“There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of [slavery].” —George Washington (1786)
Black History Month was first officially recognized in our nation’s bicentennial year of independence, 1976, by Republican President Gerald Ford. He encouraged Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.” Indeed, in that era, those accomplishments too often went unrecognized if not neglected.
Unfortunately and predictably, in the decades since, the Democrat Party’s legions of race-bait hate-hustlers, supported mostly by suburban “white privilege” Demos, seized the opportunity to turn Black History Month into a tool for their relentless promotion of racial division.
Demos systemically undermined Martin Luther King’s “dream” and turned it into a living nightmare, enslaving generations of poor black Americans on their modern urban poverty plantations.
Ford’s well-intentioned effort to recognize achievements has been spun into political fodder. It is now a prop for the Demos’ promotion of their “systemic racism” lie heralded by their Marxist so-called Black Lives Matter radicals. If Democrats actually believed that black lives matter, they would stop propagating their failed urban policies that proliferate black-on-black violence.
In his 1901 classic Up From Slavery, Booker T. Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Institute, wrote: “I … resolved that I would permit no man, no matter what his color might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him. The man is unwise who does not cultivate in every manly way the friendship and goodwill of his next-door neighbor, whether he be black or white. … Great men cultivate love. … Only little men cherish a spirit of hatred.”
But hatred and division are the constituent-building staples of the “little men” at the helm of the racist Democrat Party, thus making it the most enduring monument to racism in America.
Fact is, the solution to racism is not more racism. But for Democrats, the systemic exploitation of race, and all of our differences, is essential for maintaining power and the status quo — divide and conquer! Thus, they can’t let it go.
As distinguished Stanford economist and author Thomas Sowell put it: “Racism is not dead, but it is on life support — kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by announcing others as ‘racists.’”
Similar to Booker T. Washington’s observation a century earlier, Sowell notes further: “It’s kept alive mainly by the people who use it for an excuse or to keep minority communities fearful or resentful enough to turn out as a voting bloc on election day. … Have we become a country whose leaders are charlatans, and whose people are sheep?”
Today, Black History Month is known in politically correct parlance as “African-American History Month,” hyphenated-Americanism, i.e., another of the Democrat Party’s divisive political devices to foment disunity. JFK’s former senior advisor and noted Harvard historian Arthur Schlesinger wrote in his 1991 book The Disuniting of America, a benchmark classic on ethnocentric division, that the “cult of ethnicity” would result in “the fragmentation and tribalization of America.” He warned that multiculturalists are “very often ethnocentric separatists who see little in the Western heritage other than Western crimes.” He noted that “hyphenated-Americanism” would be a tool of their divisive efforts.
Spot on!
The result of America’s disuniting, as Schlesinger predicted, is now the Left’s sprawling identity politics ethnocentric cult, including the rise of “black supremacy” by some who identify as “African-American.”
For the record, a person who identifies as a hyphenated-American, but who was not actually born in the country (or continent) that precedes the hyphen, is guilty of cultural appropriation — falsely claiming the nationality of one group by a member of another group. For example, entrepreneur Elon Musk is actually an African-American, born in Africa but immigrated to America.
Of course, there are a growing number of black Americans who reject such ethnic and cultural disunity, but do so at great peril to their careers and risk of being the next victim of the cancel culture mob.
Before leftists could instantaneously cancel someone with whom they disagreed, recall that in 2006 there was a memorable exchange of ideas between actor Morgan Freeman and “60 Minutes” co-host Mike Wallace. When asked his opinion about Black History Month, Freeman responded: “Ludicrous. You going to relegate my history to a month?” He added: “I don’t want a Black History Month. Black history is American history.” (Of course, CBS has removed that video, but for the moment it can still be viewed here.)
Wallace asked Freeman, “How’re we going to get rid of racism?” Freeman responded succinctly: “Stop talking about it. I’m going to stop calling you a white man. And I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. I’m not going to say, ‘I know this white guy named Mike Wallace.’ Hear what I’m saying?”
In a more recent interview with CNN’s Don Lemon, Freeman was asked, “Do you think that race plays a part in wealth distribution?” Again he answered succinctly: “No, I don’t. I don’t.”
Freeman added: “You and I, we’re proof. Why would race have anything to do with it? Put your mind to what you want to do and go for that. It’s kind of like religion to me. It’s a good excuse for not getting there.”
Lemon then observed: “This will probably get me in trouble, but I said to some of my colleagues recently, so I know that it’s an issue, but it seems like every single day on television I’m talking about race. And it’s because of the news cycle and it’s in the news, but sometimes I get so tired of talking about it. I want to — I want to just go, ‘This is over. Can we move on?’”
Freeman responded much as he did to Wallace decades earlier: “And if you talk about it, it exists. … Making it a bigger issue than it needs to be is the problem here.”
That point remains lost on most celebrity talkingheads like Whoopi Caryn Johnson — no small irony that Whoopi Goldberg’s real name is Caryn!
Needless to say, Freeman has taken a beating from the race-bait crowd for daring to challenge the racial orthodoxy now associated with Black History Month. But he stands apart from those agitators because he is a Free Man.
Freeman is not alone in his high-profile rejection of leftist race-bait orthodoxy.
Another A-list actor and cultural activist, Denzel Washington, rejects the notion of legislating race relations — “You can’t legislate love.” He has boldly defended law enforcement officers in opposition to the Demos’ deadly “defund the police” propaganda, which resulted in surging violence. He has boldly proclaimed “put God first” in commencement speeches to young people and encouraged the next generation to take responsibility for their lives — to set goals and go rather than wallow in “victimization” agendas.
Today, the frontline of leftist racial orthodoxy and indoctrination is the specious and historically fallacious 1619 Project, a revisionist fabrication promoted by The New York Times. It has metastasized in the form of Critical Race Theory, the most significant assault on historical accuracy in decades.
It is the most intrusive of the leftist endeavors to indoctrinate America’s next generation, and a national priority of the Democrat Party promoting public school syllabi utilizing contrived revisions of American history to pollute young minds. Under the banner of “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” leftist-controlled states are force-feeding insidious CRT propaganda to young people.
Of course, it is never enough for leftist black agitators, who now assert that because Black History Month is February, the shortest month of the year, that is evidence of “systemic racism.”
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776
