RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events The racist history of the Democratic Party

i think almost all of the South is racist.
And yes the party was pretty racist until Kennedy and Johnson moved the party towards civil rights and those racist Democrats who didn't like it became Republicans.

Bruce Bartlett is author of "Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past," to be published next month. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, he lists a series of quotes to remind us of "The racist history the Democratic Party wants you to forget."

Meet the Press interview, 2004, with Sen. Zell Miller (Democrat, Georgia)

MR. RUSSERT: You then say that, again, on the candidates about the war, “I fear some of the Democratic presidential candidates are treading on very dangerous ground for the party, and, more importantly, for the country. I do not question their patriotism; I question their judgment. ...”
“My concern is that, without meaning to, they are exacerbating the difficulties of a nation at war. A demagogue is defined by Webster as ‘a political leader who gains power by arousing people’s emotions and prejudices.’ Isn’t that exactly what some of them are doing? ...”
“Howard Dean, while not alone, is the worst offender...He likes to say he belongs to the Democratic wing of the”—party—”I say he belongs to the whining wing of the Democratic Party.” Let me show you what Howard Dean said yesterday, and get your reaction.
“I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks...We can’t beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broad cross-section of Democrats.”
Is he making sense with that statement?
SEN. MILLER: Howard Dean knows about as much about the South as a hog knows about Sunday. This must be his Southern strategy. And I can tell you right now, that that’s the same kind of stereotype, that’s the same kind of character trait that I write about in this book. I write about in this book in 1988 Michael Dukakis coming to Georgia and having this rally, and they had all these bales of hay stashed around here and there, like it was some kind of set from the television show “Hee Haw.” That’s not what the South is. The South right now, if you took its economy, it would be the third largest in the world, next to the United States as a whole and next to Japan. Fifty-five hundred African-Americans right now hold office in the South. In Georgia we have several statewide elected officials who are African-American and who were elected last year in a race where a senator and a governor were being defeated. They were being elected in a state that’s 70 percent white. This is not the South that Howard Dean thinks it is. Sure, we drive pickups, but on the back of those pickups, you see a lot of American flags. It’s the most patriotic region in the country. And you see hardworking individuals that want to instill values in their children, and you see a very, very strong work ethic in the South. He [Howard Dean] doesn’t understand the South.

i think almost all of the South is racist.
And yes the party was pretty racist until Kennedy and Johnson moved the party towards civil rights and those racist Democrats who didn't like it became Republicans.

And you would know that because... you spent so much time traveling across the Deep South?

I doubt you've ever left San Francisco, as you arbitrarily and prejudicially label the collective people of more than a dozen states as "racist".

Indeed. The South gets a bad rap. Interestingly enough, there's a lot more KKK, Neo-Nazi, and Black Panther-esque communes on average per acre in California than there is in any of the individual southern states. But people still listen to Seth Macfarlane's "south" jokes and take them to heart like he's honest Abe.

I wonder though if the writer... turns a blind eye towards those Democrats that fled the party & became Republicans.

Indeed. The South gets a bad rap. Interestingly enough, there's a lot more KKK, Neo-Nazi, and Black Panther-esque communes on average per acre in California than there is in any of the individual southern states. But people still listen to Seth Macfarlane's "south" jokes and take them to heart like he's honest Abe.

I just find it ignorant of people to say that the South is more racist than anywhere else. I just think that the racism is just more transparent. Or have we forgotten the uproar in Boston when they tried to desegregate the schools up there?

Robert Byrd, James Webb and Joe Biden are quoted and each is still a prominent Democrat.

Both of whom are now out of the Senate, correct? Unlike Byrd, Webb and Biden. Thurmond is dead and Helms retired some years ago.

Furthermore, to his credit, after joining the GOP, Thurmond later appeared to mend his racist ways.

Yeah but what about folks like Jesse Helmes & Strom Thurmond who were democrats but became republicans when the democratic party no longer supported their racist views.

If your point is that there have been racists in both parties, that's a valid point. However, the original article is, as you know, about "history."

The GOP was formed largely to end slavery. In contrast, as set forth, the founders of the Democrat party were were overt racists, supported slavery, and kept up that racist history well into the 1960s.

Both parties were content to let the status quo stand till the 1960's

Well, maybe... if you don't count that whole Republican elimination of slavery thing.

Pariah and Doc are correct. If anything, the Republican party putting an end to slavery is what created the impetus for the industrial revolution, not the other way around.

Just because a Republican ended slavery, and Woodrow Wilson was a Democrat and a racist, doesn't reflect the modern party.

..it was a Democrat who signed Civil Rights into law. Meanwhile their Republican counterparts at the time strongly opposed civil rights...

Which is wholly irrelevant to your earlier misstatement about the Republican "strongly opposing" the civil rights bill.

In fact, when 80% of a party supports a bill, the claim that the party "stongly oppose[d]" it is not just a misstatement, but an out and out untruth.

Yeah, considering that the Industrial Revolution in the US didn't happen until after the Civil War, that's a bullshit response.

I was mistaken & admit to being wrong on that point. I thought I had read something to the contrary but I obviously messed up on the history.

...i said, i didn't know the exact numbers.

my actual earlier point, was the south is racist and you jumped all over that. hence my pointing out that the southerners on both sides went against it and that 1964 was the last time the democrats won the south.

you were half right, there was some industrialization in the U.S. before the Civil War, primarily in the northeast.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution#United_States

Actually, there were at least three other people who'd mentioned it before me. I was adding to that conversation.

hence my pointing out that the southerners on both sides went against it and that 1964 was the last time the democrats won the south.

... Which is why I find it odd that MEM just can't admit that it was a Republican who eliminated slavery over 140 years ago instead of just trying to tap dance around it and make offhand excuses for it.

The fact that these 2 groups vote overwhelmingly Democratic is because they're being fooled by the evil liberals and these groups are just too stupid and gullible to know any better.

...mexicans...vote overwhelmingly Democratic ...