There is an all-too-common theme of white liberals speaking down to black people who aren’t democrats in an attempt to get votes for policies that would ultimately harm our communities.
The Democratic Party markets anti-school choice, anti-second amendment, pro-abortion, and other detrimental legislation to black people under the guise of racial justice and equity. However, these “progressive” policies are what plagued black communities for decades during the post-Civil War reconstruction era and Jim Crow segregation. When black people don’t do the left’s bidding by supporting such policies, we are often called “Uncle Tom,” “sellout,” “coon,” “race traitor” and other slurs meant to shame us. Too often, white liberals feel entitled to black conservative’s “blackness.” They simply aren’t the saviors they want us to believe they are, and their racism surfaces when black conservatives don’t aid them in controlling the black community.
On the campaign trail, President Joe Biden famously remarked “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.” While many voters took this as a joke, I found it to be quite indicative of what the Democratic Party truly believes about black Americans; that we must be stripped of our identities if we don’t support them.
This is demonstrated by several other instances in which politicians made similar disrespectful remarks about black conservatives. When the Supreme Court struck down a provision in the Voting Rights Act, Minnesota state representative Ryan Winkler called Justice Clarence Thomas an “Uncle Thomas,” a reference to a slave in Uncle Tom’s Cabin meant to imply that the judge was being subservient to white people. However, Rep. Winkler is white. He, along with other democrats, don’t mind when black people agree with or support white people, but it has to be the white people whom they approve.
When conservative radio host Larry Elder ran to replace democratic Governor Gavin Newsom in California’s recent recall election, he was met with similar racist attacks from the left, which even escalated to a woman wearing a gorilla mask throwing eggs at him and hitting members of his team at a campaign event. The symbolism of a non-black person using ape-imagery to mock a black political candidate is not lost on me, due to the history of racists often likening black people to wild animals such as monkeys or gorillas.
Who came to Elder’s defense? Not Democrats.
But what is at the root of this issue? Mainstream media definitely plays a large role, as television hosts like MSNBC’s Joy Ann Reid do a fantastic job of making white viewers feel comfortable repeating some of the anti-black rhetoric they have for black conservatives. However, the blame doesn’t lie all on the media’s shoulders. It’s far deeper than that.
Democrats Can’t Escape Their Racist Roots
How do white liberals, who often claim to be pro-black, justify alienating black people who don’t align with everything they believe? To understand this widespread phenomena, one must look at the history of anti-blackness within the Democratic Party.
Democrats have historically supported the legal enslavement, discrimination, and segregation of black people in this country. Today, it seems as if both liberal politicians and voters alike have forgotten this inconvenient truth as they’ve rebranded as the “party of tolerance.” While black Americans are no longer enslaved, many racist policies and institutions that were put into place and supported by democrats remain today.
Gun control is often framed as a means to fight against white supremacy, according to the left. Lois Beckett, a white senior reporter at The Guardian, published a piece entitled “’Dying of whiteness’: why racism is at the heart of America’s gun inaction,” in which she argued that white America is benefiting from firearm rights at black people’s expense. However, gun control laws — which were largely written by democrats aimed at disarming freed slaves and civil rights groups — still disproportionately affect black communities to this day. Democrat-controlled, urban, and heavily black cities such as Chicago and Washington, DC have some of the strictest gun control in the country by no coincidence, but white liberals want us to believe that we need them to disarm us even further.
The American Birth Contol League, founded by eugenicist Margaret Sanger and directed by white supremacist and major influencer of the Nazi Party, Lothrop Stoddard, later became the huge abortion-provider Planned Parenthood, which receives near unanimous support from the Democratic Party. Today, the government-funded organization’s presence in black communities around the country is mainly due to a targeted approach, leading to more black babies being aborted than born in urban areas such as New York City.
Speaking of NYC, the democrat-controlled city has also put a COVID-19 vaccine requirement into place for “privileges” such as going out to eat or attending a show. Since 28% of black New Yorkers between the ages of 18 and 44 are vaccinated, this policy has de facto reinstated segregation. Never mind the black community’s general feelings of distrust towards “Big Pharma” due to past mistreatment by the medical industry, the white liberals in charge are here to save us! The party of slavery and segregation didn’t change it’s need to control black people. They just changed their approach.
We Aren’t ‘Selling Out’ Our Blackness
As a biracial black woman who is vocal about being on the “right” side of the political aisle, I am on the defense against racist liberals far too often. On a regular basis, I am called a “sellout” by the social-justice warriors on the left for being black and not a democrat. However, “selling out” one’s blackness isn’t a real thing, despite what the corporate press may tell you. There isn’t a right or wrong way to be black. It’s something I was born into, and it’s something that no one or nothing can change despite being disrespected for having my beliefs. Democrats tend to want to push minorities, particularly black people, to the forefront of whatever causes they’re pushing, whether it’s vaccine passports, gun control or abortion. Then, when some black people decide to stand against their agenda, many white liberals seem to forget how to be “anti-racist.”
“The worst enemy that the Negro have is this white man that runs around here drooling at the mouth professing to love Negros and calling himself a liberal, and it is following these white liberals that has perpetuated problems that Negros have,” minister and black civil rights icon Malcolm X once said. It’s one of his less popular quotes in academia, for obvious reasons. He went further: “If the Negro wasn’t taken, tricked or deceived by the white liberal, then Negros would get together and solve our own problems.”
If X’s thoughts on white liberals were widely taught in schools, professors and students that ascribe to the belief that black people must support democrats because they’re black would have to look inward and recognize their own racism.
