It’s about time that Republicans quit pussy-footing around on the issue of race. They need to point out that in both principle and practice, the Republican Party has a far better record than the Democrats on race. Even more importantly, they need to stress that on the issues that most affect African-Americans today, the Democratic position represents racism of the most offensive sort—a patronizing racism that denigrates Blacks every bit as badly as the old racism of Jim Crow and segregation.

Even the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which supposedly established the Democrats’ bona fides on race, was passed in spite of the Democrats rather than because of them. Republican Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen pushed the bill through the Senate, despite the no-votes of 21 Democrats, including Gore Sr. and Robert Byrd, who remains a powerful force in the Senate today. In contrast, only four Republicans opposed the bill, mostly like Barry Goldwater on libertarian principles, not segregationist ones.

Take the issue of education. The single biggest obstacle to the achievement of true equality in the United States is not poverty, but education. If Democrats sincerely wished to help the minority children on whose behalf they claim to labor, they would embrace school choice to help such children escape the trap of sub-standard schools. But that would offend the teachers’ unions upon which the Democrats depend for financial and “in-kind” support. So as has often been the case with the group politics of the Democratic party, African-American interests are sacrificed to other groups who have more pull.

“Affirmative action” has become the touchstone of Democratic racial politics. Democrats portray anyone who opposes affirmative action as racist. But affirmative action, as currently practiced, is racist to the core. It is based on the assumption that African-Americans are incapable of competing with whites. It represents the kind of paternalistic racism that would have done honor to Calhoun. For the modern liberal Democratic racist as for the old-fashioned one, blacks are simply incapable of freedom. They will always need Ol’ Massa’s help. And woe be to any African-American who wanders off of the Democratic plantation. Ask Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, or Ward Connerly. Although they echo the call for a “color-blind society” that once characterized the vision of Martin Luther King Jr., they are pilloried as “Uncle Toms” of “Oreos” by such enforcers of the Democratic plantation system as Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton.

by: Mackubin T. Owens