Palin needs a history lesson (Richard Cohen flips out)

Washington Post ^ | 11/23/10 | RICHARD COHEN

[Libloather]

Palin needs a history lesson
RICHARD COHEN
Tuesday, November 23, 2010

When I was 11, my father thought it was time to show my sister and me the nation's capital.

**SNIP**

It's appalling that Palin and too many others fail to understand that fact - indeed so many facts of American history. They don't offer the slightest hint that they can appreciate the history of the Obama family and that in Michelle's case, her ancestors were slaves - Jim Robinson of South Carolina, her paternal great-great grandfather, being one. Even after they were freed they were consigned to peonage, second-class citizens, forbidden to vote in much of the South, dissuaded from doing so in some of the North, relegated to separate schools, restaurants, churches, hotels, waiting rooms of train stations, the back of the bus, the other side of the tracks, the mortuary, the cemetery and, if whites could manage it, heaven itself.

It was the government that oppressed blacks, enforcing the laws that imprisoned them and hanged them for crimes grave and trivial, whipped them if they bolted for freedom and, in the Civil War, massacred them if they were captured fighting for the North. And yet if African Americans hesitate in embracing the mythical wonderfulness of America, they are accused of racism - of having the gall to know more about their own experience and history than Palin and others think they should.

Why do politicians such as Palin and commentators such as Glenn Beck insist that African Americans go blank on their own history - as blank as apparently Palin and Beck are themselves?

[RipSawyer]

“Finally, it was the Democrats who created the welfare and education system we have today, which has ruined black families, destroyed inner city schools and created a black society of government dependence, also known as SLAVERY!”
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

I have to call you on that last one, people need to stop saying that people on welfare are slaves, they are not, they are more like pampered children who never grow up. A slave is someone who labors at whatever he is commanded to do and receives no recompense other than a little food and maybe basic shelter and the chance to live another day. Those who live much better than that on taxpayer’s money without doing anything to earn it are definitely NOT slaves!

It would make more sense to call the taxpayers slaves and those living on welfare the pampered children of the slave owners.

[apoxonu]

I’ll agree with you, but I am addressing the liberal Cohen, who is too cowardly to allow comments on his columns.

When talking to liberals, I always speak of welfare as “slavery” even though that’s not true. Why? because it makes them angry and makes them think about the history of their party.

[steve8714]

Michelle had to do nothing, she was forced to surrender her law license.

[SunkenCiv]

Richard Cohen’s got his head up his ass.

The Democrats are the party of the single party state today, but over time have been the party of the Klan, the party of Jim Crow, and the party of slavery. And they were the only such party in America.

I wonder what his American ancestors were doing about 150 years ago?

Thanks Libloather.

[SunkenCiv]

• WaPo's Richard Cohen Shows His Bias And His True (Racist) Colors In Palin Hit Piece Posted by Lori Ziganto