Since the end of the Civil War … since the 1960s civil rights era … since yesterday … the problem of institutional racism in America has been at the doorstep of the Democratic Party.
There is an almost universal understanding of the malignant role of the Democratic Party in the defense of slavery. They seceded from the Union to defend it. More than 400,000 Americans died to defeat the Democratic Party’s war for the preservation of slavery.
Most Americans understand the malignant role of the Democratic Party played in pursuing violent White supremacy through segregation and oppression of Black Americans. There is no controversy over who imposed those Jim Crow laws … whose legal systems thwarted equal justice … who blocked access to the ballot … who used terrorist paramilitary groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, White Citizens Councils, Knights of the White Camelia, and Red Shirts, to vandalize, injure and murder … for more than 100 years after the Civil War.
The Democrat Party’s long history of violent racism has diminished, but not yet ended. It has remained part of the urban landscape in most of the major Democrat-controlled cities in America.
In an inexplicable irony, the very people who have – and do – suffer from the residual of institutional racism overwhelmingly support the political party most responsible for their plight. The Democratic Party has gained their loyalty with promises of generational welfare dependency – providing meager sustenance to those trapped in the segregated ghettoes — in trade for the upward mobility and constitutional rights that most Americans enjoy.
It is more than odd that Blacks trapped in the misery of ghetto life vote for the same people they occasionally protest and riot against – the same political leaders they blame for the police brutality, unequal justice, high unemployment, poor education, unsafe streets, and inferior city services.
I got back to this subject through two revelatory interviews on MSNBC. In the one interview, Charles Blow, of the New York Times, was talking about the racism found in America’s cities. He specifically mentioned New York City and Chicago, among others. He described the situation perfectly. But he omitted the obvious. The who. Who is in charge? Who is responsible?
All the cities he mentioned have been controlled by Democrat political machines for generations. Even where you might have a Republican mayor occasionally – like John Lindsay and Michael Bloomberg, in New York – the apparatchiks are all Democrats – and both Lindsay and Bloomberg became Democrats. Chicago has not had a Republican mayor since 1931 – and rarely has a Republican served on its 50-member city council.
But like most observers of institutional racism, Blow fails to connect the two most obvious dots.
In the second interview, former Buffalo, New York mayoral candidate India Walton has this to say about her city in the aftermath of the race-motivated mass shooting at the Tops grocery store that killed 10 innocent people.
“There are a lot of people in this community who are devastated, but not surprised. Buffalo is racist. Buffalo is racially segregated. There’s a line that separates those who have from those who have not, and that is Main Street. Anything east of Main Street is where 85 percent of the black folks in the city live. It’s been that way.”
Walton said that Buffalo is the sixth most segregated city in America. As did Blow, Walton said New York City is also segregated and racist. And like Blow, she did not connect the dots between the obvious institutional racism and those in charge.
Buffalo has not had a Republican mayor since 1965 – and only three since 1934.
For more than 100 years, the Democratic Party has proclaimed fealty to civil rights at the national level, while drawing most of its political power from the racist political machines that have ruled over the high-population cities, Democrat Presidents like Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and John Kennedy talked civil rights while turning their backs on the Democrat political machines in the urban centers – and before that, to the “segregation power” of the Dixiecrats of the old south.
Fortunately, there seems to be an awakening among Black voters … Black parents … and Black community leaders. It is seen in the modest – but measurable – shift of Black voters to the Republican Party. It may seem small now, but it portends a much more significant realignment in the future. The same thing is happening among segregated Hispanics.
The comments by Blow and Walton are like an incomplete sentence with the last word so obvious, it does not have to be stated. The dots connect themselves.
What is even more amazing is the fact that the oppression of segregated minorities can continue even when there is Black leadership – because all the political power, prestige, and financial benefits of oppression are still available to those running the political machines and their cronies. That is why Black oppression remains in cities like Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore … and Buffalo.
There are two things that are true. While the residual of historic racism still exists in America, the masses of Americans are not racists. Billions of times each day, people of all backgrounds interact peacefully, and happily as friends, neighbors, co-workers, and lovers. We protect each other and save each other’s lives.
Yes, there are some on the fringe who harbor hate and take up violence – and they come from all communities. But they are not enough to characterize the people generally as racist. Institutional racism is cancer with identifiable loci. The most obvious indicator is segregation – and all the obvious tragic consequences of segregation. Find generational segregation and you will find institutional racism – AND you will find long term Democrat governance.
So, there ‘tis.