Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch. (James Baldwin)
Black writer James Baldwin recognized how the “affliction” (slavery) evoked strong feelings in non-white Americans, who are still “frightened” by any hint the alt-right is gaining traction. In the politics of identity, the fear du jour is white supremacy, which is no hoax – not after El Paso. Still, as an existential threat to non-whites, it pales in comparison to drug dealers or street gangs.
Nonetheless, “racism” has preoccupied the Democratic presidential field. Take Beto O’Rourke. With his campaign tanking, he proclaimed “this country, though we would like to think otherwise, was founded on racism, has persisted through racism, and is racist today.” Not to be outdone, Bernie Sanders asserted as fact, the US was “created from way back on racist principles.” Do they truly believe this or is it campaign rhetoric?
Tim Scott (R-SC) thinks the racist America talking points are “an opportunity for the Democratic Party to try to figure out a way to dupe the African-American voters, not only in South Carolina but around the country, because they really have nothing but empty promises to run on.” Translation: Trump-Russia stopped frightening voters, and Trump-Klan was worth a shot.
The black senator called out Democrats for not wanting to run against Republican criminal justice reform because it disproportionately benefits black Americans, or mention 6 million new jobs because “half have gone to African-Americans and Hispanics.” His myth-busting argument has a strong close: “The same people who voted for me voted for President Trump.”
Scott is just being realistic: politicians are all about selling themselves into political office. Democrats think race is the winning card, and Republicans think decrying false claims is a winning card. Who really knows if Trump is a racist or Omar hates Jews? Nobody, but the incentive to create make-believe demons is undeniable.
Politics aside, early America was not consumed by racist principles, in spite of the compromises we now despise or the tight rope the founding fathers walked to unite 13 colonies. While the Naturalization Act of 1790 offered citizenship “to free White persons of good character,” the Northwest Ordinance (“there shall neither be slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory”) was passed in 1787 – before the Constitution was completed.
Virginian James Madison’s personal notes from Philadelphia reflect his view it would be “wrong to admit in the constitution the idea that there could be property in men,” and the framers of the constitution inserted specific language that Congress could in 1808 ban the slave trade, which it did. I hold that careful avoidance of “racist principles” and inclusion of “freedom principles” inevitably ensured abolition.
The absence of “racist principles” was publicly noted by black abolitionist Frederick Douglas: “if the Constitution were to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it?” That absence was an intentional and principled compromise.
Moreover, the inclusion of “freedom principles” (speech and religion) empowered Douglas and Martin Luther King to speak freely and make Christian appeals. Before the Civil War, Douglas wrote that free speech “is the dread of tyrants.” Dr. King, free to believe in God’s moral universe, saw – and taught Americans – that “God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race.”
This is America’s history and it is modern arrogance to suggest Adams, Franklin and Madison just stumbled upon the 1st amendment or that they were clueless where it would ultimately lead. The truth Americans must now seek is what, after centuries of global acceptance, made Christians, and eventually Americans, decide slavery was an enormity to be abolished?
Credit the founding principles. David French (National Review) believes the framers of the constitution made abolition and the civil rights movement possible: “the first amendment gave them a voice, and God softened Americans’ hearts, enabling them to finally hear the message.” The first amendment de-legitimized all who opposed Douglas’s pleas for emancipation or King’s civil rights marches.
To ignore America’s virtuous principles is to deny the power of the American Dream; that sum of the ideals in the Declaration of Independence, US Constitution, Gettysburg Address, and Dr. King’s sermons, which transcends politicians and fleeting public opinion. Of course, US history includes the sordid details of our heroes, but the duality of men is not what makes America exceptional.
Believing in Jefferson’s self-evident truths, Madison’s bill of rights, Lincoln’s moral clarity, and King’s intellectual honesty is still the liberal antidote to racism today, even while “liberals” are losing their heads. These ideals are what made even Donald Trump recoil when rally-goers chanted “send her back.” Therefore, I am wary of partisan muckrakers, especially those who peddle today as the worst of times and insist it is the design of the worst of men.