From: John Boyer (johnboy@hiwaay.net)
Date: Mon Nov 27 2000 - 09:54:20 PST
>Minorities dont usually vote republican, I am guessing, for good reasons. They
>dont trust them. There is a history of voting against civil rights for
>minorities, against immigration reform, etc
Well, I have to speak up here, not just about above comment, but about the
general tone of discussion amongst my liberal friends, not just on Fork.
But first let's look at the comment above. Its probable that Rahul did not
mean to imply widespread racism among conservatives, but there are many
people who do assert that very thing. This is less of a response to the
comment above than it is a general rant. The notion that Republicans are
somehow intrinsically racist is pure fiction. You say that there is a
history of voting against civil rights. Well no party or ideology had a
monopoly on stupidity.
The celebrated civil rights act of 1964 wouldn't have passed without
Republican support. Many southern Democrats voted AGAINST it, including Al
Gore the elder.
I grew up in the 'racist' south. I have always lived right here in
Alabama. I am amazed at the revisionist history of the south that I hear
from people who, (forgive me, not you necessarily Rahul), don't have a clue
about what they are saying. When those Arkansas churches were supposedly
burning in Bill Clinton's childhood, Democrats were in full control of the
South. Remember the "party of Lincoln"? Well, the GOP was thrown out with
the end of reconstruction. You know, the last time an election was stolen [1].
The Jim Crow laws of the south were passed and defended by Democrats.
The "one drop" of blood standard was established by Democrats. Alabama's
stupid interracial marriage ban, which we just repealed in November, was
instituted by Democrats. That Confederate Flag in South Carolina was put up
by Fritz Hollings, a Democrat governor. The turnaround of Southern
Democrats in general has been stunning. Though none can be compared to the
feat of George Wallace. The same man who is known nationally as the racist
governor who blocked the doorway of the University of Alabama was
re-re-elected to governor just a few years later with a very large amount
of black support.
But all of this begs the question, why do minorities vote for Democrats?
Well, there are a lot of reasons, but it's not because Republicans are
actually racist. I would suggest that one of the main reasons is because
minorities in this country tend to be poorer than others. Democrats have
successfully positioned themselves as the party who will "do something" for
the lower class "working man". I have to admit they are right. Democrats
did something with the great "war on poverty". It has been even less
successful than the miserable failure called the "war on drugs". But it's
the thought that counts, right?
And of course there is the demonization of the right. There are countless
examples. Can you believe that Dick Cheney was compared to "Bull Connor" by
Time magazine reporter Margeret Carlson? What about Gore's campaign manager
Donna Brazeale saying "They'd rather take pictures with black children than
feed them."
Did you ever read the famous "Robert Bork's America" diatribe by Ted
Kennedy? It is breathtaking. Here is part of it.
"Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into
back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue
police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren
could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored
at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be
shut on the fingers of millions of citizens."
Now if anyone believes a word of that, there is no hope for me to sway you.
Full disclosure. I'm white. I grew up saying rhymes like "eenie meanie
miney mo, catch a nigger by the toe....". We didn't think a thing about it.
It's just the way it was. We certainly didn't hate anybody. My best friend
in High School was black. He got me listening to the Gap Band and I got him
listening to Loverboy. Yep, I admit it, I listened to Loverboy. My mother
grew up as a poor white sharecropper, they lived and worked right amongst
black sharecroppers. We all knew that blacks and whites were different and
nobody made a bid deal about it. I had some cousins in the North, Illinois
to be exact. When I would go see them in the summer time they used the
N-word too. But they did it in a different way, the really seemed to hate
blacks. Strange too, since all I saw up there was white people and corn!
They had just assumed I was a CCM (Card Carrying Member) because I was from
the south. The truth of the matter was, that by the time I grew up in the
70's, there just weren't that many rabid racists around.
Back home, my political awakening started with the Tommy Lee Hines case in
1979 [2]. I was a 14 year old dishwasher at the Holiday Inn in Decatur
Alabama. There were riots right down the street. Gunfire and Klansmen and
the SCLC. I was the only white in the kitchen. Me and the cooks just
wondered aloud what the hell was wrong with those people. But the thing
that struck me the hardest was that the people raising the most cain
weren't even from here. None of the leaders on either side of the issue
gave a damn about those three white women or some retarded black guy named
Tommy Lee Hines.
And so it goes, don't believe people who say that a 6 percent increase in a
school lunch program is a cut. Don't believe people who say that Rush
Limbaugh is a racist, until you have heard so for yourself. Don't believe
people who say that republicans want to kick old people out in the streets
just because the Democrat Ponzi scheme is about to run its course. There is
an agenda out there, and sometimes the facts get in the way.
With regard to civil rights legislation. In my opinion The Americans with
Disabilities Act was a disgraceful piece of legislation. It was signed into
law by George Bush by the way. Now this is how Republicans are seen as
bigoted and hateful. How, you say, can I be against such a law? I hate
disabled people? Well, no I don't. It's just bad law. Simply put, it's
unconstitutional, not to mention inefficient, for the Federal government to
tell me what kind of toilet I've got to put in my office!
What about other civil rights? Does the fact that most conservatives
disagree with the whole concept of a "hate crime" make them some sort of
bigot? It is simply a belief in equal protection under the law. The same
applies to racial preferences.
With regard to Immigration. Reasonable people see a problem here. Just
because they don't agree on a solution doesn't make one side cruel or
hateful. I think bilingual education is cruel. What a joke to tell some
immigrant kid he will do just fine even if he doesn't master the English
language.
These days Racism in this country is a boogeyman that, statistically
speaking, does not exist. Ask yourself, how many real racists do you know?
How many have you ever met? What color were they?
Like I said, there is no monopoly on stupidity. There are plenty of TRUE
bad things to say about republicans and conservatives, but I will leave
that to those who are much better at it than I.
johnboy
p.s. By the way, I hear that Katherine Harris has filed to have her first
name changed to "Republican". Just like poor Rodney King had to change his
to "Motorist".
[1] http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel112400.shtml
[2] http://www.dps.state.al.us/history.html
"Late 1978 and early 1979 were punctuated by strikes and demonstrations
throughout the state that demanded response by the department. A much
publicized trial in Cullman, that of Tommy Lee Hines, prompted
demonstrations by both the Ku Klux Klan and the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference. Troopers were called upon to maintain order and
prevent injury or property damage by physically separating the two groups. "
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