For those of you who missed it, Buzzfeed’s Andrew Kaczynski ran a post on Tuesday detailing the racist remarks Congressman Bennie Thompson made while on the radio program, New Nation of Islam. Thompson represents Mississippi’s 2nd congressional district, and has done so since 1993.
Thompson began his incoherent rant by saying that essentially any opposition to the President was racist.
“I’ve been in Washington. I saw three presidents now. I never saw George Bush treated like this. I never saw Bill Clinton treated like this with such disrespect,” Thompson said. “That Mitch McConnell would have the audacity to tell the president of the United States — not the chief executive, but the commander-in-chief — that ‘I don’t care what you come up with we’re going to be against it.’ Now if that’s not a racist statement I don’t know what is.”
So, despite lacking any indication that McConnell’s opposition to Obama is racially motivated, Thompson is comfortable coming to the conclusion because, if it is not, then he doesn’t know what is. When the only lens you view issues through is race, I suppose the logical result is that you see every unwanted occurrence in your life as racially motivated.
The simple fact is, Thompson is outright wrong (is that racist, by the way?).
President Bush was constantly disrespected. Kanye West famously said on live television during a Hurricane Katrina Relief drive, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” Al Sharpton, whilst running for President in 2003, said Bush sounded less like a President and more like a “gang leader in south central LA” (boy, doesn’t that carry some racial overtones?).
Actress and comedian Janeane Garofalo compared the Bush Administration to Hitler and the Nazis, calling it the “43rd Reich.” Actor Martin Sheen called him a “moron.” Actor Sean Penn called him a “traitor to human and American principles.”
Actress Jessica Lange said she “despised” President Bush, and opined, “There has to be a movement now to really oppose what he is proposing because it’s unconstitutional, it’s immoral and basically illegal….It is an embarrassing time to be an American. It really is. It’s humiliating.”
Commenting on the Bush Administration in his book in 2003, Michael Moore declared, “These bastards who run our country are a bunch of conniving, thieving, smug pricks who need to be brought down and removed and replaced with a whole new system that we control.
The list goes on, and on, and on. The disrespect leveled against President Bush during his eight years in office is, quite literally, too numerous to quantify.
Oddly, Rep. Thompson seems to have forgotten all of these disrespectful occurrences, and has even decided to dish out some racially motivated disrespect of his own. In the same interview on the New Nation of Islam, he called Justice Clarence Thomas an “Uncle Tom,” who “doesn’t like being black.”
Of course, Thompson couldn’t stop there. He then determined that opposition to the idea of big government was also racist.
Now all of a sudden, government is the worst thing in the world since a black man became President.
I hate to burst the esteemed Congressman’s bubble, but the phrase, “the nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help,’” was said by Ronald Reagan while he (a white man) was occupying the oval office.
Thompson went on to further display his utter naiveté about his political opposition by declaring opposition to Obamacare as racist.
[W]hen a black man comes with an idea [for Obamacare] there’s something wrong with it. Again, it’s race creeping into the picture.
I guess the opposition to Hillarycare (right around the time Thompson was first elected to Congress) was sexist?
All this is to say, the American people deserve better from their elected officials. It’s bad enough for someone to utter these ridiculous notions amongst friends. But to go on a radio show and espouse these things to the public as if they were facts, without a single bit of evidence to back up what one is saying, is grossly irresponsible and unworthy of the seat to which the people elected him.
Rep. Thompson, however, feels no shame in his ignorant remarks. Indeed, he believes that, because of the color of his skin, he’s entitled to make them.
When CNN reporter Dana Bash noted that the term [Uncle Tom] wouldn’t be appropriate if used by someone who is white, Thompson replied, “But I’m black.”
A video of part of Thompson’s remarks is below.
(Featured Image Source: YouTube)
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