The Modern History of Systemic Racism
The Southern Manifesto II
Today, I (again) toured the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. One of the displays in the museum featured an excerpt from “The Southern Manifesto,” authored in 1956 by ardent segregationist U.S. Senators Richard Russell of Georgia and Strum Thurmond of South Carolina, among others. In it, they cite their reasons for resisting integration. Among the primary reasons given for persisting in segregation was, “It is destroying the amicable relations between the white and Negro races that have been created through 90 years of patient effort by the good people of both races. It has planted hatred and suspicion where there has been heretofore friendship and understanding."
Of course, these “reasons” are laughable and false. They also parallel the “reasons” given last week by Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. Alexander, for not voting to convict President Donald Trump of the first article of impeachment (that Alexander said the House of Representatives had proved). Alexander said, “If this shallow, hurried and wholly partisan impeachment were to succeed, it would rip the country apart, pouring gasoline on the fire of cultural divisions that already exist.”
The Southern Manifesto has been resuscitated in the 21st century. In short, a tribe is above the law. Their cultural sensitivities trump the Constitution.
The "gasoline," in this case, would be the application of The Constitution of the United States to the actions of the president to solicit and bribe a foreign power to interfere in ANOTHER U.S. presidential election. The fact that this "explanation" digests so easily is an indication of the broader complicity of the tribe in the high jacking of the democracy to ensure their collective interests. This is the “great again” version of America that Trump leads.
See it for what it is.
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