One is racist. The other is not.
Which is which? It
depends on who is deciding.
The late Senator Robert C. Byrd was a Klan organizer – or
Kleagle – who worked as a young man to recruit new members to the Klan in West
Virginia. For his efforts in setting up
a 150-member local Klan chapter he was elected leader, or Exalted Cyclops.
Despite the rumors, he never was a Grand Wizard. Just an Exalted Cyclops.
An avid segregationist, Byrd opposed integrating the armed
forces and once wrote:
“I shall never fight in the armed forces with a negro by
my side ... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in
the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become
degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.”
He also filibustered against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
He is also the only Senator to oppose the only two black nominees to the
Supreme Court.
By most of today’s politically correct standards, he’d be
considered a racist. His portraits and statues everywhere would be at least
defaced and probably destroyed by BLM supporters. But his name is on almost everything that
doesn’t move in West Virginia – schools, highways, public buildings, etc. – and
his statues and portraits are still up.
What’s saved his legacy?
He later became a liberal Democrat. This single act of contrition
changed everything. His racist and
segregationist past no longer mattered.
He had evolved. Or as Joe Biden said at his funeral, “moved to the good
side.”
In fact, at Byrd’s funeral, Biden praised him as someone who
“elevated the Senate.”
A former KKK recruiter? A former head of a local Klan chapter?
Someone who once called blacks “race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest
specimen from the wild” and people who he’d rather “die a thousand times” than
serve beside? That’s Robert C. Byrd.
Nothing to see here, right? Besides, that happened years
ago. Why dwell on it now?
Now consider the Eskimo Pie.
It was created in the 1920s. In
all the years since then, I doubt any Eskimo has ever claimed to be offended by
the name. I haven’t heard or seen
anything about an Eskimo Lives Matter movement.
Still, the current owners of the Eskimo Pie brand have preemptively decided
the name of the frozen delight is racially insensitive.
So it must be changed.
To be completely honest, I didn’t know they were even making
it anymore. But soon, its racially
tinged name will be banished forever.
Eskimos everywhere should rejoice.
Don’t you feel better?
I know I’ll sleep better at night.
If you’re wondering why there’s so much cultural insanity
right now, this is a perfect example.
A proven racist like Byrd is celebrated. Meanwhile, George Washington, the father of
our country, is reviled. So is Thomas Jefferson. All because they owned slaves
centuries ago.
Byrd remained a member of the KKK into the early 1940s. And
a segregationist into the 1950s and 60s. Then again, so were most of his
southern Democrat peers.
Yet Abraham Lincoln, who signed the Emancipation
Proclamation that freed the slaves, recently had his monument defaced. Now
there’s a move to remove a landmark 1876 statue of Lincoln and a freed slave. (The statue was funded entirely by grateful
freed slaves back then.)
Mobs have also attacked monuments to U.S. Grant, the Union
general who defeated the Confederacy and who as President pushed through
reforms that gave former slaves the right to vote. A statue of a noted
abolitionist who gave his life to end slavery was torn down by the same mobs
protesting past and current racial injustice in America.
Nancy Pelosi has taken it upon herself to remove portraits
of past Speakers of the House who supported slavery more than 150 years
ago. She’s also pushed for the removal
of statues of the now politically incorrect – in hindsight – from the House.
She thinks this will appease the BLM folks; she’s hoping
maybe they won’t come after her and Democrats if she blackwashes American
history by removing a few portraits and statues they wouldn’t like. She doesn’t
understand that none of the BLM folks know anything about American history,
much less about the people who were in those portraits and embodied in statues.
The destruction has nothing to do with righting wrongs. It’s
all about intimidation. As one BLM leader admitted recently, if all of BLM’s
demands aren’t met – and the list is ridiculous, including massive reparations
to blacks and the end of prisons – they plan to burn the system down.
The intimidation is working.
It’s obviously being felt by corporate weasels preemptively altering
brand names and packaging to avoid offending anyone at all, especially anyone
of color. I suppose that’s how the Eskimo Pie brand got on the chopping
block.
The death toll for brand names and characters is staggering
and continues to grow.
No more Aunt Jemima (even though she was based on a real black
person).
No more Uncle Ben.
No more Cream of Wheat “Chef.”
No more Land O’Lakes Indian maiden.
No more Mrs. Butterworth (somebody said the bottles were
shaped like a “mammy").
And of course, no more Eskimo Pie.
There will be more.
And I can guarantee it will get sillier and sillier as timid brand managers
try to kiss up to the loonies demanding an end to what they perceive as hurtful
stereotyping.
It’s like the days when people saw subliminal messaging and
images in ads. Or thought they did. They saw suggestive images in liquor ad ice
cubes. Or in pipe or cigarette smoke curling up. Or in soda or champagne bubbles. Or in the
reflection from a shiny new car.
People looking hard enough will always see what they want to
see.
They also won’t see what they don’t want to see. Like the
history of racism of the Democrat Party, its role in Jim Crow laws and
suppression of black votes, and of Klansmen like Robert Byrd.
Or the condescending racism by the media and Democrats in
plain view every day. It’s the worst
kind racism: the kind that implies
blacks aren’t really able to make it on their own – they simply can’t compete
or succeed educationally or economically without government assistance and special consideration to "level the playing field."
In short, what they are saying is that blacks can’t be held
to the same standards as everyone else. Blacks just aren’t up to the
challenge.
That’s real racism. It should appall every
thinking person of any color.
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