By Rosetta Miller-Perry
America has at least advanced far enough in the 21st century that anyone who is publicly identified as a racist finds themselves at a disadvantage. So the new con game of the Republican Party is to pretend they aren’t being racist by taking bigoted stances and trying to repackage them as being “anti-racist.” In their view this insulates them from the charges of spreading hatred and discord, especially if they also happen to be people of color.
One of the biggest perpetrators of this fraud is current GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, who in reality has little to no chance of getting the Republican nomination, but wants to make a big public splash and a get more notice than he can by simply being another greedy corporate profiteer. So he decided to step into the racial muck last week with a nasty racial slur directed at Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) during an Iowa campaign event. For anyone unfamiliar with Pressley’s history, she became the first Black woman to represent Massachusetts in Congress when elected in 2018. Ramaswamy said that Pressley was like “one of the modern grand wizards of the modern KKK,” He was responding to comments she made back in 2019 (FOUR YEARS AGO) when she attacked him for his views, which at the time she said were no different than that of any reactionary white man.
Fortunately, CNN commentator Dana Bush took Ramaswamy to task on this past Sunday’s “State of the Union” broadcast. ““You know, I’m sure, the KKK was responsible for more than a century’s worth of horrific lynchings, rapes, murders of Black people,” she said. “How, in any way, are the views you’re talking about comparable to the views and atrocities committed by the KKK?,” Bash rightly asked Ramaswamy..
He tried to counter by saying “I think it is the same spirit to say that I can look at you and based on just your skin color, that I know something about the content of your character, that I know something about the content of the viewpoints you’re allowed to express. For Ayanna Pressley to tell me that because of my skin color I can’t express my views, that is wrong. It is divisive. It is driving hate in this country. This is dividing our country to the breaking point,” he added.
Actually, that’s not what she said. What she said was that he, and other people of color who align themselves with racists and bigots politically, are speaking the same language. She never said he didn’t have the right to say what he said, just that he should be viewed in the same way as any Neo-Nazi, Klansman or any other disgusting bigot who openly expresses messages of hatred and racist exclusion on a daily basis. Ramaswamy eventually had to agree that equating what Pressley said with the Klan was “obviously wrong.” He tried to amend his comments by calling for an “open and honest discussion” of race, claiming there is “a gap between what people will say in private today and what they will say in public.I think we need to have real, open, honest, raw conversation as Americans,” he said. “That is our path to national unity. And there are many Americans today who are deeply frustrated by the new culture of anti-racism, that’s really racism in new clothing, and we need to have that debate in the open.”
On that score, he’s actually right, but not for the reasons he thinks. It is way past time that people of color who collaborate in the oppression of their people be accurately identified. There is nothing remotely “conservative” about folks who give aid and comfort, if not open support, to racists, anti-Semites, bigots, sexists and homophobes. Folks for example like Candace Owens, who make shoddy, inaccurate, openly disgusting and contemptible documentaries that denigrate the memory of George Floyd and mock the move for police reform and social justice his murder helped propel.
There is nothing wrong with any person of color who truly has some alternative political vision, or wants to be an advocate for a different political direction. We can agree that it is never good for the votes of any group of people to be considered totally in any one political party’s pocket. But it is the height of political suicide for anyone to align themselves with a party that openly supports voter suppression and gerrymandering, turns a blind eye to the plague of gun violence, embraces racist organizations like the Proud Boys, and does everything in its power to erode protections against economic and educational discrimination.
We have far more respect, even though we acknowledge they have no shot at winning, for anyone who truly pursues an independent political path, or is advocating that oppressed Americans of all backgrounds unite against the systemic racism that still exists, even though the Republican Party wants to pretend that it doesn’t.
As for Vivek Ramaswamy, he’s an Asian and a person of color with reprehensible political views. He is someone with zero qualifications for the presidency and should be vigorously opposed by any and everyone who wants to see this nation move forward. We oppose him the same way we oppose anyone holding and expressing backward, negative and vile political views, no matter their color, gender, ethnic, religious background or sexual orientation. Racists and bigots must be exposed and fought, no matter who or what they are.
