Black Conservatives in the TEA Party Movement, and the Stupidity of the Race Card

[A Black Falcon]

>Before this I haven't thought that you were racist, but you seriously believe that?

Okay, and now you knock it off. It's not entirely untrue just as it's not entirely true. There was a strong amount of constitutional wrangling involved not just in secession itself, but in decades of debate over the issue of slavery before that event.

Regional differences over tariffs were also a long-term contributing factor.

So, let's stop throwing around the pejoratives. It's possible to examine non-racial factors of the Civil War without being racist, you know.

Sure, but saying that slavery wasn't the cause of the civil war? Nobody would have seceeded just over tariffs. And states rights isn't a separate reason from slavery, of course. The whole "States rights" argument was just a cover for slavery.

I did say though that a lot of it in this case is unconscious, a learned thing common in the region,and not always done for racist reasons. Denial of that sort certainly is about an issue of national pride. Is it hatred of Armenians that gets Turkey to still deny that in the end of World War I Ottoman troops committed a genocide that killed a million Armenians or so? Probably not, it seems to be more about not wanting to admit a national shame, not wanting to hurt the people's love for their country (because if you admit to such a horrible thing, it's going to be harder for your people to want to fight for it, etc.), and things like that. The same thing is true for Japan and its war denial, pretty much.

So yes, that's certainly a huge part of the explanation. The complicating factor is how much racism there still is in this country, particularly among white Southerners. And that's where my above other reason for Confederate apology starts to fall apart... I do think that racism has to be a central, key element to why many white Southerners still deny that the Civil War was fought over slavery and have such a strong unwillingness to forget the Civil War or the Confederate cause. Because as I said, that's just not true in the North.

The other explanation that I can think of is that it's partially also institutional inertia, that is southerners have been saying "It wasn't just slavery" for so, so long now that many of them really do believe it... I'm sure that's true. That kind of thing is quite tough to break down, but we have to do it, I think, if the nation is ever going to heal its racial divides better than it has so far.

But anyway, yes, you're right that racism isn't the only reason. A big reason is just that they can't admit to something so awful, just like America in genral can't with Vietnam, Japan can't with World War II, etc. I do think that racism is a factor, in why the argument is still so commonly made, though.

Irregardless of that, though, I think everyone can agree that the Republican Party has a racism problem. (Democrats aren't perfect, but they're better...)

I mean, if white Southerners weren't still having so many problems with race I would be more forgiving, I think. That they clearly are still having some of those problems is why I said that.

Despite that, though, overall America does seem to be moving somewhat in the right direction on race, despite the extreme reaction of certain elements of American society I think that it's clear that overall we are moving in the right direction, and things like Obama's election help prove that. That is exactly why they're being drawn out though, racists see the growing equality in America, hate it, and react by doing sickening things like making "Obama is a monkey born in Kenya" posters. Obviously those people are not a majority anywhere. Birtherism is scarily popular among Republicans, though, and I can't see any explanation for that except for racism, so yeah...

Thing is though, the Republican party's racism is only hurting it long term. If Republicans keep alienating Hispanics, even Texas isn't reliably Republican long-term, eventually there will be enough Hispanics there to swing the state Democratic...

In Unreadphilosophy's first post here he says that black people should be free to oppose the Democrats' positions too, and that is absolutely true. That would be much easier if the Republican party wasn't tied so closely to racism thanks to the "Southern Strategy" that I mentioned.

"Southern Strategy":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

America would be a better place today if the Republicans hadn't done that and the racists had been forced to form their own racist Ex Southern Democrat party or something like that. It's too bad that their political greed overwhelmed their values, right when the Democrats were finally facing their very bad proslavery past and turning against it.