On the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) declared that many Republicans have Confederate generals in their family trees.
Rangel’s accusation came in a story in Roll Call where the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) was reported as eyeing changes in filibuster rules to prevent “racist” Republicans from using the rule to affect debate on the Hill.
The CBC, Roll Call said, “is fed up with Republican filibusters of President Barack Obama’s nominees,” because Republicans are “racist” against Obama, they believe. Thus, the race-based group is looking to change the rules to favor its own needs.
Most of the article is focused on the stalled status of many of the President’s nominees for one position or another. However, buried at the tail of the piece was probably the most racist comment of all–from CBC member Charlie Rangel.
Rangel thinks every Republican lawmaker in a district where slavery was once legal is related by blood to a Confederate general:
No one makes a big deal of it, but if you re a fly on the wall in any of their homes–I’ll tell you what: If you track the Confederate Army to the Dixiecrats, to the conversation of the Republicans, to the districts that were affected, you may be dealing with different labels, but if they were ever able to track down their ancestors, there’s a Confederate general in every damn living room.
The New York Congressman did not allow for any exceptions–despite their obvious existence in Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL), a first-generation Cuban immigrant, and Tim Scott (R-SC), who is black.
Less than a month ago, Rep. Rangel wrote an op-ed for the Huffington Post expressing his wish for lawmakers to “[work] together in a bipartisan fashion.” No matter one’s political views, it seems quite obvious the first step toward bipartisanship is not associating the other side of the aisle with those who fought to preserve slavery.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.