President Joe Biden wants Americans to remember their country's racist legacy. We should take this advice.
Biden spoke in Oklahoma Tuesday on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre. In one of our country's more shameful events — one we must learn from, condemn unconditionally, and never forget — white racists murdered estimates of hundreds and destroyed more than 1,000 structures throughout the wealthy Black community of Greenwood.
"The Klan was founded just six years before," Biden said. "And one of the reasons why it was founded was because of guys like me, who were Catholic... it was about making sure that all those Polish and Irish and Italian and Eastern European Catholics who came to the United States after World War One would not pollute Christianity."
The Klan promoted policies designed to stop religious leaders and churches from educating immigrants. Colorado's Blaine Amendment and 37 like it remains on the books across the country to prevent sectarian schools from receiving government support. Until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2017, the Klan's state laws prevented public funds from improving child safety in a school with a cross on the wall.
The Klan is best known for terrorizing Black communities. When it wasn't oppressing immigrants, it was hanging and dragging Black Americans to their deaths. It burned crosses on the lawns of Jews. It harmed, killed, and held people down because members believed the success of minorities would come at the expense of white Protestants.
"We’ve allowed a narrowed, cramped view of the promise of this nation to fester — the view that America is a zero-sum game where there is only one winner. 'If you succeed, I fail. If you get ahead, I fall behind. If you get a job, I lose mine.' And maybe worst of all, 'If I hold you down, I lift myself up,' instead of 'If you do well, we all do well,' " Biden said.
Hammer, meet head. Maybe Biden should reconsider his plan to resolve "income inequality" and his belief that wealthy Americans are a problem for the middle-class and poor. Instead, Biden wants a zero-sum game law that undoes much of the 2017 tax cuts by soaking the rich. He wants "more audits" (punishment) of those who earn $400,000 or more. He wants to take $1.5 trillion from the top 1% of earners. He wants death taxes and more taxation of capital gains.
All of this means the financially successful will have less to invest — investments that create jobs, businesses, energy and ensure that "if you do well, we all do well" without regard for immutable traits.
The Tulsa speech conflicts with the real Joe Biden in more ways than one.
"There were 37 members of the House of Representatives who were open members of the Klan," Biden said. "There were five, if I’m not mistaken — it could have been seven; I think it was five — members of the United States Senate — open members of the Klan."
He said it matters because "hate became embedded systematically and systemically in our laws and our culture." Like the Klan's Blaine amendments.
"Millions of white Americans belonged to the Klan, and they weren’t even embarrassed by it," Biden said. "They were proud of it."
Right, and Biden seemed proud of them. He sided with notorious segregationists to oppose integrative bussing, saying in 1977 he did not want his white children "to grow up in a jungle, the jungle being a racial jungle..."
Biden called Sen. Robert C. Byrd "a friend." At Byrd's funeral, Biden called him "a mentor, and he was a guide." Even more, "Robert C. Byrd elevated the Senate."
Byrd founded a major chapter of the Klan and later stood for 14 hours to filibuster against the Civil Rights Act. The racist filibuster came eight years before Biden won a Senate seat and fast embraced Byrd — an overt racist who repeated the "n-word" on TV this century — as his mentor. So maybe Byrd was a confused bumpkin when he led a Klan chapter and opposed civil rights. Maybe not.
"This is a man who knew exactly what he was doing," Biden said while eulogizing Byrd.
Maybe Byrd changed. Probably not, if we listen to Biden.
"Hate," Biden told us Tuesday, "never goes away. Hate only hides."
As documented in 2019 by The Washington Examiner, The Gazette's sister publication, Biden has praised or boasted about friendships with at least six segregationists. Whether mocking Indian accents at 7-11 or calling Barack Obama "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean," Biden has a disturbing record of racially insensitive comments and actions that will never go away. But, of course, we could all forgive and forget. Or not.
"We do ourselves no favors by pretending none of this ever happened or that it doesn’t impact us today, because it does still impact us today," Biden said Tuesday.
Exactly, Mr. President.
June 06, 2021 at 06:00PM
https://gazette.com/premium/editorial-we-must-never-forget-president-bidens-past/article_4f98e38e-c638-11eb-8b82-4baba50ab9cf.html
EDITORIAL: We must never forget President Biden's past - Colorado Springs Gazette
https://news.google.com/search?q=forget&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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