Originally published on March 13, 2011 at NewsReal

———

In 1989, a jogger was beaten, raped, and left for dead in New York City’s Central Park.  When she arrived at the courthouse to testify, a swarm of protesters led by Al Sharpton greeted her with shouts of “whore!” and “drug addict!”

She was just a rape victim, an acceptable casualty of Sharpton’s beloved race warfare.

“It’s typical of the left to make a convicted rapist a hero,” Susan Brownmiller told an interviewer in 1975.  The feminist author was referring to the Left’s embrace of Eldridge Cleaver, the 1960s Black Panther radical who called his rape of white women “an insurrectionary act.”

And so it is decades later in Cleveland, Texas.

An 11-year-old girl suffered a brutal gang rape that began in the bedroom and bathroom of a house and ended in a filthy abandoned trailer strewn with garbage and debris. Police say the assailants forced the child to remove her clothes under threat of violence and raped her while filming the prolonged attack with a camera phone.

The child’s vaginal injuries were so severe that she told a forensic interviewer “investigators might find blood at one of the locations as proof.” A reporter who read the search warrant affidavit described the details as “too obscene to repeat.”

At least 18 men and boys were arrested, and up to 10 more suspects may be charged in the coming days. The victim is Hispanic and all of the accused are black.

Like a vulture circling carrion, New Black Panther Party leader Quanell X swooped down on the small East Texas town to devour the remains of an 11-year-old child’s innocence. The soulless race hustler attracted a standing-room-only crowd to an event in support of the accused attackers. He called his victim blaming, race baiting hate rally “What’s The Real Truth Behind The Rape Allegations?”

“I did not come here this evening to jump on an 11-year-old girl,” he insisted during remarks that questioned “why she didn’t report the attack to authorities herself.” The rally was packed with supporters of the accused men who “blamed the girl for the way she dressed or claimed she must have lied about her age.” A revolting article in the March 9th edition of the New York Times chronicled similar victim blaming by local residents who said the girl “dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s.” And a defense attorney for several of the men told a Houston Chronicle reporter that the child was “seeking attention” and “wants to be a porn star.”

Is this the best Cleveland, Texas has to offer a vulnerable young girl violated by a gang of local men?

Before Quanell X descended on the town of Cleveland, residents were experiencing heightened racial tensions due to the possible recall of three black city council members. The opportunistic, exploitative stench of his agenda belched forth from the rally Thursday night as he encouraged the community’s despicable, unconscionable questions about the 11-year-old victim’s culpability. In a move carefully orchestrated to cultivate a toxic atmosphere of doubt and blame, he “even went so far as to show reporters a scantily clad photo of her posted on Facebook.”

Further victimization of an 11-year-old rape survivor means nothing to Quanell X. She’s collateral damage, a civilian casualty in his endless quest to recruit violent criminals and their sympathizers as foot soldiers in his race war. “’She lives in another community,’ Quanell X told the gathering. ‘You mean to tell me the only men that had sex with that girl were black men, locked up in that jail?’” Proclaiming the innocence of some of those arrested, he took up a collection for their defense and attempted to whip the crowd into a frothy mix of racial resentment and hatred. “We do not want someone with a malicious racist motive to rid your community of an entire generation of black men,” he said.

From victim shaming and race baiting fabrications to politically motivated rape jokes, exaggerated statistics, and vicious smear campaigns, rape has long been an acceptable political weapon in the professional Left’s arsenal.  Victims of rape, the wrongly accused, and the damaged and disturbed people who make false allegations are all completely dispensable in the service of illuminating some larger “truth” about American imperialism or social injustice.

The horrendous false allegations of gang rape made by Tawana Brawley and Crystal Gail Mangum proved just as useful to the political Left.   Their tales of racially motivated sexual violence were carefully manipulated to advance a disturbing narrative of racial hatred–truth and justice be damned. Both women were fashioned into political dodge balls and lobbed repeatedly at the Left’s targets until, worn and battered, they found themselves discarded unceremoniously in the nearest gutter.

And now, that gutter is where an 11-year-old  Texas girl finds herself, abandoned by the feminists who spoke out about her rape but are now appallingly silent about her savaging by a prominent black activist and his depraved disciples.

My latest NewsReal piece:

A month ago, few people outside of South Carolina knew of State Rep. Nikki Haley.  But that didn’t stop her opponents from wetting themselves when Haley picked up some impressive endorsements and her gubernatorial campaign gained momentum.

Don’t worry, said their trusty consultants as they mopped up the puddles, a scarlet letter oughta finish her off. And if a little old fashioned slut-baiting doesn’t do the trick, we’ll just make sure everyone knows Nimrata Randhawa Haley is secret “raghead.”  Trust us, the good ol’ boys in South Cackalacky know just how to handle a foreign lady who’s in our way.

And thus began their Hail Mary pass to sideline the uppity woman with the ethnic name.

Why bother? Because Haley’s record of fighting for transparent government is a direct threat to politics as usual at the Statehouse.  South Carolina’s good ol’ boys are terrified that Haley will force on-the-record legislative voting, so they scraped the sewers for the scummiest strategy imaginable.

Up first was Will Folks, the fiancée-beating degenerate who titillated the drooling media with unsubstantiated tales of his “inappropriate physical relationship” with Haley. Haley has been married for 13 years and Folks claims the affair occurred in 2007.

News organizations from the New York Times to the Greenville News printed Folks’ allegations, dutifully including the contention that he was a longtime Haley cheerleader.  Oddly, none of them mentioned that just after Haley announced her gubernatorial bid, Folks posted a mock interview in which he threatened her with violence:

You need to learn to count. And while you’re at it, shut your mouth. Don’t you know I beat up women, like all the time? Nikki, what I’m saying is that if you can’t beat these [inaudible] mouth-breathing, inbred knuckle-draggers with one hand tied behind your back then someone should raise a fist up against you.

What could have possibly motivated this fine upstanding gentleman to help undermine Haley’s candidacy? After all, entering a guilty plea on one criminal domestic violence charge couldn’t mean he’s got a problem with the ladies, now could it?  Perhaps this diehard Haley supporter will come clean about his hatred of women in the book he’s currently shopping … if the price is right.

Next at bat was Larry Marchant, former employer of Will Folks and a paid consultant to gubernatorial candidate Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer. Marchant just happened to pick the week before the primary to tell the world that he and Haley had a one night stand in 2008. The proof? Why, his word, that’s the proof!  If it’s good enough for the media, it should be good enough for you.

Starting to see how this works?

Haley says she’s been 100 percent faithful to her husband throughout their marriage, and even promised to resign if any allegations are proven.  But proof isn’t really the point. The point is to raise doubt about her virtue and leave voters with the indelible impression of a home wrecking hussy who sluts around Columbia with all sorts of sleazeballs.

And that impression is just fine with Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer.  In a Friday press release, Bauer suggested that Haley take a lie detector test, presumably because a lying whore can’t be taken at her word.  But a couple of jowly dudes talking smack about the hot chick they banged?  Totally credible in Bauer’s neck of the gutter.  As Melissa Clouthier noted, there is “deep misogyny” involved in this campaign to sink Haley.

As if the misogyny weren’t bad enough, Haley’s opponents are bringing other forms of bigotry into the mix.  U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett’s team reportedly “discussed playing the religion card” against Haley (who his aides privately refer to as “Nimrata”). And Friday morning, a member of the Bauer campaign emailed supporters an article that asks:

After seeing how the faith issue hurt Mitt Romney and damaged Barack Obama to some extent as well, is Haley making a political decision by playing up her Christian faith (just like Obama did) and LOSING the Sikh emphasis?

Haley was raised Sikh and converted to Christianity. But again, that’s not really the point, is it? Haley’s religious roots are being emphasized in an attempt to paint her as a scary outsider, someone who can’t govern South Carolina because she isn’t like us.

Anyone taking bets on how long it’ll be until someone asks for her birth certificate?  Better yet, will State Senator Jake Knotts be the first? The Free Times reports:

“She’s a f#!king raghead,” Knotts said.

He later clarified his statement. He did not mean to use the F-word.

Knotts says he believed Haley has been set up by a network of Sikhs and was programmed to run for governor of South Carolina by outside influences in foreign countries. He claims she is hiding her religion and he wants the voters to know about it.

“We got a raghead in Washington; we don’t need one in South Carolina,” Knotts said more than once. “She’s a raghead that’s ashamed of her religion trying to hid it behind being Methodist for political reasons.”

Knotts, a Bauer supporter, says he’s called Haley a “raghead” a number of times and that he was just joking.  He added, “I still believe Ms. Haley is pretending to be someone she is not, much as Obama did, but I apologize to both for an unintended slur.”

This isn’t the first time Knotts attempted the “I was joking” excuse to get out of a sticky situation.  Here’s the ProQuest abstract of a Jun 6, 1996 Sentinel article titled “White Lawmaker Angers Blacks”:

Several black and white legislators objected when South Carolina state Rep Jake Knotts introduced amendments to the black monument bill that would have created monuments for Scottish-Americans, Polish-Americans and others. Knotts later announced that he had only been joking about the bill.

Oh, but there’s more.  In 2003, Knotts worked himself into a frenzy over a group of Somali Bantu refugees who were going to be “dumped” in his district.  He insisted the 40-50 Bantu children would “lower our SAT scores and our accountability.” (The State, Jun 28, 2003)

Hmm, seems like the persecuted immigrants didn’t need to bring any stupid. Knotts made sure there was plenty to go around.

With a despicable history like that, would it be surprising if we learned that political operatives sent Knotts to tape a live talk show knowing that he wouldn’t bother to self-censor his bigotry?  Is is out of the realm of possibility that they wanted–even encouraged–him to blow the dog whistle, alerting fellow bigots to the “raghead” in our midst?

Just like allegations of adultery were intended to tap into existing voter misogyny, these religious and ethnic slurs were designed to exploit voter bigotry.  Bigotry that doesn’t exist at anywhere near the levels bigots think it does.

When Nikki Haley launched her campaign in May 2009, reporter John O’Connor wrote, “To become governor, Haley will have to overcome questions about her Indian heritage and whether S.C. voters will accept a woman chief executive.”

A year later, Haley is leading the race.  I guess she overcame those questions more easily than her opponents hoped.  Now it’s time to focus on the issues that matter to the people of South Carolina.

Full disclosure: I am a volunteer with Nikki Haley’s gubernatorial campaign.

1921 diagram from the Eugenics Record Office

The virtue of hate crime legislation is a given on the Left. Criminals deserve stiffer punishments if they select victims based on race or sex, end of story.

But what if one of those criminals chose to abort a pregnancy based on the race or sex of the fetus?  Oh, that would be a sacred right.

This is not hyperbole. Consider the depravity of this recent headline on Salon’s Broadsheet blog:  Banning Race-Based Abortions is Wrong.

My body, my choice to abort based on race?

The Broadsheet piece by Tracy Clark-Flory is a reaction to the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, a proposed law that would outlaw abortion based on race, color, or sex in the state of Georgia.

The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act would apply to abortion “the same standards of nondiscrimination” that govern employment, education, government and housing, said Georgia state Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a Republican who introduced the bill last month with bipartisan support.

If enacted, the bill would make it illegal to knowingly solicit, perform or accept funding for race- or sex-selected abortions.

So how does this translate into an assault on reproductive freedom?  Clark-Flory explains:

Roger Evans, Planned Parenthood’s senior director for litigation and law, told me over the phone that his main objection is to “the notion that the government has a role in deciding what are fair reasons and unfair reasons for a woman to have an abortion.” First it’s race and sex — but what next?

Ah, yes, the slippery slope argument.  First they come for our right to selectively abort female fetuses, and the next thing you know, it’ll be redheaded fetuses.  Pretty soon we’ll have no right to abort eight-month-old fetuses that kick too much in the middle of the night.

Please visit NewsReal to read the rest.

Dawson’s supporters included Glenn McCall, a black RNC committeeman who offered effusive praise for Dawson’s decision to cancel his membership:

I see what Katon did as evidence of his commitment to including and involving people from all walks of life and all races. Katon took a stand for what was right. He stood up in front of his friends at the club and told them what they were doing was wrong, and when they refused to change, he decided to leave.

Just one problem: Katon Dawson never gave up his membership at the exclusive Forest Lake Country Club.  His very public resignation was a sham, quietly dispensed with after losing the RNC chairmanship to Michael Steele.

Accordingly, Dawson never technically “rejoined” the club in 2009, as he has been privately telling supporters.

Sources familiar with the club’s financial records tell FITS that Dawson actually paid his membership dues at the Forest Lake Country Club in Columbia, S.C. throughout the RNC campaign – and as a result was never removed from the club’s membership rolls.

“He paid in advance for the duration of his leave,” one of the sources told FITS.  “He has never not been a member of Forest Lake.”

Another source said Dawson paid five months worth of dues in advance.

This news comes as no surprise to critics who questioned the politically expedient timing of his faux resignation.  After all, in the twenty-first century, racially exclusive clubs are a no-no even when you’re not campaigning.

Dawson heads to Hawaii later this month to attend the RNC meeting.  Last week he told CNN he would serve as South Carolina GOP chairwoman Karen Floyd’s proxy at the meeting, but a South Carolina GOP spokesperson denies that was ever the plan.

Dawson says he’s “not ready to comment” on why he won’t be attending the meeting in an official capacity.  Oh, Katon, Katon, Katon, I think we all know why.

And now, members of the Ugandan parliament are considering a draconian piece of legislation known as the Anti Homosexuality Bill of 2009 (PDF). Written by freshman MP David Bahati, the proposed law could institute the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality,” including acts that involve HIV-positive individuals and repeat offenders.  The penalty for other homosexual acts would increase from 14 years to life in prison.  In addition, friends, neighbors, and even clergy would be deputized as informants, and imprisoned for “aiding and abetting” homosexuality.

Who is to blame for this inhumane proposal?  Surely not the Ugandan people, all of whom are pure in thought, word, and deed.  And certainly not the beneficent legislators, eager to do what’s best for the people.  So who bears the blood of Ugandan gays on their hands?

American evangelical Christians, of course!

You see, not one, not two, but three American evangelicals visited Uganda last March to speak at a conference about “the gay agenda – that whole hidden and dark agenda.”  When these evangelical serpents arrived in Uganda, the noble savages fell from gay-loving grace upon tasting the forbidden fruit of homophobia and hatred.  And as the sweet, sweet juices of Western exported Christian fundamentalism ran down their chins, the epiphany set in:  death to Sodomites!

At least, that’s the implication of the meme that’s been sliming its way through the liberal smear machine, culminating last week with the publication of “Americans’ Role Seen in Uganda Anti-Gay Push” in the New York Times:

For three days, according to participants and audio recordings,thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”

Now the three Americans are finding themselves on the defensive, saying they had no intention of helping stoke the kind of anger that could lead to what came next: a bill to impose a death sentence for homosexual behavior.

NYT writer Jeffrey Gettleman eventually gets around to a grudging admission that anti-homosexual bigotry existed in Uganda before three American nobodies showed up to enrapture thousands. But the intended takeaway is clear: it is not Ugandans, but American evangelicals who are to blame for the Anti Homosexuality Bill.  And untainted by the nefarious influence of three Americans you’ve probably never heard of – Scott Lively, Caleb Lee Brundidge, and Don Schmierer -  the good people of Uganda would have maintained their anti-gay status quo.

Western homophobia: it’s magically delicious!

Without a doubt, the trio of American anti-gay activists are among the rankest of human garbage, and the Ugandan event was permeated by the unmistakable stench of hatred and bigotry.  There is even video evidence of Scott Lively at the Ugandan conference describing gays as serial killers, child molesters, and sociopaths.

These are the same falsehoods spread by anti-gay groups in the United States. Are we to believe the average Ugandan is far more susceptible to hateful rhetoric than the average American?

Sounds like the soft bigotry of low expectations to me.

And it’s precisely those low expectations of the poor, unwitting Africans that we hear echoing throughout the liberal mediasphere.

The Seattle Times editorial board makes it clear the Ugandans aren’t to blame for the anti-gay extremism in their government:

Gays and lesbians are a frequent target for those who preach a theology of exclusion and holier-than-thou dividing lines. Familiar language at home, but now it is a vile export.

Homosexuals in Uganda are literally in fear for their lives after three American evangelists traveled to Africa to find far-flung converts for the rhetoric of the U.S. culture wars.

Shakesville blogger Melissa McEwan theorizes (conspiracy-style) that “the extreme anti-gay legislation under consideration in Uganda was underwritten by the secretive American evangelical organization known as ‘The Family.’”  In her defense, McEwan didn’t expel this steaming pile of crazy on her own – she picked it up on MSNBC.

Professional moby turned liberal lapdog Charles Johnson writes:

What a shock — preaching hatred leads to hatred. Who could ever have guessed?

Just appalling. This is where the rhetoric of the religious right leads, and don’t fool yourself — there are many people on the right who support Uganda’s persecution of gays, and would like to see the US do the same thing.

True to sycophantic smear formula, Johnson then attempts to tar the entire right based on anonymous comments of unknown origin at Free Republic.

PZ Myers calls the three evangelicals who attended the Ugandan conference “the people responsible for inciting hatred of gays in Africa.”  He continues, “The only reason they are running from it now is that it happened far faster in Uganda than they expected, and they’re suddenly standing their with a smoking gun and blood on their hands, rather than at a safe remove with the apparatus of the state peeling away the rights from people, one by one.”

And Jill at Feministe relieves the Ugandans of culpability like this: “This is a tried-and-true pattern among religious radicals. They set a fire, fan the flames and then feign shock when something burns down.”

Sure thing. In a matter of hours, an entire country of Africans was radicalized by a trio of inconsequential Westerners.  These evangelicals must be to Uganda what David Hasselhoff is to Germany!

The thing is, anti-gay sentiment is rampant in Africa, much more so than in the United States.  While American gays are fighting for the right to marry, many of their African counterparts are fighting against imminent execution.  Are we to assume that the same three idiots from America been running amok in Africa, filling innocent, impressionable minds with Christianist hatred and bigotry?

And here’s a question: if even “Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, has linked gay practices to Western influences,” why would the country’s leaders turn to the imperialist West to pile on with more advice?  Couldn’t it be that the Ugandan conference organizers were using Lively and company as pawns to promote their anti-gay agenda?

“When you demonize lgbts as predators, just what do you think would happen?” asks a blogger at Pam’s House Blend.

What do I think? I think the Ugandan people aren’t unruly teens succumbing to peer pressure at a kegger. And they aren’t smooth wax tablets awaiting the stylus of their Christianist overlords.  Ugandans are just as capable as Americans of shrugging off outrageously bigoted rhetoric, but the fact is, the bigotry was already there.

So let’s put an end to fetishizing the Ugandan people as noble savages sullied by the West. And let’s stop infantilizing Africans by relieving them of their moral responsibility and capacity for self-determination.  If Fred Phelps and the Westboro bigots haven’t managed to Pied Piper the vast majority of Americans into the river of hate, three self-important American evangelicals aren’t responsible for pervasive bigotry in Uganda.

Unless, of course, you don’t think Ugandans are capable of thinking for themselves.

]]> http://www.jennqpublic.com/ugandans-american-evangelicals-the-soft-bigotry-of-liberal-expectations/feed/ 6 http://www.jennqpublic.com/inconvenient-race-just-edit-accordingly/ http://www.jennqpublic.com/inconvenient-race-just-edit-accordingly/#comments Thu, 20 Aug 2009 09:20:16 +0000 Jenn Q. Public http://www.jennqpublic.com/?p=1469 Imagine for a moment you’re an MSNBC producer.  You’ve worked hard to convince viewers that President Obama’s health care reform is being jeopardized by dangerous gun-toting white supremacists who hate the idea of a black man in the White House.

So what do you do when the facts don’t reinforce your carefully crafted narrative?  For example, maybe you’ve got prime video footage of a right wing extremist carrying an assault rifle at a protest.  I mean, you can’t honestly be expected to have your on-air talent report that he’s a black man, right? And it’s not like this gun-loving wingnut is an authentic African-American, what with his distasteful conservative politics and dislike of Barack Obama.  Everyone knows blacks are supposed to be Democrats.

But then you notice.  If you get the editing peons to zoom the footage just so, taking care to make sure no exposed skin is visible, a black man and a white man look awfully similar. Why, it’s almost as if you could get away with …

A crop here, a cut there, and presto!  You’ve doctored away the inconvenient truth of a black man’s race.

All will go according to plan if you can roll your whitewashed footage as Contessa Brewer and company analyze the “racial overtones” of “white people showing up with guns strapped to their waists.”  Kind of like this:

Click here to view the embedded video.

To continue stoking racial animosity, go to page 24.

To get caught out there by NewsBusters, go here.

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Enter Chip Saltsman.

Chip Saltsman is the former campaign manager for Mike Huckabee, and is currently in the running for national RNC Chair. I missed this story while diligently maintaining my holiday sugar high, but James Richardson was around to summarize why Saltsman is an utterly embarrassing drag on the GOP:

In an exercise of political suicide, Republican National Committee Chair hopeful Chip Saltsman distributed a controversial CD by conservative satirist Paul Shanklin to national committee members this month for Christmas.

First played on Rush Limbaugh’s popular, though often taboo, radio show, the 41-track CD, entitled “We Hate the USA,” featured the racially-charged song “Barack the Magic Negro.” After all, nothing says “Christmas” like racial insensitivity…

Defending the ill-conceived Christmas goodie bag as a good humored joke, Saltsman told The Hill: “Paul Shanklin is a long-time friend, and I think that RNC members have the good humor and good sense to recognize that his songs for the Rush Limbaugh show are light-hearted political parodies.”

HA HA, get it, “negro” is a funny word.

Much like his fellow candidate for RNC Chair Katon Dawson, Chip Saltsman assumes his history of social and political relationships with minorities absolves him of all past, present, and future charges of racism. He expects that calling the songs on the CD “light-hearted political parodies” will further insulate him from politically disruptive accusations. And when that failed, he actually tried to argue that the phrase “magic negro” was fair game for anyone (read: white conservatives) to toss about because the media let it slide when black liberal David Ehrenstein titled an article “Obama the ‘Magic Negro.’” Double standards, you know.

Chip Saltsman isn’t just feeding the liberal narrative of a racist GOP, he’s laying out an all-you-can-eat buffet spread. The liberal political machine lusts after this sort of fare with an obscene passion, and maladroits like Chip Saltsman treat the loudest voices on the left to exactly what they hunger for: more fuel for the myth that the GOP is the party of intolerance and bigotry.

At best, Chip Saltsman’s Christmas gift to the members of the RNC was racially insensitive, politically clumsy, and just all around ill-advised. Whatever his intentions, Saltsman’s appallingly immature decision to distribute the CD speaks far louder than his graceless defense of his blunder. He is a political strategist, not a radio blowhard who uses terms like “Negro” to shock his audience into listening for another hour.

Saltsman demonstrated an atrocious error in judgment and a profound failure to anticipate the consequences of his actions.  Fortunately this time, one of those consequences was the fizzling of his campaign for RNC chair.

Turns out Derek Black is the 19-year-old son of white supremacist Don Black, a man whose neo-Nazi credentials include founding hate site Stormfront and serving as Grand Wizard of the KKK. Derek Black’s mother, Chloe Black, also held a leadership position in the Klan, and was previously married to Klansman David Duke.

Derek Black has spent innumerable hours immersed in the family business of stirring up racial hatred. He works closely with his father on the Stormfront Web site, and has participated in White supremacist conferences sponsored by the likes of EURO – the European American Unity and Rights Organization. He also co-hosts a white supremacist Internet radio show with David Duke.

But Derek Black’s history of racial bigotry isn’t the only thing that disqualifies him from a GOP leadership position.

Sorry, says county GOP Chairman Sid Dinerstein. In the qualifying period in June, Black didn’t sign a loyalty oath pledging he would not do anything injurious to the party. And that’s not the only problem.

“He participates in white supremacist activities,” Dinerstein said. “We’re the party of Lincoln. We’re the party that says we don’t judge anybody by the color of their skin.”

Derek Black’s response: “I’ve told (Dinerstein) I’m not a white supremacist; that’s an insult. I would describe myself as a white person who is concerned about discrimination against white people.”

Like South Carolina GOP Chairman Katon Dawson, Derek Black is a blight on the Republican Party. He is welcome to believe whatever he likes and exercise his First Amendment rights, but there’s no room in the Party for bigots who want to use GOP leadership roles as platforms for spreading hate. It’s just a shame Derek Black didn’t sign that loyalty oath on time so we could see him ousted from the Party for his racial hatred instead of disqualified on a technicality.

Those points may be worth debating (or deriding), but they’re not why the Party is on the verge of splintering. That honor is reserved for our dear Party leadership, the members of the Republican National Committee.

The RNC is preparing to elect a new Chairman in January, and among the candidates under consideration is Katon Dawson, the Chairman of the South Carolina GOP. Dawson occupied his spare time during the last 12 years or so brushing elbows with the Midlands elite at an exclusive private country club. What’s the big deal? Forest Lake Club is so exclusive that only white people are admitted as members.

The Republican Party has been a monumental force for civil rights in the United States for more than 150 years. Initially created to oppose the atrocious pro-slavery policies of the Democrats, the GOP remained committed to protecting individual liberty and has a proud history of civil rights achievements, including the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Throughout the twentieth century, Republicans stood for freedom and equality, and were instrumental in crafting and passing pieces of legislation that ended segregation and invalidated Jim Crow laws.

That is the Republican Party I embrace, a Party dedicated from its inception to the principles of freedom, liberty, and individual responsibility. It is gobsmackingly vile that this same Party is now seriously considering elevating a morally weak man like Katon Dawson to national Chair.

Republicans rightfully expressed outrage when news surfaced that United States Senate candidate Ned Lamont belonged to an overwhelmingly white country club. The liberal netroots and Democrat establishment were excoriated by Republicans for continuing to support Lamont, yet somehow Katon Dawson has escaped the indignation of Republicans.

Katon Dawson’s leadership accomplishments and civic achievements are now irrelevant. He made a decision 12 years ago that his political aspirations would be best served by hobnobbing with prominent white South Carolinians. He eschewed Republican principles and happily palled around with his white country club buddies, implicitly giving his blessing to one of the final refuges of segregation in America. At best, Dawson chose to turn a blind eye to his club’s admission practices, at least until he thought it might derail his run for RNC Chairman.

Once his dirty little secret was revealed in an article about Forest Lake’s heinous membership policy, Dawson suddenly had plenty to say in an open letter to the club’s Management Committee written shortly before he resigned his membership. Let me nutshell it for you:

I spend tons of time on outreach to black folks. In fact, I’m so busy reaching out to blacks that I barely get to spend time at my all-white club. But after that pesky newspaper exposé, I am overcome with a need to encourage greater diversity in my no-blacks-allowed club. Please consider changing your membership policy as my career may depend on it.

Way too little and a dozen years too late. Katon Dawson’s 12 year membership at Forest Lake Club tells me everything I need to know about his character and integrity. As Dawson wrote last week in a Politico editorial about, I kid you not, the courage of convictions, “It’s not good enough to talk the talk; you’ve got to walk the walk.” Pot, I trust you and kettle need no introductions.

Could Katon Dawson possibly be so blind to his own hypocrisy, or is he off high fiving his country club cohorts, privately congratulating himself on his stunning ability to travel under the radar for so many years? It boggles the mind that his abhorrent association with Forest Lake Club reached the pages of The State in August, yet here we are in December with Dawson still at the helm of the South Carolina GOP, vying for a position of national prominence.

Any vote for Katon Dawson to take the RNC reins will be taken as an endorsement of the dozen years he spent as a member of Forest Lake. If Dawson ascends to the GOP Chairmanship, it will be a giant middle finger thrust in the faces of every American who shudders at the memory of institutionalized racism in our country.

Get ready for the Grand Old Party to suffer an irreparable fracture. Republicans who treasure our Party’s core values will defect to other parties and dilute the strength of the GOP. If we’re lucky, the Party will split in two; in a more realistic scenario, the GOP will splinter into a half dozen or more factions unwilling to associate with a leader who allowed discrimination to simmer under his nose. The Democrats will be handed the country on a silver platter, achieving the inverse of Karl Rove’s “permanent Republican majority.”

But the demise of the Republican Party can be averted by electing a Chairman like Michael Steele whose actions match his words, and whose words convey core Party values. Last weekend Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina proposed a set of principles central to rebuilding the Republican Party. He reminded Republicans that “our loyalties need to be to ideas, not to individuals.” The 168 members of the Republican National Committee cannot forget that when they cast their votes for RNC Chair in January.

In 1870, South Carolina sent Republican Joseph Rainey to Congress as the first black member of the House of Representatives. Were he with us today, Joseph Rainey would not be welcome to schmooze with Katon Dawson and his comrades at Forest Lake Club. Katon Dawson is a blight on the GOP. The only noble path available to Dawson is to immediately withdraw his candidacy and step down as the South Carolina GOP Chair. If he fails to choose the noble path, he must be ousted by Republicans who can talk the talk and walk the walk.