But Why Won’t African-Americans Vote Republican?
Monday, January 26, 2009 at 3:43 pm
My friend J.P. Freire digs up a 2003 speech by Katon Dawson, the Republican National Committee chairman candidate who has apologized for once belonging to a whites-only country club, in which Dawson traces his Republicanism back to…
…wait for it…
… racial integration.
I, in the 1960s was a product of school segregation, where we took our schools and completely disbanded them, and made racial equality. Fifty-Fifty. And the kids had no choices. They closed Booker T. Washington, Blease, down here. A pretty good school. Closed it and sent the students to A. C. Flora, across town…
The end of that story was, I was standing in a bathroom in public school… This scar over here [pointing to his forehead] was from a baseball bat. I will tell you it was a pretty harsh environment. Government reached into my life and grabbed me and shook me at the age of fifteen. I remember how blatant it was that government just thought that they knew better, that government just thought they knew better what to do in my school. And I can’t say it was so much racial.
To be fair to Dawson, he has been endorsed by two of the three black members of the RNC, and getting brained by a baseball bat is no fun.
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5 Comments
Comment posted January 26, 2009 @ 4:30 pm
I would love to see a story exploring when the Republican party changed from the semi-radical equality for all platform that Lincoln drove in its infancy to the “white, businessman-dominated club” we now see portrayed. Likewise, when did the Democrat party change from post-reconstruction the southern-slave-owner driven band it was in the 19th century to the “bastion of human rights defenders” it is set up as today?
Pingback posted January 26, 2009 @ 6:10 pm
[...] David Weigel says, “To be fair to Dawson, he has been endorsed by two of the three black members of the RNC, and [...]
Pingback posted January 30, 2009 @ 3:17 pm
[...] proudest accomplishment is coining the “Drill, Baby, Drill!” slogan and a white guy who proudly declares that he got into politics because he was angry when the government ended [...]
Comment posted January 31, 2009 @ 11:24 pm
I join Chris in his desire the see the breakdown of these political swings in both major American parties. This is a major component of American history yet it is such a hush-hush affair.
Comment posted February 1, 2009 @ 7:24 am
I join Chris in his desire the see the breakdown of these political swings in both major American parties. This is a major component of American history yet it is such a hush-hush affair.
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