Young black activists who are loudly and boldly speaking out on the oppression of blacks in America from the days of slavery right up to today have been told only half of the truth. As I listen to them talk, they omit critical historical facts. It is crystal clear they are parroting distorted facts, which some liberal “wise guys and girls” have taught them.
Recently, I observed a discussion between a young black male in his early 20s and an older very well educated and highly respected black political scholar. The young man was railing about black oppression, black poverty, black mass incarceration, and white supremacy, all of which are legitimate issues to all black people.
However, long story short, the young black man accused the older black man of not knowing his history, but when it was apparent that the younger man clearly was the one who had the knowledge deficit. The young black activist was wrongly blaming President Trump and Republicans for decades of black oppression and white supremacy. He has been taught to hold the wrong people accountable for the plight of black Americans.
If he were properly educated, he would know that from 1865 to the 1960s, and right up to today that the Democrats are the ones who bear the blame as well as the shame.
A brief historical lesson on the Democrat Party:
They fought against abolishing slavery.
They lost the Civil War but created the KKK to terrorize freed slaves by attacking the homes/families in the dead of night and executing/lynching freed black men, women, and children. They were the Confederacy. After losing the war, the Democrats took out their anger on the slaves they could no longer own as property.
They were segregationists and did not see blacks as equals. So, they created “Jim Crow Laws” to keep blacks oppressed. Democrat political leaders at all levels along with their all white police departments waged an all-out war on Dr. King and non-violent protestors (of all races) in the fight for civil rights. Many white Klansmen were found “not guilty in court” for hundreds of murders and bombings of black churches.
The majority of Democrats in the U.S. Congress did not support the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
President Lyndon B. Johnson started a “War on Poverty” which evolved into welfare to gets blacks to vote for Democrats. His words,” I will keep the N-word voting for Democrats for the next 200 years.”
Joe Biden, with support from Hillary Clinton, authored the Crime Bill in 1994 that resulted in mass incarceration of young black men whom they labeled as “ predators.” Biden also opposed bussing of black children to all-white schools to promote and achieve racial integration. (Senator Kamala Harris called him out on it in the Democratic Primary debates).
So, I ask you, who were/are the “white supremacists”? Who owns that history? If your answer is Republicans (a party founded by abolitionists) you are wrong. If you say President Trump, you are wrong again.
I encourage all young black activists and activists of all races to please study and know the facts first. I must ask this one question before I close this commentary. That question is:
“What was the Party of Abraham Lincoln, who signed the Emancipation Proclamation that resulted in the Juneteenth celebrations that occur in black communities today”?
If your answer is the Republican Party, you are right.
Tyrone K. Jones, Sr.
Chairman
Fayette County Republican Party
Thank you STF, but you did mention “context”.
Thank you STF, but you dis mention “context”.
Well said on all counts…
My loquacious friend, bringing context into the written word will only increase the divide between us. For example, can we really provide the mindset(context) of the Founders when discussing the Second Amendment? I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t there.
Mr. King – If you are truly interested in the Founders’ intent concerning the 2nd Amendment, Joseph Ellis’ book “American Dialogue: The Founders and Us” provides the best treatment of the topic that I have ever read. Ellis is a Ph.D. historian who has won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. He is the foremost American scholar of the founding generation.
Or perhaps you were merely being rhetorical.
Disingenuous? Are we rewriting history now? Historical facts being presented upsets the Tinkerbell mentality and the attack begins.
Should we perhaps bring up the riots outside the DNC Convention in Chicago because we surely wouldn’t want to omit any pertinent facts, should we?
Mr. King – We should bring up EVERY historical fact. The chaotic 1968 DNC Convention compared to the RNC Miami salute to law and order, Willie Horton ads – EVERYTHING. Mr. Jones is disingenuous because he selectively cites historical events that fit his narrative and omits those that do not. He ignores the context for these events as well. Tinkerbell permeates his letter, and you should be honest enough to state it. Do you Republicans reflexively ignore misdeeds of each other, or is it a considered strategy?
This is a disingenuous missive on the level of a Trey Hoffman letter. Any historic discussion of the two major political parties in America over the last half century without clear elucidation of Nixon’s “Southern strategy” that flip-flopped the two parties is akin to me describing our military history with Italy and only mentioning that we were allies in the first World War.
Mr. Jones is either an ignoramus (doubtful) or willfully misleading his readers by removing all contexts from the selective facts he relates. His letter is shameful, and although Cal (correctly) refuses to allow us to call others names in our responses, anyone even minimally conversant with mid-nineteenth American literature can assign the appropriate appellation.
This constitutes a new low for Fayette County Republicans.
In order to backfill the history lesson a bit … FDR enacted a very progressive political agenda and gained support for it by turning a blind eye to segregation, unfortunately. Southern Dems in the ‘30s were basically one-issue voters so they obliged and voted for the New Deal.
However in the late ‘40s, the conservative democratic voting block grew disenchanted with the party on the news of Truman’s efforts to integrate the military and perhaps more for his actions trying to address civil rights. White conservatives became extremely agitated in the early ‘60s with Civil Rights reform and longed for the “Old Right” movement days again.
The Republican Party did indeed adopt a “Southern Strategy” designed to break the Democrat hold on the South by appealing to the white conservative ideals of racism (cited here above) and to draw many of them to the GOP which ultimately pushed the party itself more to the right as well.
Now, Mr. Jones (Chair – Fay Co Republican Party) in his letter takes us on a brief history lesson of his own and he seems to conveniently omit any mention of the southern white conservative movement within the party and where it drifted to over the years. Hmm.