Luther Campbell, the man whose booty-shaking madness made the U.S. Supreme Court stand up for free speech, gets as nasty as he wants to be for Miami New Times. This week, Campbell rates the racist credentials of the Republican Party presidential nominees.
What happened to the party of Abraham Lincoln? There was a time when Republicans stood up for African-Americans. But the quartet of leading contenders for the party's presidential nomination have engaged in some pretty disgusting racist behavior that demonstrates the GOP doesn't like black people.
Long before he was the presumed frontrunner for the White House and Massachusetts' governor, Mitt Romney was actively spreading his Mormon faith. At the time, church leaders preached that dark skin was a curse from God. Between 1966 and 1968, Romney was a missionary in France. He believed and taught that God was so displeased with "spirit children" who remained neutral in the war against Lucifer that he turned their skin black.
Then you have Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, who think it is OK to pick on African-Americans on welfare. When Gingrich was recently on MSNBC's Meet the Press, the Republican candidate insulted black people by claiming Barack Obama is "the most successful food stamp president in American history." During a campaign stop in Sioux City days before the Iowa primary, Santorum singled out African-Americans as welfare recipients before a mostly white audience.
"I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money," Santorum said. It might come as a shock to Newt and Rick, but 39 percent of welfare recipients are white and 17 percent are Hispanic. Stop accepting the stereotype that poor black folks are always looking for a government handout, you mindless wonders.
The fourth candidate, Ron Paul, believes Lincoln should never have gone to war to end slavery. When anchor Tim Russert confronted Paul, the former Texas congressman stuck to his guns. He wants people to believe that the federal government might have avoided the Civil War if it had bought all the slaves from the South and freed them. Paul claims the conflict is the reason "hatred" among blacks and whites "lingered for 100 years," casually ignoring the fact that plantation owners believed they had a constitutional right to own blacks like farm animals. Selling their slaves would not have changed that mentality.
As president, Paul would chain black people in this country and send the people of Latino descent back to the places they came from, whether they were born in the United States or not. If he gets elected, I'm moving my family to the Bahamas.
Follow Luke on Twitter: @unclelukereal1.
