This blog is a blog about history, Yiddishkeit, and the Muppets, neither exclusively nor necessarily in that order. And as William Gibson said about this very blog (no, really), “History can save your ass.” Yiddishkeit and the Muppets are just extras.
The Chronicle Blog Network, a digital salon sponsored by The Chronicle of Higher Education, features leading bloggers from all corners of academe. Content is not edited, solicited, or necessarily endorsed by The Chronicle.
Jamelle Boule Bouie calls out the deceptiveness of conservatives noting that the Democrats have historically been the party of Jim Crow:
Or subscribe now to read with unlimited access for as low as $10/month.
A free account provides you access to a limited number of free articles each month, plus newsletters, job postings, salary data, and exclusive store discounts.
Jamelle Boule Bouie calls out the deceptiveness of conservatives noting that the Democrats have historically been the party of Jim Crow:
The problem with Fund’s argument is that he takes these facts, divorces them from historical context, and spins them into an unconvincing indictment of the modern Democratic Party and a disingenuous exoneration of its conservative counterpart.
It’s worth a read. But what Boule misses (or undersells) is the conscious decision by the GOP to slide into the position vacated by the Democrats. It wasn’t just that the Democrats supported Jim Crow until quite late and only abandoned it during the 1960s. It was that LBJ knowingly pushed through the Civil Rights Act against the best electoral interests of his own party, and the Republicans, with malice aforethought, went after Southerners angered by the CRA. Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” was a deliberate effort to win a Presidential election by appealing to Southern whites disillusioned with Democrats over civil rights. They picked up the racial baton from the Democrats and ran with it, and have continued to run with it today. Yes, one might say to a Republican criticizing the Democrats for building Jim Crow in the South, they did do that. Why have you continued it?
(We have, of course, written about this extensively before).
