If former U.S. Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell cannot convince you that Sen. John McCain does not have the temperament, judgment or the intellect to be our next president, then I wonder who or what can? After all, Powell has been a black Republican all of his professional life, and a 25-year friend of McCain’s.
What about the fact that as a U.S. congressman, McCain voted against the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday in 1983, and what about the fact that he opposed it again as a U.S. senator in 1986, or that in 1994 he voted to cut the funds for marketing the King holiday? But wait, were some of you with McCain on that issue?
How about this one? During his run for the presidency in 2000, McCain sided with keeping the confederate battle flag flying at the South Carolina statehouse. While he acknowledged the flag as a symbol of slavery to some, McCain said, “Personally, I see the battle flag as a symbol of heritage. I have ancestors who have fought for the Confederacy, none of whom owned slaves. . .”
Indeed, McCain’s great, great grandfather, William Alexander McCain, who owned a 2,000-acre plantation in Mississippi with slaves, fought for the Confederacy. It is at least unnerving that
John McCain would lie about his ancestors’ involvement in the Trans-Atlantic African Slave Trade and that, during his first presidential run 135 years after the Civil War’s end, he is a proponent of southern white dual allegiance to the flag of the Confederacy and “Old Glory.”
Did you know that as a result of what went on at and around the McCain plantation in rural Teoc, Mississippi, there are white, black and mixed-race McCains who get together every two years in Teoc?
A white McCain cousin now owns the land. Sen. John McCain is always invited but never shows up. (Read investigative reporter Elgin Jones full story about Sen. John McCain’s black and white relatives online at www.SFLTimes.com.)
If you haven’t read both Barack Obama’s autobiographical book, Dreams from My Father, written more than 10 years ago, and his 2006 blockbuster, The Audacity of Hope, and are smitten by the rhetoric of McCain-Palin and much neo-conservative/evangelical ideology, then you have cheated yourself!
In The Audacity of Hope, Obama writes chapters about “Republicans and Democrats, values, our Constitution, politics, opportunity, faith, race, the world beyond our borders, and family.” It is ignorant to call the man a leftist (connoting that he is a socialist) or anything remotely derogatory, without having done at least perfunctory research.
Please be very careful about being used. Words have taken on dual meanings. For example, when white nationalists talk about “liberals,” do you really know what they mean? What about when they say “doesn’t have enough experience,” can you see through that?
And for God’s sake, stop falling for the “race” trap. (It’s not about “race.” An argument cannot be won that is based on the pseudo science of “race,” for there is but one race, and that is the human race! The true argument should be about the historical reality of white nationalism. It is indefensible.) McCain and Palin are not “racists,” but they are definitely white nationalists.
There are more than 63,000 registered black Republicans in the state of Florida, that’s more than enough to start a transitional groundswell toward transforming the Republican Party. Up to and including this monumental election, you have been politically contained. Since Lee Atwater chaired the Republican National Committee in the early 1980s, black inclusion has been policy and rhetoric, while at the same time contained – an extraordinary example of classic duality. Here now is a historic moment to say, “No’’ to McCain-Palin and the direction of the Republican Party.
It just takes a few of you in each county to get together and then have regional confabs out of which a statewide conference emerges. Look, if you’re going to play this game, then you have to organize, organize, and organize!
Al_Calloway@Verizon.net
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