– that’s all you need to know
Cover Story
Continued from page 6
More of this is needed, and
fast, if the GOP is to avoid
Trump’s siren call to alienate
everybody but the party’s
shrinking demographic base.
Jeb Bush is finally challenging
Trump, but for being insuffi-
ciently conservative. Trump’s
rivals remain hesitant to con-
demn his winks at bigotry.
Haley is no squish. A dar-
ling of the tea party move-
ment when she was first
elected in 2010, she noted
Wednesday her support for
voter I.D. laws, which are
often viewed as a way to sup-
press African American vot-
ers, and she blamed the Black
Lives Matter movement for
fomenting violence.
But she offered a concilia-
tory racial message that could
be a balm for a party alienat-
ing more non-white
Americans by the day with its
outlandish presidential con-
test.
She spoke of the discrimi-
nation her family faced when
she was young, and of the
need for an “equality agenda”
for African Americans. “There
still remain the unfinished
goals of the civil rights move-
ment, and the civil rights
movement is a critical part of
the American movement, and
the American story. It’s a
movement in which every
person regardless of their skin
color is treated equally under
the law.”
Citing the rapid move to
prosecute Walter Scott’s killer
and her successful effort to
remove the Confederate flag,
she asked for better behavior
from her fellow Republicans.
“The problem for our party is
that our approach often
appears cold and unwelcom-
ing to minorities,” she said.
“That’s shameful and that has
to change. . . . It’s on us to
communicate our positions
in ways that wipe away the
clutter of prejudices.”
Maybe those battling to
lead the Republican ticket
will take a cue from their
would-be running mate.
– TheWashington Post
Continued from page 6
Telling that tale about an ugly
side of America, and how she
watched her father manage it
with extreme kindness, is the
kind of real talk about race that
seems to rarely take center stage
in Republican circles. And it’s
the kind of thing that is actually
less common frommany of the
party’s leading minority figures
than it is from white
Republicans who aim to display
some concern about race mat-
ters in the United States.
If you doubt
that, think about
what you know of
the life and times of
Ben Carson, Ted
Cruz and Marco
Rubio – all current-
ly vying for the
GOP’s presidential
nomination. What
have you heard?
Theirs are stories of
nothing if not boot-
straps, found and
utilized – of a coun-
try that gave them
and so many others
unbridled opportu-
nity.
And that’s fine.
But it’s as if these men grew up
in hermetically-sealed bubbles
with an extra layer of patriotic
coating. Any ridicule or mis-
treatment they faced might have
been individually deserved.
It’s certainly never connected
to systems and structures that
some say need to be reformed.
And virtually never in the world
they describe do some people
benefit from generational privi-
lege, or suffer the consequences
of generational exclusion.
This very week, Rubio’s only
real critique of Republican fron-
trunner Donald Trump was that
Trump does not speak about
America in a way that affirms
the constancy of its greatness.
Right now in Rubio’s America,
Latinos sit at or near the bottom
of all sorts of critical socio-eco-
nomic measures, including edu-
cation, income, wealth and
homeownership.
OnWednesday, Haley didn’t
follow that script. She talked
about the importance of
expanding real economic
opportunity to include more of
her state’s residents. She talked
about the need for Republicans
to listen more and engage more
deeply in the way that other
people experience
race in this country.
She spoke several hard
truths.
But Haley also
offered some red meat
to the Republican
base. She sharply criti-
cized the propensity
of Black Lives Matter
activists to yell or dis-
rupt events. And she
talked about the still-
developing, assertively
peaceful-but-not-
always-polite Black
Lives Matter move-
ment alongside the
looters and rioters
who showed up, broke
things and set fire to businesses
in Ferguson, Mo., and
Baltimore.
Haley’s comments were,
however, worth noting. They
likely reinforced the very com-
mon belief that many white
Americans and the mostly white
Republican party are unable to
recognize individual action and
culpability when more than one
individual is black or brown. At
the same time, Haley’s com-
ments do offer one clear indica-
tor of the uninsured damage
that those rioters and looters
really did to the larger effort to
address police misconduct.
In fairness to Haley, her dis-
cussion of looters, rioters and
peaceful protesters in the same
breath really could have gone
further. Over on Fox News and
unabashedly right-wing blogs,
Black Lives Matter has some-
how become a hate group. It is
as if working to draw attention
to the fact that black and Latino
Americans are disproportion-
ately arrested, injured, killed
and convicted when they come
in contact with police – or
yelling about any of the afore-
mentioned – are equivalent to
lynchings.
But successful protest move-
ments are rarely limited to the
Southern-style handshakes and
hugs, prayers and quiet listening
sessions that Haley championed
in her speechWednesday. Those
things might be valuable, but
the South has never lacked for
social graces.
We also know that, when
combined with disruption,
inconvenience, economic cost
and international embarrass-
ment, they often work.
Do not be mistaken. Many a
meal went unfinished because
of a lunch-counter sit in. Bull
Connor’s hoses did not gently
mist students in Birmingham.
And, the loss of revenue had
quite a bit to do with integrating
Montgomery’s buses. History
makes it clear: protest need not
be polite to be effective.
But for Haley, the critical
moment in the story about that
produce shop couple came
when her father ended the
encounter by shaking hands
with the police and the store
owners.
It’s possible that those shop-
keepers never did such a thing
again. It is also just as possible
that they had been treated with
undeserved kindness and
respect by people of color
before that day. Haley’s speech
implied that the person who
instead opts to leave the store
has bypassed some obligation
to transformminds.
Dignity also has value.
Haley’s critics will undoubt-
edly point out that the state she
described as tolerant is a place
in which the Justice Department
waged war to stop a law that
more than one study found
would disproportionately
impede the ability of blacks and
Latinos to vote.
South Carolina is also a place
in which 17 percent of white
children live in poverty while 39
percent of Latino kids and 43
percent of black ones do the
same.
Both are indicators of more
than simply tonal problems in
her state. But Haley deserves
some credit for navigating one
of the most difficult topics in
American political life, by
choice, and laying out her ideas.
– TheWashington Post
What Haley Said About Race And Didn’t
Haley’s speech
implied that
the person
who instead
opts to leave
the store has
bypassed some
obligation to
transform
minds
South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, center, talks to reporters outside the
Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina June
19, two days after a mass shooting left nine dead during a bible study at the
church.
“Republicans need to
remember that the
fabric of America
came from these legal
immigrants”
News India Times
September 11, 2015
8
