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Health & Fitness

The Purpose Of Mirrors

This week Senator Rand Paul went to Howard University to talk about the Republican Party and how it wants to build a bridge to African Americans

I never had kids, so time is a funny thing for me. It passes more slowly, or it’s warped or something, and I don’t feel all that different than I did when I was 24 years old. But then I start to shave and there’s this 58 year-old man staring back at me from the mirror. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I grew a full beard.

This week Senator Rand Paul went to Howard University to talk about the Republican Party and how it wants to build a bridge to African Americans and other minorities. He spent a lot of time talking about both parties and what they were like prior to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Senator Paul, however, did not point out his brief desire to repeal the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Instead he pointed out how the Democratic Party was primarily responsible for keeping Jim Crow alive.

Senator Paul talked about how most of the founders of the NAACP had been Republicans; he spoke about how it was the Republican Edward Brooke who became the first black senator in 1966, but he didn’t remember Brooke’s name and the students had to shout it out for him. He mentioned that the first 20 black congressmen were Republicans. Everything he said was true, and everything he said happened before the Republican Party adopted “The Southern Strategy” under Nixon.

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And, then, in one of those perfect moments that completely illuminates a speaker, Senator Paul asked, “How did we lose that vote?”

It is interesting to stop at this point and note Senator Paul’s choice of diction, “that.” He was standing in front of an African American audience at an historically African American University, giving a prepared speech, and he did not say “your.”

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But I digress…well, not really…anyway, the African American students at an historically African American University also knew what Paul didn’t mention: that it was the Democratic leadership of the 1960’s that pushed the 1964 Civil Rights Act into law knowing that it would cause their party to lose control over Washington for at least two generations.

The students also knew that the Republican Party Leadership listened to Nixon’s strategist Kevin Phillips when he said, "the more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans.”

Then in 1976, while the country celebrated its bicentennial, Ronald “The Great Communicator” Reagan waved his “Welfare Queens” banner. He was communicating all right, but he didn’t realize how much he was actually saying and to whom. And the beat…as the kids say…goes on…all the way to the McCain campaign and accusations that Mr. Obama was “palling around with terrorists” and how Mr. Obama was a man who doesn’t “see America like you and I see America.” No code there, huh?

Lately members of the Republican Party, like Senator Paul, have been trying to back away from the cliff of Destruction-by-Racism. They may have finally realized what the Democratic Leadership of the 1960’s grasped. Or not, since they are trying to paint their party as if we’re living in 1963, and they are trying to color the Democrats to be as racist as they were 70 years ago. Paint and crayons:

Well, they’re the most racist people there are. You know, they put you in a little category, a little box. You have to think this way. How could you dare come off the plantation? — Dr. Benjamin Carson, describing white liberals.

Surf the internet and you’ll see variations of that quote repeatedly. Smoke and mirrors.

Surf the internet and you’ll find thinly veiled racist arguments like:

As I write this, a group of eight U.S. Senators are reaching an agreement to provide a path to citizenship for more than 20 million people who entered this country illegally. Basically, the Republican members of this group are walking away from a core belief of the Republican Party espousing equal protection under the law. In order to win elections, these Republicans would walk away from the people who have filed their papers, and waited in line to become citizens. — John Webb

Surf the internet and you’ll find thinly veiled statements of bigotry like:

The gay community is demanding Americans change how they define themselves to meet the gay community requirements. Republicans should continue demanding equal rights for all citizens. Republicans should support laws which protect gay partnerships in any manner that guarantees their equal protection. Marriage is between a man and a woman and is not open to redefinition. — John Webb

Surf the internet and quite often you’ll find those types of statements in the same articles. The authors are always Republicans and often they are members of the Tea Party.

I have been writing about the Republican Leadership here and not, necessarily, individual members of the party. It’s my opinion that the Republican Leadership should stop living in the distant past, and that they should start shaving in front of a mirror.

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