You’re right of course but because he used the word “Negro” and said they “never learned to pick cotton”, well he’s cooked now.
And while the accusation is abused and overused these days, it is racist to say “they never learned to pick cotton”. Sorry it is.
So let’s not get into defending these comments. Because that’s what the totalitarians want, us to focus on defending the indefensible, while they quietly continue their assault on freedom.
I am at a liberal site right now questioning if that is even the way he worded it, but at the same time defending the point he was making, as any rational person would.
"Negro" superseded "colored" as the most polite terminology, at a time when "black" was more offensive. This usage was accepted as normal, even by people classified as Negroes, until the later Civil Rights movement in the late 1960s. One well-known example is the identification by Martin Luther King, Jr. of his own race as 'Negro' in his famous 1963 speech I Have a Dream.
During the American Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, some black American leaders in the United States, notably Malcolm X, objected to the word "Negro" because they associated the word Negro with the long history of slavery, segregation, and discrimination that treated African Americans as second class citizens, or worse. (Malcolm X preferred "Black" to "Negro", but also started using the term "Afro-American" after leaving the Nation of Islam.
Since the late 1960s, various other terms have been more widespread in popular usage. These include "black", "Black African", "Afro-American" (in use from the late 1960s to 1990) and "African American" (used in the United States to refer to black Americans, peoples often referred to in the past as American Negroes).
The term "Negro" is still used in some historical contexts, such as in the name of the United Negro College Fund and the Negro league in sports.
The United States Census Bureau announced that "Negro" would be included on the 2010 United States Census, alongside "Black" and "African-American" because some older black Americans still self-identify with the term.
Negroid
In physical anthropology the term is one of the three general racial classifications of humans — Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid. Under this classification scheme, humans are divisible into broad sub-groups based on phenotypic characteristics such as cranial and skeletal morphology.
Why is it “racist” to say they (blacks) never learned to pick cotton? Let’s look at the definition:
racist:
1) The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2) Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
prejudice:
1) An adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts.
2) A preconceived preference or idea.
3) The act or state of holding unreasonable preconceived judgments or convictions.
I don’t see racism in Mr. Bundy’s comments, but I could be wrong. Please explain why his comparison is racist. In what way did he claim blacks were an inferior race or make an observation that wasn’t based on fact?