Terry McMahon's Awesome Blog

Thanks to the hotties at Feministe for finding this awesome column about how the Republicans have never been racist. My friends over there - ok, this girl I know in my lawyering class - astutely point out that, uh, what about the southern strategy, but this is the kind of comment that really deserves an explanation. So I have two solid points here, just to show once and for all that Republicans, indeed, have been racist.

1. First off, they admitted it! Minor detail, I know. Here's the Washington Post story (from just this past July!) in which current Republican National Chairman Ken Mehlman apologized for the Republican Party's 1968 strategy of winning over southern Democrats with racial appeals, as well as future trangressions in the 70s, 80s and 90s. It was a pretty crappy apology (claiming the GOP mostly didn't "reach out,") but Mehlman did use the exact words "trying to benefit politically from racial polarization." And three lines his boss seems not to understand: "we were wrong."

2. What do you know about Philadelphia, Mississippi? It's a small town, population 7303, that has been the site of two major events in our country's history. The later event was in 1980, when Ronald Reagan launched his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Right in that small town! So you'd have to think, if only one other big event had ever happened there, you'd have to believe Reagan wanted you to connect his event with the old one. Right? So what could it be? If you guessed "the 1964 slayings of three political activists during the Civil Rights Movement," you might have what it takes to be a Republican!

3. I know I said I had two points, but I said I had two solid points, and now I'm just ranting. But do you remember the "Hands" ad Jesse Helms ran in his 1990 North Carolina Senate race, the one depicting a white man losing his job to "a minority," when Helms was running against a black guy? (Watch it online, it's much worse than I'm implying.) Why are Democrats so fucking racist?

Really though, I'm just warming up. This guy's column is so ludicrous that it deserves a point-by-point rebuttal. That's right, if Fire Joe Morgan can do it with baseball, I can do it with politics. Here we go:

Common sense questions would be: If Southern bigots fled the Democrat Party to the Republican Party during 1964 and following, why was it the Republicans who fought for civil rights? Why was a Republican president (Richard Nixon) responsible for affirmative action?

I actually had to plead ignorance on the first question, until I looked it up. Here's the party breakdown of the 1964 Civil Rights Act in the Senate:
* Democratic Party: 46-22
* Republican Party: 27-6
Here it is for the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
* Democrats: 49-17
* Republicans: 30-2
So, in direct response to the first question, actually, Democrats voted for it too. Sean Hannity loves to quote that Republicans voted for this bill in a higher percentage (it's all he's got on this issue), but that's easy: in 1964 and 1965, southern racists were all Democrats! Remember? They didn't start voting Republican until the Republican Party's 1968 southern strategy! (The one your party chair just apologized for?)

As for the Republican president and affirmative action, honestly, I have no idea. In fact, I'm confused by a lot of things: why is it that when a Democratic president, a southern Democrat at that, uses his legendary persuasive ability to convince senators to vote for the 1964 and 1965 civil rights bills, it's actually because of the Republican senators, but when affirmative action starts in 1968, it's actually because of the Republican president? I seriously don't get this; I guess I was just taught poorly by liberal academics.

Why do Republicans have the stellar record of meritocratic inclusion in the highest echelons of their administrations?

Man, good thing I found a letter from Terry Edmonds here, that made a couple corrections to the record:

Do the names Ron Brown, Mike Espy, Jesse Brown, Alexis Herman, Hazel O'Leary, Togo West, and Rodney Slater mean anything to you? They represent the largest number of African Americans ever appointed to Cabinet-level positions, before or after the current administration--more than all other presidents combined. Clinton's African American judicial appointments also far exceeded those of any other president in history. In addition, Clinton appointed seven African Americans to the uppermost staff level in the White House, also the largest number in history. They included Bob Nash, Thurgood Marshall Jr., Minyon Moore, Ben Johnson, Mark Lindsay, Sharon Farmer, and me, the first director of speechwriting for an American president.

These next few are easy.

Why did Democrats led by Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., bitterly oppose the nomination of Thurgood Marshall,

Southern Democrats in the 60s were racists.

Clarence Thomas
Gross incompetence, sexual harassment.

and Janice Rogers Brown?
Batshit crazy.

Why did the Democrats sit silent as Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and Janice Rogers Brown suffered vicious ad hominem attacks based on their race?

Well, now, I can only speak for one Democrat, but the reason I never commented on the racist attacks against Rice, Powell and Brown not because I'm racist, but because those attacks didn't exist, and you just fucking made them up. Subtle distinction.

Why was it the Democrats who opposed every civil-rights bill introduced in Congress (by Republicans) from 1856 well into the 1970s?

Man, if I hadn't listed all the Democrats above who supported the civil rights bills, I sure would have nothing to say right now. Well, except that southern Democrats "from 1856 well into the 1970s" were racists. Now, granted, other people from 100 years ago who are members of the same party as me and were overt racists probably makes me a racist too, the same way being in the same party as Henry Wallace makes me a communist and being in the same party as George Bush makes you a fucking idiot. But, it happens. What can you do?

Why do Democrats today support measures that retard self-sufficiency pursuant to blacks and the so-called poor, while Republicans champion the exact opposite (President Bush's "We will rebuild New Orleans" speech notwithstanding)?

This sentence is more or less inscrutable, so I'll leave you with this: anyone who would use the phrase "so-called poor" is a horse's ass and doesn't deserve one bit of your attention.