Soldiers of the all-black 320th Battalion landing on the beaches of Normandy, France, shortly after dawn on June 6, 1944.Pat Buchanan invoked a string of white supremacist arguments in making his case against Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. When asked by Rachel Maddow, why the Supreme Court has historically been a white men's club, Buchanan gave this account of U.S. history.
"White men were 100% of the people that wrote the Constitution, 100% of the people that signed the Declaration of Independence, 100% of the people who died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, probably close to 100% of the people who died at Normandy. This has been a country built basically by white folks, who were 90% of the nation in 1960 when I was growing up and the other 10% were African-Americans who had been discriminated against.Buchanan's diatribe, which obviously ignored centuries of black and brown labor, not to mention slavery (how could he not mention slavery?) in the building of this country, also purposefully whitewashed the pages of military history. Since Buchanan prides himself on his knowledge of history and knew full well that the Sotomayor appointment was a lost cause, his lies were obviously intended only to rally the dregs of what's left of his (Gingrich's and Palin's) Republican base.
Not that it matters for the purposes of defeating his ignorant argument against Sotomayor, but black soldiers and sailors did fight heroically against their former slave masters at Milliken's Bend during the Battle of Vicksburg. In fact, it was the first major Civil War battle in which African-American troops were extensively involved.
Some 60 years later, African-American soldiers would shed their blood on the battle fields of Europe in the fight against the nazis. The all-black 320th Battalion, was recently honored (by France) for being among the troops that fought and died on the beaches at Normandy on D-Day.
So far I've heard nothing from Buchanan's fellow Republicans, nor from Democrats for that matter, refuting this purposeful distortion of history.
Egads! I wonder, if Buchanan's view might be incorporated into the national history standards?
ReplyDeleteA note to Pat:
ReplyDeleteThe first African American received the Medal of Honor for his efforts during the Civil War.
Sgt. William Carney of the 54th MA Regiment.
Pat, Please look up info on Robert Shaw and the 54th. Now there's a history lesson for ya'!
My dad and many other African American men were proud to serve in the armed forces during WWII. Too bad, they didn't receive the honorable treatment they so richly deserved upon their return to the United States.
Sad. After all this time, we're still fighting one another about race, instead of working together to fight the corporate takeover of our schools and our country. Sad, indeed.