Far more than a mere slap in the face, critical race theory is a brass-knuckled beat-down of white and black Americans who bravely have battled slavery, Jim Crow, and other forms of anti-black racism.
Since Democrat-fueled, state-mandated segregation ended in 1964, even more white and black Americans have labored to advance the latter’s freedom, prosperity, and life prospects. Critical race theory dismisses and defames these priceless efforts.
And because it judges people solely on skin color, critical race theory epitomizes racial prejudice. Thus, critical race theory has earned an icy, windswept spot atop the ash heap of history.
In the 1850s, William Lloyd Garrison and Thomas Garrett were among the white abolitionists who helped former slave Harriet Tubman guide 300-plus Southern blacks north to freedom via the Underground Railroad.
Inspired, in part, by former slave Frederick Douglass’ moral case for abolition, Republican President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. The Union Army crushed the Confederacy and slayed slavery in 1865. The human cost was 364,511 Northern fatalities, which were predominantly white, and 260,000 Southern deaths.
In the mid-1930s, white impresario John Hammond promoted Count Basie, Fletcher Henderson, and other black jazz greats among white audiences. Benny Goodman integrated his band when he hired pianist Teddy Wilson and vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, both black.
Branch Rickey, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ white co-owner, signed Jackie Robinson in April 1948 as Major League Baseball’s first black player. Rickey admired Robinson’s stoicism, which helped him endure the abuse of racists on and off the field. His calmness, elegance, and athletic prowess turned foes into fans.
Walter F. White, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s black chief, was among those who persuaded white Democrat President Harry Truman to integrate the U.S. Armed Forces in July 1948.
In 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, Grand Old Party-nominated Chief Justice Earl Warren and eight other white jurists endorsed black civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall’s argument that racially segregated schools were unconstitutional.
Martin Luther King Jr. and other black civil rights pioneers encouraged white Sens. Everett Dirksen, R-Ill., and Hubert Humphrey, D-Minn., to foil a filibuster by Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., and other Democrat segregationists and pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Democrat President Lyndon Johnson signed it into law.
Jews worked especially closely with King on this and other triumphs for equal justice under law.
Coretta Scott King, King’s widow, peered over Republican President Ronald Wilson Reagan’s shoulder as he signed the Martin Luther King Jr. Day into law in 1983. Reagan also reauthorized the Voting Rights Act of 1965 for 25 years and made Colin Powell America’s first black national security adviser.
Legendary white music executive Clive Davis made multimillionaires of Miles Davis; Earth, Wind & Fire; Whitney Houston, and numerous other black artists. They, in turn, made millions for his record labels. Worldwide, fans cheered.
Early this millennium, Republican President George W. Bush, appointed Powell and Condoleezza Rice as America’s first two black secretaries of state, launched Washington, D.C.’s school voucher program, and reauthorized the Voting Rights Act through 2031.
President Donald Trump worked with the heads of historically black colleges and universities to secure a steady stream of federal aid for those campuses. He reauthorized and guaranteed $45 million in fresh funds for Washington, D.C., vouchers.
Trump worked with black activists to enact the First Step Act criminal justice reform measure and huddled with Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., who is black, to revitalize 8,764 low-income opportunity zones, whose residents are 57% non-white, including 23% who are black.
Beyond these high-profile examples, tens of millions of unsung whites and blacks work, play, worship, and live together—if not in pristine harmony then at least in sincere attempts to achieve that ideal.
These centuries of white-black cooperation confirm that critical race theory is a gargantuan, nauseating lie. America’s rich, unfolding history of interracial collaboration for freedom, justice, and opportunity affirmatively answers the late Rodney King’s immortal question: “Can we all get along?”
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