An open letter to white Americans generally and white Texans specifically:
During the American Civil War election of 1864,
Democrats, the white supremacists of their day, running against
the party of Lincoln, declared themselves “The
White Man’s Party”. A feature of their political rallies was to sing
a
(by today’s senses, shockingly) racist version
of “Yankee Doodle Dandy, entitled “Nigger Doodle Dandy”.
When the Ku Klux Klan was formed and spread shortly
after the end of the war, its membership was almost
exclusively Democratic. Integrationist
Republicans were among its victims.
As a modern anti-racist, how can I atone for those
who left this history, including my own slave-holding great-great-great-grandfather?
How can I be “at one” with those who live with
this legacy? How can we establish a right, or righteous, relationship?
I believe part of the answer is that while we
work together to create a more inclusive future, filled with opportunity,
we must also
work to remedy the injustices that were committed
in the distant, and not-so-distant, past. Some wrongs continue to
this very day.
To heal these deep wounds to America’s--and Americans’--souls, requires honoring their existence and accurately remembering history.
In 1948, when Democrats added a strong pro-civil-rights
plank to their party platform, to where did pro-segregation,
white supremacist Democrats like Strom Thurmond
bolt? NOT to the opposition Republicans. Why not? Because Republicans
were still the party of Lincoln. Thurmond
had to start a whole new party, the States Rights Democratic Party, often
referred to as “Dixiecrats”.
It was not until 1964, when, emboldened by Sen.
Barry Goldwater’s vote against that year’s Civil Rights Act, white supremacists
began to feel comfortable in the former party
of Lincoln. When President Lyndon B. Johnson (D-TX) signed the act, he
is attributed
with saying he had lost the South for Democrats
for a generation.
The white supremacists’ comfort with the Republican
Party grew in Nixon’s 1968 “Solid South”. It continued as candidate
Ronald Reagan opened his 1980 presidential bid
with a speech in Philadelphia, MS, near the site where three civil rights
workers
were killed by racists. Reagan, flanked by Thurmond
himself and a young Trent Lott, spoke not of the martyred organizers,
but in the racist “code words” of “States’
Rights”.
Ancient history, right?
Republican State Rep. John Pappageorge of Michigan
commented in the Detroit Free Press, “If we do not suppress the Detroit
vote,
we’re going to have a tough time in this election
cycle.” He spoke those words at a Republican strategy meeting in
July of 2004!
Detroit’s population is 83 percent African-American.
It also has the largest Arab population of any city in America.
The website of Republican James Hart, http://jameshartforcongress.com,
running for Tennessee’s 8th Congressional District, declares,
“The poverty genes of less ‘favored races’, which
are spread by welfare and immigration, are destroying our cities no less
than if
they were hit by a nuclear bomb.”
No, it’s NOT just ancient history.
Anti-racist whites, especially Republicans, have
the power again to force the racists to come out of the closet and to be
held
accountable for their divisive policies.
You can starve their movement of political oxygen by ceasing to pretend
that an occasional
photo op with black and/or Hispanic kids is all
it takes to earn your vote. You can refuse to ignore that most of
those legal voters
purged from Florida voter rolls in 2000 (and
thousands more THIS YEAR) were black, or that those doing the purging were
Republican.
You can quit genuflecting before race-baiting
Confederate flag campaigns. You can remind them (and yourselves)
that the “heritage”
they embrace is a legacy of slavery and white
supremacy, no matter how much they claim otherwise. “States’ Rights”?
Hogwash!
The confederates seceded because the anti-slavery
states in the North exercised their OWN states’ rights to refuse to return
escaped slaves.
If “States’ Rights” were such a large reason
for the Confederacy, then why did the southern constitution DISALLOW secession?
For you Texans, you can choose not to go along
with the recent gerrymander of Texas congressional districts. Performed
without the
benefit of a new population census, it was the
result of an effort to maximize white Republican districts--with the assumption
that you’d
ignore what it did to minority representation.
That’s an assumption you don’t have to accept.
Even at the movies, as The Alamo is released for
home viewing, you can remember the REAL Alamo. You can remember that
the
reason many Texans rebelled was that they wanted
freedom, all right: the freedom to own slaves! Failure to acknowledge
historical
fact is what white supremacists--even today--are
counting on. Don’t let them count on it!
As a strong, modern Democrat, it pains me to say,
but Republicans could again become the party of Lincoln. Minority
votes could
be fought for by both major parties--instead
of leaning strongly-to-emphatically Democratic--but only if fellow anti-racists
stop letting
Republicans wink lovingly at their neo-Confederate
base.
Those who are dividing us along class, racial,
sex, sexual orientation, and religious lines control the Republican Party
(including the
Bushes, Cheney, Rove, DeLay, Ashcroft, Norquist,
Falwell, and Robertson) are counting on your acquiescence and acceptance
of their “compassionate” talk and hard line governance.
Don’t accept it!
They will go only as far as you allow.
Tell them--and vote--to stop the division!
This misadministration and its allies in Congress,
the States, and local offices take great pains to give lip service to voters
struggling
to achieve or retain middle class status. But
in reality, the current Republican Party is in thrall to its corporate
and well-connected
millionaire contributors. The only “service”
lower and middle class Americans are getting from them is the kind a bull
provides a cow.
Sincerely,
(withheld)