We've all heard the philosophical question:
If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?
I've recently learned the political - and racial - equivalent in what happened to Bill Randall, a candidate for Congress in North Carolina's 13th District, which includes portions of Raleigh.
You see, in early October, his campaign billboards were defaced with a vulgar phallic symbol and the letters "KKK."
What would generate such a hateful action?
Randall grew up in New Orleans in a family of simple means. His 27-year military career was inspired by his family. From his biography:
His Vietnam War era veteran brother, Adolph Randall, served in U.S. Marines. His Naval Officer sister, Alice Randall Flanders, achieved a Lieutenant Commander’s rank and served as her brother Bill’s reenlisting officer three times - this rare military reenlistment combination is part of U.S. Navy history.
High school and Naval Junior ROTC graduation was followed by a distinguished, decorated twenty-seven year Navy career, which included achieving Command Master Chief - the highest “non-commissioned officer” rank.
He served in Desert Storm and at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
His civilian record is just as impressive and seems suited to service as a representative. He has both a bachelor's and master's degree in business administration. He started a successful independent insurance agency and served in a sales position at a business management consulting firm. He understands business both as an owner and an advisor.
He is also a practicing minister and author.
What's not to like?
Oh - did I mention that Randall is Black? And that he's a - gasp! - conservative?
Not just a 'conservative' - but a tea party conservative, no less.
Perhaps now you have the context for the racism directed against him.
But, you say, racism is still alive in our world. So what makes this act of vandalism so unique?
Well, in keeping with the original question, the media basically ignored the event. And if they ignore it, did it really happen?
Breitbart.tv has one of the very few news clips from NBC-17. But for the most part, despite press releases and a press conference, the issue was largely suppressed.
Even the main newspaper, the Raleigh News & Observer, chose NOT to report on the story, despite a record of covering other such vandalism.
If Randall had been a Democrat, do you think the vandalism would have attracted national attention? Wouldn't the liberal left be screaming "Hate crime!" at the top of their lungs?
Why is it that such hatred and vandalism is either tolerated or ignored when the subject is a conservative, but decried far and wide when the subject is a liberal?
Is this just an example of acceptable campaign hooliganism - or a concerted effort to minimize a serious offense simply because of the political philosophy of the victim? Perhaps the beating of Kenneth Gladney (which received no outrage from liberals), along with Randall's situation, is the just the tip of the iceberg.
I believe it's something more insidious: fear.
As Francis Rice (a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel and Chairman of the National Black Republican Association) writes:
History shows that during the 1960's Democrats used racist slurs and brutality against Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a Republican until the day he died, and other nonviolent activists who were trying to stop the Democrats from denying civil rights to black Americans. Today, Democrats are using similar reprehensible tactics against conservatives and Republicans, especially black Republicans, who are trying to stop the Democrats from stripping civil liberties from all Americans.
While claiming to be racially sensitive, Democrats use racist invectives to denigrate black Republicans, demeaning them as "sellouts", "Uncle Toms", "House Negroes", "House N-word", or worse. The list of black Republicans attacked by Democrats is long and includes RNC Chairman Michael Steel, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, General Colin Powell and Justice Clarence Thomas.
...
Written out of our history books are the following facts. The Republican Party was started in 1854 as the anti-slavery party and, after the Civil War, Republicans amended the US Constitution to grant blacks freedom (13th Amendment), citizenship (14th Amendment) and the right to vote (15th Amendment). Republicans then passed the civil rights laws to ensure blacks could exercise their Constitutional rights, including the Civil Rights Acts of 1866, 1867 and 1875. After Democrats took control of Congress in 1892, Democrats passed the Repeal Act of 1894 that overturned civil rights legislation enacted by the Republicans. It took Republicans nearly six decades to finally achieve passage of civil rights legislation in the 1950's and 1960's pushed through by Republican Senator Everett Dirksen over the objection of the Democrats.
In addition to their reprehensible of record of fighting against civil rights legislation, Democrats have a long history of racial violence. Recorded by liberal professor Dr. Eric Foner in his book "A Short History of Reconstruction", is the horrifying fact that Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan in 1866 to lynch and terrorize Republicans - black and white. The Klan became the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party, killing over 2,000 black Republicans and over 1,000 white Republicans.
No wonder the Democrats so demean and debase Black conservatives.
At BlogCon11, sponsored by FreedomWorks, I had the pleasure of hearing Deneen Borelli speak. During her presentation, she described, in a voice cracking with emotion, the names she's been called and the threats she's received because she is a conservative who just happens to be Black.
Her story is an inspiring one and I hope you'll take the time to learn about her because, as she said during her comments, her personal experience dispels the liberal myth that Blacks need government in order to succeed.
And I also heard from AlfonZo Rachel who stars in the upcoming movie, Runaway Slave. He told us that there used to be a saying: what white mean feared most was an educated Black man. Today, he says, the saying is: what liberals fear most is a Black conservative.
But he clarified that he doesn't call himself a "hyphenated American" and he won't call himself a "hyphenated conservative." I believe he truly understands what Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. taught us about looking to the content of a person's character - not the color of their skin.
It is thought that there are more Black Conservatives running for office now than at any other time in U.S. history. And to the party that enslaves Blacks on the government plantation (as Deneen described) that cannot be tolerated. Which is why racism against conservatives who happen to have a skin color that is a darker shade than others is ignored, denied and suppressed.
As such conservative candidates come forward and point out the failures of liberal policies (check out poverty, unemployment, unwed births, participation in government programs, educational attainment, etc... in predominately minority communities), they prove that conservative philosophies offer more to minorities than what has been offered by the Democratic Party for decades. And that scares Democrats to death.
So, what is the best way to deal with Democrats, liberals and their double standard and hypocrisy toward Blacks?
The answer is simple: elect conservatives like Bill Randall - who just happens to also be Black.
http://www.publiusforum.com/2011/11/18/black-republicans-campaign-sign-defaced-with-kkk-media-yawns/
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/rusty-weiss/2011/11/18/black-conservative-has-campaign-billboard-vandalized-kkk-pins-heard-dro
http://www.batesline.com/archives/2011/11/black-candidates-sign-hit-with-r.html
1 comment:
Thank you for the flash back in time. I am simply amazed that after all the hard work that MLK put into the whole of America that America would be free of racism, but there is always going to be someone out there in America to show us that Racism is still alive and well roaming the country seeking whom it may devour. I am surprise that throughout the history of America that America's African America Citizen would know what political party held the Racism in their hearts, but instead the majority of the African American Citizens decided to JOIN THEM, how ironic is that? The party that kept them in captivity is still holding the African American citizens captive, at least the African American citizen that has joined the Democratic Party. One would think that America would just wake up, but instead there will be somebody that will tell America that we still live in the dark ages, by pointing the finger at the Party that helped set the African American Citizens FREE, The REPUBLICAN PARTY by now calling the caucasion republicans racist, when they all know that is farthest from the TRUTH, and if those in the Democratic Party would go back and study their History they would know that it was and STILL is the Republican party who is trying to KEEP EVERYONE FREE, because America know's that The TRUTH will set us FREE. Study to show yourself approve, for the LACK of knowledge will draw a man to POVERTY. Remember that America, and become apart of the Republican Party, and then Let's get America back on the road to FREEDOM and PROSPERITY.
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