The Republican Party has a racism problem.
Not exactly breaking news, right? As one pundit put it, “If actual racists believe your party is the place for them, you have a racism problem.”
But it goes further than just perception. Many times, the actual speech and acts of Republican lawmakers and voters comes from a place of either overt or covert racism.
Note that I’m not saying the Republican Party is the only group that deals with racism. John Yarmuth famously called out Democrats at the annual dinner in 2008 when Barack Obama was running. You could feel the tension in the room, because everyone knew he was right. (Hell of a speech, BTW.)
But the Repubs at both the national and state level have the larger problem. Not only do they have actual racists as elected officials and in places of leadership (cf. Rep. Clay Higgins), but they have long used dog whistles to attract voters, and their policies continue to either ignore or outright harm people of color.
National examples
- It is so obvious that it barely needs mentioning, but the infamous “Southern Strategy” adopted by Nixon in the ‘60s set the tone for the coming decades. Repubs knew that southern Democrats were upset with their party’s support of the civil rights movement, so they consciously set out to woo those Dems with racism. And it worked.
- Ronald Reagan gave his 1980 “I believe in states’ rights” speech at Philadelphia, Mississippi. “States’ rights” was the euphemism for keeping Jim Crow laws in place. And why that city, instead of Jackson or some other venue? Because that was the city where three civil rights workers were murdered just 16 years earlier.
- Reagan also popularized the term “welfare queen,” which was obviously aimed at white people’s stereotypes of Blacks.
- A more recent example is House Speaker Mike Johnson actually feeling it necessary to have a closed-door meeting with his caucus to tell them not to be racist in their campaigning.
- And Marjorie Taylor Green saying if she were Black, she would be “proud” to see a Confederate monument.
I could go on, but the examples of Republicans using racist words and tactics to attract both outright racists and “closet” racists to their party are too numerous to mention.
Some, no doubt, will say “that’s not the whole party.” In answer, all I need to do is point to their chosen candidate, Donald Trump — one of the most blatantly racist, misogynist, and xenophobic candidates to ever run in this country. And yet, a huge percentage of Republican voters are just fine with all that.
“All right,” those same people might say, exasperated. “That’s the national party — but it’s not true in Kentucky, right?” Let’s answer that.
Is the Kentucky GOP racist?
Rachel Maddow famously advises “watch what they do, not what they say.” So what actions by the Republicans in Kentucky, especially in the legislature, can we point to?
Failing to pass, or even hear, the Crown Act
The Crown Act is a simple bill that says that Blacks and others can wear their natural hair style in schools and workplaces. Straightforward, right?
And yet out of all the hundreds of bills filed in the 2024 legislative session, only two were not even assigned to a committee: a bill on exceptions to the abortion ban, and the Crown Act bill.
As Teri Carter exclaimed in a column, “How do you logically explain the outright dismissal of a bill that would allow Black people and marginalized others to wear their natural hair, the hair God gave them, in the workplace?” The answer, of course, is you can’t — unless you see the racism behind it.
Passing a pro-incarceration bill
House Bill 5, euphemistically called the “Safer Kentucky Act,” is one of the worst bills passed in Frankfort in many years. It proposes to deal with crime by simply locking up hundreds more people.
And who gets disproportionately locked up in this state? Black people.
The GOP knew that the bill wouldn’t work; they knew it would harm Black and Brown people more than Whites; but they passed it anyway. Who cares about the impact on people of color? The GOP obviously did not.
Attacking diversity
The buzzword was “DEI initiatives” — programs that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. These efforts have been put in place in businesses, schools, and non-profits. They have helped many Whites (including me) to better understand the dynamics of race and white privilege. In short, they have made the places where they are used more humane and more inclusive.
And the Kentucky GOP is against them.
As aptly noted by Joe Gerth, “They say they want our colleges and universities to be color blind, but it’s more like they just want to ignore race, racism, and how it affects people.”
Why would Republicans be against encouraging diversity, equity, and inclusion? Could it be because at root, they are closet racists?
A few more
Here are just a few more smaller examples
- Yelling at Rep. Charles Booker, a Black man, to “Sit down!” when he was speaking in the House about the impact of a bill on Blacks. The speaker might just as well have said “Sit down, boy!”
- Passing a bill that allows landlords to refuse Section 8 renters — many of whom are Black. Apparently, the Fair Housing Act is just a bridge too far for the Kentucky GOP.
- Arguing vehemently that the Jefferson Davis statue belonged in a place of honor in our Capitol Rotunda.
- Appearing at, and actually speaking at, a rally at the Capitol put on by white supremacists that featured numerous Confederate flags.
In conclusion
Let’s be clear — I don’t think most Kentucky Repubs are public racists, using the N word and flying the Confederate flag on their pickup truck.
But their silence on some issues, combined with their actions on others, puts the racism problem squarely in their camp. It appears that many are either covert racists, or persons who refuse to deal with the issue at all.
And until they show they have realized that they have a problem, and start doing something about it, they will continue to have the terms “racists” attached to their party.
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