Posted on 12/18/2012 10:45:48 PM PST by dead
WHEN Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina announced on Monday that she would name Representative Tim Scott to the Senate, it seemed like another milestone for African-Americans. Mr. Scott will complete the term of Senator Jim DeMint, who is leaving to run Heritage Foundation. He will be the first black senator from the South since Reconstruction; the first black Republican senator since 1979, when Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts retired; and, indeed, only the seventh African-American ever to serve in the chamber.
But this “first black” rhetoric tends to interpret African-American political successes — including that of President Obama — as part of a morality play that dramatizes “how far we have come.” It obscures the fact that modern black Republicans have been more tokens than signs of progress.
The cheerleading over racial symbolism plays to the Republicans’ desperate need to woo (or at least appear to woo) minority voters, who favored Mr. Obama over Mitt Romney by huge margins. Mrs. Haley — a daughter of Sikh immigrants from Punjab, India — is the first female and first nonwhite governor of South Carolina, the home to white supremacists like John C. Calhoun, Preston S. Brooks, Ben Tillman and Strom Thurmond.
Mr. Scott’s background is also striking: raised by a poor single mother, he defeated, with Tea Party backing, two white men in a 2010 Republican primary: a son of Thurmond and a son of former Gov. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. But his politics, like those of the archconservative Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, are utterly at odds with the preferences of most black Americans. Mr. Scott has been staunchly anti-tax, anti-union and anti-abortion.
Even if the Republicans managed to distance themselves from the thinly veiled racism of the Tea Party adherents who have moved the party rightward...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Mr. Scott is a rational, intelligent man who is able to analyse rather than apply popular ideaolgical formulations regardless of how emotionally satisfying they may be.
More embarrassing, mindless nonsense from the left. Tim Scott is part of the Tea Party and is what got him elected over more establishment picks - if the Tea Party was racist then why did they choose him over white candidates? Are those such as Herman Cain, Vernon Parker, Allen West, etc. also promoting "thinly veiled racism"?
Does this author know that blacks voted in a majority for Calvin Coolidge in 1924? Calvin Coolidge was a fiscal Conservative who also broke up the Boston Police Strike yet garnered the endorsement of plenty of black papers. If blacks used to vote for a strong fiscal Conservative like Coolidge how is Tim Scott betraying blacks?
. . . And yet, his politics are apparently pretty closely in line with the preferences of most South Carolinians. Because he won the election. Isn't it ray-siss to suggest he should be representing his skin color, rather than his constituents?
Liberals don't have principles. They don't even understand the idea. They have talking points. Logical consistency with their previous sentence doesn't occur to them—they just ring some designated bells in random order. If you try to read what a liberal has written, sometimes the stupid is just too big to get your mind around.
Ironically only a mentally inferior person could think that spending more than you take in is a recipe for economic success.
Watching Kennedy and Biden excoriate Clarence Thomas opened my eyes and caused THIS lifelong Democrat to abandon the party forever and swear to never vote for a Democrat again.
Just another article that is targeting the peasant and slave class of the democrat party. It has no basis in reality, it is the propaganda of evil.
That'll have liberals scratching their heads until they reach grey matter.
Dittos. Tea Partiers accept me for who I am, and don't try to force me into an ideological pigeonhole just because of the color of my skin.
When I was last back home visiting the family (who are all well aware of my politics), they asked me if I weren't "uncomfortable" around the Tea Party people. I told them that, quite honestly, I've never been more accepted and perfectly at ease in any group. You could practically see the false impressions melting in their minds.
It’s amazing the volume of vitriol that can be squeezed from a tiny brain.
It’s a damn shame the level of bigotry thrust upon Black Conservatives. On the upside, it’s obvious the Leftists feel threatened by the growing Black Conservative demo.
Just my personal observations- if you want to see stepin’ fetchit, Uncle Tom, tapdancin’ bowin n scrapin’ blacks, go to the Democrat party. They’re the ones who are used for entertainment purposes. You wanna see tough,strong-willed, independent-minded men and women, take a look at Conservative blacks....
Despite the Civil War, which won freedom for Blacks, it remains the case that any Blacks seeking to leave the Liberal plantation are labeled Uncle Toms and worse.
Well put.
Get these “tokens” together and have each of them make a TV ad ripping the NYT and their fellow travelers and telling America what they believe. Run those ads occasionally during various time slots over the next few years. It would be a great investment.
Toss in a few up and coming blacks and let them have their say, too. I would donate to something like that. Even if the NYT hadn’t run this stupid article we should do this.
We (that is, our so-called leaders) have got to do long term planning. The commies are starting their second century of their relentless push. We seem to plan about three weeks ahead, but mostly it seems like we don’t plan at all. We just react and usually poorly.
uh...no we should not take positions that advance "black" interests.
Our position(s) should advance an inclusive American best interest.
Ditto.
They get so upset when somebody leaves the plantation.
This no talent a**clown hack is just engaging in projection. I believe it was Dems that came up with the idea of gerrymandering “Majority Minority” districts to deliberately increase the proportion of minorities in the House of Representatives.
If that’s not blatant tokenism, I don’t know what it is.
Haley won a state-wide election in South Carolina ... where the gerrymandering was done under the auspices of Kind Charles II of England. Scott will in all likelihood win election state-wide as well.
GOP minority elected officials have proven themselves more intelligent and capable than their Democrat counterparts - because they are elected based on things like merit and competence, not under a deck that is deliberately stacked in their favor. Cynthia McKinney and Shelia Jackson Lee are products of just such a deck-stacking system.
Any “position” which is contrary to the position of Dear Leader is by definition racist, because he’s a black man. It matters not at all that the positions of Dear Leader have had devastating effects on black people in general.
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