Being a Southerner, I'm particularly sensitive to being called a racist, especially when, living in Michigan for a time, saw more open racism there than in Mississippi. Being presumed a racist simply for being born in the South or having a southern accent is simple bigotry.
Something I find is generally suppressed and ignored is that white progressives were as, if not more, racist than the KKK. American racism has its roots in progressivism - and "science".
We must remember progressives were the first scientific racists.
Margaret Sanger, ironically the "mother" of Planned Parenthood, wrote to Dr. Clarence Gamble on December 19, 1939 letter, saying:
“We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”
Madison Grant, one of the most influential progressives you have never heard about was a child of privilege, a eugenicist, lawyer, and amateur anthropologist. Grant wrote the book "The Passing of the Great Race (Or, The Racial Basis of European History)" published in 1916, a book that has the dubious distinction of being cited during the Nuremberg Trials as evidence Germans should not be held accountable for simply executing the "science" discovered by an American.
Madison Grant was Anthony Fauci before Fauci was Fauci. He was an “amateur” who made stuff up based on incredibly ignorant biases - but he was part of the new progressive movement so, as happened with St. Anthony of Fauci, he got a pass.
There was a lot of that going around during Grant’s era.
I mentioned Thomas Huxley the other day. Huxley was a contemporary and a big fan of Charles Darwin – so much so, many give Huxley credit for convincing Darwin to publish “Origin of the Species”. Huxley had little formal education, was mostly self-taught, and according to some became the greatest comparative anatomist (studying anatomical structures) of the late 19th century.
Even though Huxley was an abolitionist, he was a product of the “science” of the times and a bit of a “scientific racist”. Let us also remember the state of “science during Huxley’s time – phrenology, the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits, was considered a “science”, cocaine was a wonder drug, heroin was used to treat coughs and electric shocks were used to treat impotence in men. Such was the state of “science” of the late 1800’s.
As science evolves over time, it is never perfect and often contains a large component of supposition, superstition, and ignorance – at least until enough data is collected, enough hypotheses are tested and proven or disproven.
But progressives have long used "science" as a vehicle for racism.
During September of 1906, nearly a quarter of a million New Yorkers flocked to the Bronx Zoo to behold a young African named Ota Benga – a so-called “pygmy” – exhibited in an iron monkey house cage. Benga had also "exhibited" at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri.
It was remarked by the high born in America (the only people who could afford to pay to go to the zoo) how like Benga was to the apes with whom he shared a cage and how this validated that Africans were the "missing link" between apes and humans - thus proving Darwin's theory of evolution.
I might point out these events occurred a half century after the end of the Civil War.
Orwell wrote in “1984”:
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
We all know how the American progressive left venerates Woodrow Wilson. The only thing I learned about Wilson in American History classes was that he was a great president who conceived the League of Nations.
That he hated the Constitution is just a bonus for the progressive left because they share that feeling but this racism and anti-constitutionality is rarely talked about.
How many know that Wilson was a virulent racist who re-segregated the American military? How many know that after Wilson was incapacitated by a stroke, the United States was essentially run by Wilson’s wife, Edith Bolling Wilson, who was from a family of staunch supporters of the Confederate States of America. Former slave owners, the Bolling family “believed their former slaves were content with life on Rose Cottage Plantation and had little desire for freedom”.
Progressivism is racism.
It’s very existence is based on separation of the races socially, economically and politically so the races can be pitted against one another for the sole benefit of progressivism.
As the old NBC series used to say. “The more you know…”
Edith Bolling Wilson was a supporter of eugenics and promoted Planned Parenthood to abort black pregnancies. She was not much worse at running the nation than was Woodrow, who is in the worst president competition along with BHO and Bhudhn. Jimmy Carter is in the competition due to his managerial incompetence as his is considered a progressive. Unfortunately, Carter found that his liberal views could only take him so far in Georgia. When he ran for governor in 1970, he backed off many of his previously publicized views on racial equality, leading some to declare him bigoted. Once in office, however, Carter restored many of his endorsements to end segregation.
Bill Bennett former Secretary of Education and “Drug Czar said to his astonishment there was much more racism and self segregation in universities in Massachusetts than in Mississippi. He had taught in both states and said in Mississippi blacks and whites had a casual and familiar relationship. He said even more astonishing was that the older generation was every bit as accepting of integration as the younger generations who’d grown up with Jim Crow laws.
In contrast, universities in Massachusetts exhibited self segregation, mutual suspicion and far less interaction between the races. He was shocked to see “blacks only” tables in the cafeteria. Oh and don’t forget the explosion over bussing in Massachusetts. White parents objecting to black children being bussed to previously white schools.
And didn’t our beloved President speak of jungles where crime was rampant?
Progressives are racists.