Thursday, March 18, 2010

Ron Paul's Racism

by Dr. Boyce Watkins

I remember when I was a college student at The University of Kentucky writing in the campus paper. Most of the white students at this conservative school in the south pretty much hated my guts. I didn't mind that, since the pain of growing up as a black man in the state of Kentucky left a scar so deep that it significantly thickened my psychological skin. One of the articles I wrote linked the Republican Party to racism in America. The editor of the campus paper, a conservative who loved to paint me as a raging liberal (I am honestly not all that liberal), titled the column, "Republicans are Racist: Guilty by Association."
While I didn't agree with the editor's assertion that guilt by association should matter to any of us, he may have had a point. The truth is that even guilt by association can get us into serious trouble. The case of former Republican Presidential hopeful Ron Paul is one that reminds us that the Republicans are having a great deal of trouble shaking their perceived connection to the very worst parts of America. The release of Paul's newsletter from the 1990s only makes matters worse, as the newsletterpresents a goldmine of incredibly racist statements and accusations that would make Rush Limbaugh blush.
Some of the most interesting statements in the newsletter are presented below:
"Boy, it sure burns me to have a national holiday for that pro-communist philandererMartin Luther King. I voted against this outrage time and time again as a Congressman. What an infamy that Ronald Reagan approved it! We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day."
"Just after a basketball game ended on June 14, blacks poured into the streets of Chicago in celebration. How to celebrate? How else? They broke the windows of stores to loot, even breaking through protective steel shutters with crowbars to steal everything in sight."
"If you live in a major city, you've probably already heard about the newest threat to your life and limb, and your family: carjacking. It is the hip-hop thing to do among the urban youth who play unsuspecting whites like pianos."

 

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