Politicians Don’t Get a Pass on Their Racism Just Because They’re Democrats
When it comes to racism and classism, Republicans aren’t the only offenders
Last summer, Democrats rode the wave of what’s come to be known as America’s Racial Reckoning. White Democrats, in particular, went to great lengths to prove their wokeness. First, they paraded through the Capital wearing Kente cloth, topped off by taking a Kaepernick-inspired knee. Eventually, the attempts by the white political left to show their anti-racist bona fides bordered on pandering.
At the time, I tolerated it as I’m sure many others did. I knew a little performative pandering was par for the course politically. The sight of Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer taking a knee draped in Kente cloth seemed a small price to pay for the first opportunity for actual systemic change in decades.
In the end, whatever discomfort I experienced was worth it. Democrats parlayed the momentum from the summer of 2020, driven primarily by Blacks and other peoples of color, to put Joe Biden in the White House. In the meantime, Republicans confirmed themselves as the party of white supremacy and grievance politics, placing Democrats firmly on the right side of history.
It should go without saying, but the Democratic Party’s credibility as the party of racial equality and social justice necessarily requires that its own hands be clean. In recent years, Democrats managed to achieve this, thereby maintaining the veneer of integrity on issues of race.
Well, it was great while it lasted.