Black Republicans are finding out the hard way what the rest of the party thinks of Black folk, and they're not liking the answer they are getting.
Rep. John James (R-Mich.) criticized Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Friday for his response to Republican lawmakers who called him out on his state’s new Black history education standards Friday.
“@RonDeSantis, #1: slavery was not CTE!” James posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Nothing about that 400 years of evil was a ‘net benefit’ to my ancestors. #2: there are only five black Republicans in Congress and you’re attacking two of them.”
Both Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) have criticized the new standards, which indicate that American slavery helped enslaved people develop “skills” that benefited them, in the past few days.
Scott rebuked the language during a campaign stop in Iowa on Thursday, claiming “there is no silver lining in slavery.”
“Slavery was really about separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping their wives,” he said. “It was just devastating.”
DeSantis responded to the lawmakers by saying they were falling in line with Vice President Kamala Harris, who called the guidelines “propaganda.”
“They dare to push propaganda to our children,” Harris said earlier this week in Jacksonville, Fla. “Adults know what slavery really involved. It involved rape. It involved torture. It involved taking a baby from their mother.”
James pleaded with DeSantis to change course.
“My brother in Christ… if you find yourself in a deep hole put the shovel down,” he wrote. “You are now so far from the Party of Lincoln that your Ed. board is re-writing history and you’re personally attacking conservatives like [Scott] and [Donalds] on the topic of slavery.”
“You’ve gone too far. Stop,” he added.
That was Friday. Today, it was former GOP Rep. Will Hurd who found out.
A dozen of the Republican White House contenders who want to keep former President Donald Trump from winning the 2024 presidential nomination joined him here Friday for a dinner with hundreds of influential activists in the state that holds the first caucuses.
But as has been the case for months in a race in which Trump polls as the comfortable front-runner, few dared to take even an indirect shot at him. And the one who delivered the night’s most slashing attack, former Texas Rep. Will Hurd, was booed as he left the stage.
“Donald Trump is not running for president to make America great again,” Hurd said, invoking Trump's slogan before bringing up the legal troubles cascading around him, including a superseding indictment approved by a grand jury this week. “Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison.”
The loud jeers that rang out inside the Iowa Events Center ballroom at the state party's Lincoln Dinner were at once illustrative of the power and loyalty Trump still commands and the challenges faced by those trying to beat him.
“Listen, I know the truth,” Hurd said, talking over the crowd as he neared the 10-minute time limit given to all candidates. “The truth is hard. But if we elect Donald Trump, we are willingly giving Joe Biden four more years in the White House and America can’t handle that.”
Black Republicans, "My brothers and sisters in Christ", as it were, I have a message for you.
Black Lives Still Matter.
But not to Republicans. You will never be more than a second-class citizen in the GOP. They want that for the rest of us Black folk, including you. The question is, will you help them destroy the Black community for your own gain?
Not that I expect many Black Republicans to be ZVTS readers, but you still have a choice.
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