The Confederacy Rises Again and Assumes the Identity of Republican Racism
Texas Rep. Kenny Marchant (R) explained in plain terms he opposes immigration reform because “if you give the legal right to vote to 10 Hispanics in my district, seven to eight of them are going to vote Democrat.” Marchant’s comments were reiterated a day or so later by another Texas Republican, Michael Burgess, who questioned other Republicans “about the wisdom of giving citizenship to 11 million undocumented Democrats” and it is a safe bet that if seven to eight of those Hispanic immigrants followed white Republicans’ orders and voted for GOP candidates, immigration reform would have passed a decade ago. In June of this year, a teabag leader in Texas extended the anti-immigration reform argument of not voting Republican to African Americans at a Republican Party event. Teabagger Ken Emanuelson said “I’m going to be real honest with you, the Republican Party doesn’t want black people to vote if they are going to vote 9-to-1 for Democrats.” However, if “black people” voted as Republicans directed, racists could set aside their animus long enough to “allow” African Americans to vote.
After the conservative Supreme Court ruled that racism was dead and struck down key provisions of the Voting Rights Act virtually killing it, Southern Republican-controlled states wasted little time reinstating voter suppression tactics primarily affecting African Americans to restrict them from voting. There was nothing as disheartening to white racists as seeing hours-long lines of African Americans waiting to cast their votes for an African American man for President, and doubtless Republicans will take any steps to see it never happens again even though the High Court left it to Congress to fix the VRA and give every American the right to vote. Most Americans are unaware that one of the last things House Republicans did prior to going to their home districts was voting to defund ACORN regardless the organization has been disbanded for three years. Why? So Republicans going to their southern districts can tell their racist supporters that they took money away from a defunct organization that assisted African Americans as well as obstructed advancement of immigration reform to prevent Hispanics from earning a pathway to citizenship to protect their European (read white) heritage.
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