Reclining Right 6/16/2011

Republicans are racist according to many Liberals. They think Republicans hate blacks, that is, African Americans for the politically correct, at least for now. That is the Liberal media and Democrat party line every time a conservative Republican criticizes President Obama’s policies.

The irony is that the Republican Party (GOP) was established to end the slavery of blacks. A Republican, Abraham Lincoln, issued the executive order, the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing black slaves. A Republican Congress passed and spearheaded the ratification of the 13^th amendment, ending slavery.   Frederick Douglass, the most influential black of his time, campaigned for every Republican presidential candidate until he died in 1895.

The women’s suffrage movement (giving women, including black women, the right to vote in 1920) was led by Republican men. Well, no one is perfect.

The first women ever elected speaker of a state legislature was Minnie Davenport Craig in 1932, a Republican black woman from North Dakota.

Republicans appointed the first and only two blacks to the US Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas. I had dinner with Thomas and his wife and have never been more awe struck of a prominent figure’s integrity and genuine warmth – and I have been fortunate enough to have met a number of world leaders. Democrats brought totally unfounded vicious charges against Thomas in order to prevent his confirmation to the Supreme Court.

It was Republican President Eisenhower who introduced the Civil Rights Act of 1960 against staunch Democrat opposition. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawing major forms of discrimination against blacks and women, had a much bigger percentage of Republicans than Democrats voting for it. Affirmative Action, which is essentially reverse discrimination against whites, is a Democrat construct.

Richard Nixon selected the first black American to be National Teacher of the Year. It was Republican President Gerald Ford who rescinded Democrat Franklin D Roosevelt’s racist executive order authorizing the interment of over 120,000 Japanese Americans. President Reagan appointed the first black cabinet secretary, Samuel Pierce.

Republican President Bush I appointed the first black Chairman of the Military Joint Chiefs of Staff, the first black Secretary of State, first black head of the National Security Council, Colin Powell as well as the first black ambassador to the UN, Edward Perkins and the first black Secretary of Education, Rod Paige.  Have you noticed a consistent trend?

Michael Steele was elected the first African American elected head of a national political party. Guess which one?

When Michele Bachmann, congresswoman and potential candidate for president, was asked recently which political columnists and authors she most often reads, she mentioned Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, two very black economists, who are arguably the two most respected by conservatives.

Over the weekend I listened to newly elected black Republican Congressman Allen West’s speech at the NC Republican Convention. Recommend you find it on U-Tube.

Hmmm. Herman Cain, another guy with a deep lasting tan, is a favorite candidate of conservative Republicans and those racist Tea Party activists. How can that be?

What most Liberals do not seem to understand or notice because of their ideological blindness is that what conservative Republicans and Tea Party activists do not like about our half black president is not the color of his skin, but the red color of his decidedly socialist destructive political agenda. Why does anyone take serious the dominant media talking heads statements about Conservatives, Republicans and Tea Party being racist?

Martin Luther King is famously remembered for saying he was looking for a world where it is “the content of a man’s character” and his beliefs that count, not the color of his skin or ethnic origin. That is what virtually all conservatives and Republicans believe.  The Democrat ideology appears to be to divide people into ethnic groups and try to make them feel inferior so they will more readily accept special favors and handouts from their government masters in return for their votes.

James F. Davis 6-16-11