“And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” Cliven Bundy asked. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.” - Cliven Bundy
"Today, Cliven Bundy has revealed himself to be a hateful racist" - Tweeted by Harry Reid on 4/24/14
"This is no day for the rabble-rouser, whether he be Negro or white. We must realize that we are grappling with the most weighty social problem of this nation, and in grappling with such a complex problem there is no place for misguided emotionalism." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
It's odd how Cliven Bundy's remarks have been construed to be of utmost importance by so many crypto-racist political hacks. First, let's not forget what what Democrat Senator Harry Reid once wrote about Obama: "a light skinned African-American with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." While this may have been accurate, many white Republicans found it to be racist and called for Reid's resignation.
Now, according to many people, the word "Negro" (as in United Negro College Fund) is racist and so is the phrase "colored people" (although the NAACP can use it because they are Black.... I mean African-American). Sorry, I forgot that "Black" is not politically correct in this new enlightened era.
I can remember when there were actually African-Americans who proudly called themselves Black (like James Brown: I'm Black And I'm Proud) and talked about Black Power! A lot of these people who called themselves Black started calling establishment African-Americans "Negroes" as a pejorative because they often dressed and talked like white people. Many of these Negroes didn't even realize they were being mocked - until someone slipped up and called them Oreos (black on the outside and white on the inside). But these were unusual times. Some Black people actually had the audacity to stand up to the White Power Structure (a/k/a The Establishment Elite Ruling Class).
Imagine that. Instead of being just token Negroes wearing suits and ties being patronized by white politicians with empty promises, some African-Americans (a/k/a "Black People") wanted more than just being able to vote for one white guy or the other white guy. I'm not sure the Black Power movement actually obtained much as far as political power goes. Some might argue that we now have a President that is 50% African-American, but I suspect a lot of Black Panthers would have thought Obama was just another Negro. I doubt even the loudest Republican could have convinced them that Obama was a radical African from Kenya. Back in this era, there were people who had the audacity to act - not just the audacity to hope lying politicians were telling the truth about changes to come.
There seems to be a lot of white political hacks that don't like Bundy because of his politics. Bundy is not very articulate and he is also confused about what the law actually is. He seems to think if a law is bad it doesn't exist. He also seems to think there is only one way to interpret a law - his way - and that court rulings and the opinions of government lawyers don't matter. He apparently just doesn't know about all the people in prison as a result of very bad laws. But, regardless of how you feel about Bundy's politics and his opinions about the state of African-American families, to just point fingers at him and scream racist doesn't address the big issue of the heavy hand (or iron fist) of the federal government over its legal disputes with Bundy. If this was just about money, the Feds could confiscate Bundy's bank account quicker than he could become an existential threat to America by babbling about how picking cotton might be better than being a ward of the state.
What is most interesting regarding the big deal made by white people about Bundy's racism is that there are a number of African-Americans that aren't offended by Bundy and actually agree with what he so poorly articulated about African American families. We do know that white people claim to be offended by the same sort of ideas, even when they are presented in a much more coherent manner than what Mr. Bundy is capable of. This is not the first time someone with this idea has been attacked by white people. Consider this statement:
“The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery could not have done, the harshest Jim Crow laws and racism could not have done, namely break up the black family.”
As Will Grigg points out, white MSNBC talking head Ed Shultz attacked the person who made that statement. The person who said this was Walter Williams, an African-American economist, educator and author of Up from the Projects. To be fair, Shultz didn't accuse Williams of being a racist, instead choosing the words "cruel psycho" as he implied that Williams said slavery was better than welfare.
However, we supposedly must accept the judgment of enlightened white pundits (that don't know Cliven Bundy) that he is a racist even when an African-American man named Jason Bullock (who does know Bundy) tells CNN:
"Mr. Bundy is not a racist. Ever since I've been here he's treated me with nothing but hospitality. He's pretty much treated me like his own family." and "I would take a bullet for that man, if need be. I look up to him just like I do my own grandfather"
Another African-American man, who is running for the U.S. Senate from Georgia, named Derrick Grayson has a video on YouTube where he agrees with Bundy about the condition of African-American families and was not offended by his remarks. Also on YouTube is a woman named Kira Davis that is bi-racial and she says that even if Bundy is a racist, she doesn't care because she agrees with what she believes Bundy was trying to say. Both of these African-Americans appear to be Republicans, which may be even more offensive to white Democrats than anything Cliven Bundy says.
It is easy to infer that a lot of this racist stuff is being whipped up by white statists, Republican and Democrat at this point, that don't want to deal with the issues of an actual racist police state that has militarized law enforcement and the effects of statism on families by making so many people dependent on the state, creating a permanent underclass made up of many races. After all, it is much easier to whip the rubes up in a frenzy over some old rancher that made a garbled statement using politically incorrect terminology.
It is understandable why some people that have never heard the sentiment, more coherently made by Walter Williams or someone else, would be totally confused by what Bundy was trying to say. What isn't so understandable is that in a nation of 330,000,000 people, why is the opinion of one old cranky rancher of such importance that it rates so much news coverage, regardless of the issue or whether it is racist? There's something else about Clive Bundy that many Republicans aren't going to like, and that is that Bundy likes Mexicans. It would seem he likes them a lot more than Obama, who has detained quite a few and broken up many Mexican families in the process. Does this mean Obama is a racist? Maybe not, perhaps he just wants to make sure the private detention centers make decent profits - nothing personal, just business.
Regarding bad laws, what has been the effect on African-Americans for committing victimless crimes (drug violations) and being sent to work in the prison-industrial complex, often leaving them unable to get employment or vote upon their release? Where have all these enlightened white folks so deeply concerned about Clive Bundy's racism been over the past 40 years or so while the prison population steadily increased (with African-Americans being over represented) to the point of having 25% of the world's prisoners? Could it be the politicians they supported were all taking bribes contributions from police unions and organizations, booze makers and distributors, big pharma, private prison companies and "K" Street lobbyists who want to keep the jails filled?
My conclusion is that as long as Americans embrace the two Republicrat Parties and the government these statists use to oppress people all over the world, then we will see racism, both real and contrived. We will continue to see an unsustainable welfare state that makes people dehumanized wards of the state. We will continue to see a warfare state where we all live under constant surveillance by the national security state. We will continue to see a police state with the largest incarceration rate in the world, often to fill privately owned prisons with laborers used to profit the prison-industrial complex (would it be offensive to call this slavery?). We can also count on the ruling elite and its rabble-rousing media outlets to constantly distract us any way it can, especially when it can turn one group of people against another.
This article contributed by Tom Blanton of Richmond, Virginia.