk about slavery or oppression.I'm saying that if you choose to be a conservative Republican, you pretty much don't have any right to complain about other people being racist. It sort of goes with the territory.
My point, is that all of that has changed.To which one can only respond, HAHAHAHA! Yeah, things have really changed. Those Republicans are so much more enlightened these days. Really.
Yessiree, they've certainly changed. Silly me. I stand corrected.
Gillespie's got it right. The dems/libs do use people like toilet paper.
Condi 08!!!!!!
Which reminds me how great those libs were during the confirmation hearings......
And don't try to tell me that [Byrd] isn't [a racist] any more. A person just doesn't go from saying that he "would rather be dead than fight beside a mongrel" to caring about those "mongrels".
Hmmm ... you know, Dizzy, you might just have a point. People don't change their inherent nature, do they? Like, once a pampered, spoiled, lazy, privileged, illiterate, duty-dodging, AWOL, coke-snorting, party animal frat boy, always a pampered, spoiled, lazy, privileged, illiterate, duty-dodging, AWOL, coke-snorting, party animal frat boy.
Good point. I'll remember that.
Both parties historically have used racism in American society to their own advantage. Racism plays well in the south. The south was run by Democrats for many years simply because Lincoln was a Republican. They were Democrats by default. This was known at the Southern Democrat: conservative, racist. Incidentally, the Democratic party up until the '30s was the party of big business in many respects.
In the early 60s. the Democratic party had a strange, split personality, with progressive pro-labor, pro civil rights types and forming one wing, and old southern segregationists making up another wing.
After the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were passed, many many conservative, segregationist, mostly southern Democrats left the party and became Republicans. Note that the SOLE reason they became Republicans,was because they didn't think that blacks ought to vote. And they still don't.
And they have remained welcome members of the Republican party to this very day. They would welcome the old Robert Byrd into the Republcan party in a heartbeat.
Also, at the time and place that Byrd joined the KKK, that was what you had to do if you wanted to hold office. Repugnant, yes.
The thing is, we don't know if Byrd joined out of racism or opportunism. He was most certainly a racist to some degree. But, like all politicians, he also tells people what he thinks they want to hear. And racism played well at the time. He has since changed his tune. He could be fronting now, then, or both.
We don't know if Byrd is truly reformed or not, or if one can reform. One must get pragmatic and look at his voting record in the Senate.
Personally, I think he's an embarassment to the party because of his past KKK ties, regardless of what he's done to make up for it. Why give the Republicans an easy target?
But, then again, the president's grandfather, Prescott Bush, helped fund the Nazi war machine. That didn't seem to affect his son's or grandson's political careers negatively.
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