Revisionist “historian” David Barton is asking you on his website to celebrate the Black History month by buying his DVD on the subject.
Though the program is billed as an attempt to recognize “the forgotten heroes and untold stories from our rich African American political history,” it is, in reality, a 90-minute effort to portray the Democratic Party as responsible for every problem that has ever plagued the African American community in America and imply that the Republican Party is the antidote. Barton’s website proudly claims that he “is currently breaking ground in the African-American community with his presentations” based on this DVD.
What is curious about this propaganda video is that as much as it attacks the Democrats (rightly) for standing for slavery and subsequently for segregation, it fails to mention a few critical historical facts, including the Civil Rights Act, and the Republican “Southern Strategy”. The Civil Rights Act, signed by Lyndon Johnson, left the segregationist Democrats, or so called “Dixiecrats”, upset with their own party, some of whom, not least Strom Thurmond ultimately became Republicans. Of note, Thurmond always maintained that he was not a racist, but he was opposed to excessive federal authority (sounds familiar?), even though we got from him gems like this:
“All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, into our schools, our churches and our places of recreation and amusement.”
And then we got the Republican Southern Startegy: how to attract racist votes without sounding racist themselves.
You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”
While half truths and critical omissions are Barton’s Modus Operandi, the DVD has another peculiar feature: it compares abortion to slavery. It claims that the Democrats’ mental framework hasn’t changed, and while in the past they considered slave disposable property, now they have the same attitude toward the “unborn”. (I guess that includes balls of cells in the lab.) But regardless of whatever objection you may have to abortion, there is a fundamental difference: the minor matter of life long human suffering with slavery doesn’t exist here. It is not like you are going to have to do back breaking work all your life for now pay, be physically confined to a location you don’t like, be repeatedly raped if you are a woman, be hanged for looking at the master’s daughter if you are a man, or be chained and separated from your family never to see them again. Comparing abortion to slavery is revolting. But not entirely surprising, coming from Barton.
