How Dare You!?…

…leave the plantation???!!!

Tim Scott, US Senator, was given this message (in spirit if not in specific language) by the woke-Left for having the temerity to give the rebuttal speech following Biden’s first address to Congress.

You see, Scott is a black man who has the temerity to a – be a Republican, b – disagree with the Democrats and the head of their party, and c – hold views that don’t align with what the Left expects… nay, demands of blacks in America.

For giving a speech laden with positivity, for declaring that “America is not a racist country,” for standing as living proof that the ‘American Dream’ exists, and for rebutting the policy points, initiatives, and desires that Biden set forth, Scott was called “Uncle Tim,” “little more than an oreo with no real principles, “Sambo,” the GOP’s “token,” and (no surprise) the N-word derogatorily.

Scott did not claim that racism doesn’t exist in America. Rather, he rejected the en-vogue notion that America as a nation, en toto, structurally, “systemically,” and I presume irredeemably, is racist. I agree with him – there are racists in the nation, both overt and subtle (I’ve met and known both), but to declare the nation as a whole, today, as “racist” rejects the aspiration of its founding philosophy, the massive progress made across its centuries, and the great swathes of people of all colors who do not fit the traditional and honest definition of racism (the Left’s attempts to re-define the word notwithstanding).

Want to know when this “systemic” racism existed? Before the Civil War, when slavery was codified into law. During Jim Crow, when laws prohibited blacks and whites from commingling, when someone who wanted to serve everyone in a restaurant was legally debarred from doing so. When the law of the land prohibited normal interactions. Today? People can be racist, and some are. This narrative, however, where looking at the results of a high school entrance exam, noting that the race statistics don’t match the demographics of the area, and screaming “Systemic Racism!,” is nothing more than tendentious agitation and a distraction from the failings of progressive policy (which is the point – it lays blame without naming the culprits).

But the core matter herein isn’t about racism or Scott’s views, it’s the reaction from those who tell us they are the most enlightened, the most anti-racist, and the most aware members of society.

In a word, that reaction is: racist.

How else do we interpret the presumption that speaking contrary to what’s expected of people of his color requires epithet? How otherwise can we conclude when people resort to language based on skin color? What other conclusion is there, when someone’s words are filtered through his flesh tone?

As anyone not of the echo chamber knows, many of the least tolerant people in the country are those who set themselves forth as the most. They’ll champion you because of your skin color, but only if you are a loyal and full-throated member of their team.

If you’re ‘supposed’ to be on their team, because you’re something other than a straight white male , you’re worse than the actual racists they claim to oppose. Rather than being merely a heathen/pagan, you’re either a heretic, who has always preached against doctrine, or an apostate, who has known but abandoned doctrine. The latter two are, history tells us, treated worse than the former. Those of the non-dominant religions in nations have usually been tolerated to some degree or another, perhaps out of simple practicality, or perhaps out of a doctrinaire belief that they can one day be brought into the fold and saved, but those who abandoned the faith were denounced, expelled from society, had their belongings taken, their families stripped, and sometimes even their lives taken.

Witness the treatment of other prominent black non-liberals. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (another American Dream success story), is the subject of constant attacks from the Left (many of them racist as well). Joe Biden suggested that economist Thomas Sowell was racist for opposing affirmative action. Condoleezza Rice was compared to the black maid from Gone With The Wind and drawn in racist caricature (the sort that got Dr. Seuss cancelled). Ben Carson, Colin Powell, and other prominent blacks have been repeatedly vilified as puppets, idiots, and worse by those who claim to want to lead America out of racism, solely because they had differing political opinions.

If you look at the demographics of today’s woke-Left, you’ll find it trends wealthy, white, and well-educated. The attitude in those circles reeks of a paternalism and superiority that, if we are honest, gave birth to the progressive movement itself. The notion that the Best-and-Brightest can restructure society on behalf of the masses better than those masses can, via liberty, free enterprise, and the invisible hand, for themselves is the essence of en-vogue thinking of a century ago. Those Best-and-Brightest gave us policies born of racism, policies that continue to be embraced by today’s Democratic Party.

It is also a reality that behaviors people accuse others of are often behaviors they themselves exhibit. For nigh on a century, the phrase “plantation mentality” has been with us. Today, it most aptly describes the views and mindset of the people who ran down Senator Scott for daring to oppose a political agenda he (correctly, in my opinion) considers ruinous and socially destructive.

I’ve written for years about how the Left saves its strongest hatred for those it deems heretics and apostates, for those who’ve left the reservation rather than do and say as they’re told. It’s past time we call them out for the racism at the heart of this hatred.