Ugly truth about racism

Let’s talk about racism because I’m tired of being called racist for the heinous crime of being a white male in modern America by people who have no clue what they’re talking about.

And yeah ... I know. I’m grabbing the third rail here. This will probably piss some people off. Not because it’s wrong, but because some folks won’t actually read it. Or worse, they’ll read it and still cling to the fantasy that their “side” is the good guys. That’s the real problem. We’ve gotten so tribal, so conditioned to protect our jersey color, that facts feel like attacks and history sounds like heresy.

So yeah.. let's talk about racism. Real racism. Not the Instagram-filtered version where corporations slap a rainbow and a hashtag on their logo and pretend they’re changing the world. Not the "this person disagrees with my opinion, so let me pull out this tired old line to shut them up and feel morally superior" garbage either. I mean the kind of racism that actually shaped this country… and the part no one on the left wants to say out loud because it wrecks their team jerseys. (You're not safe either Republicans, I'm coming for you next.)

The Republican Party was created in 1854 for one reason: to stop the spread of slavery. That’s it. That’s the whole mission statement. Abraham Lincoln wasn’t just the first Republican president ... he was the guy who signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The Civil War? Republicans fighting Democrats. Look it up. Every Southern state that seceded was run by Democrats.

The Democratic Party? Yeah. That’s the one that built its power on the backs of enslaved people. The one that wrote the Black Codes†. The one that gave us Jim Crow‡. The one that fought like hell against the 13th Amendment (abolishing slavery), the 14th Amendment (citizenship for freed slaves), and the 15th Amendment (voting rights for Black men). Every single one of those amendments passed with Republican majorities and heavy Democratic opposition.

You know why we have Juneteenth? Because the pro-slavery South was so hellbent on keeping people in chains they just didn’t bother mentioning the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln signed it in 1863. Word didn’t reach Texas until June 19th, 1865 ... two and a half damn years later. Not because there wasn’t a postal system. Not because they didn’t know. It’s because they flat-out refused to give up their slaves until Union troops showed up and forced their hand. That’s what Juneteenth marks: the day the last holdouts of Southern Democrats had to finally accept reality and stop pretending human beings were property.

When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 rolled around, Democrats filibustered it for 75 straight days. You know who led the charge? Senator Robert Byrd, a former Exalted Cyclops in the Ku Klux Klan. Oh yeah, the KKK, another fine and upstanding organization brought to you by the Democrats. Sorta like Jim Crow laws. Or poll taxes††. Or literacy tests‡‡. Or the “separate but equal” doctrine§. Every single one cooked up and defended by Democrats who were terrified of losing their grip on power and who thought of people, as property. Robert Byrd served as a Democratic senator for over 50 years. Hillary Clinton called him her mentor. Joe Biden gave his eulogy.

But here’s the part the history rewriters love: the “party switch” myth.

You’ve heard it—“the parties swapped sides in the 60s.” It’s a tidy little narrative. Simple. Clean. And completely misleading.

Let’s get real: Of the 21 Democratic senators who voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, only one—Strom Thurmond—switched to the Republican Party. The other 20 stayed Democrats, and their voters kept sending them back to D.C. for years. No reckoning. No moral epiphany. Just business as usual.

And it wasn’t just senators. Southern governors like George Wallace—who literally stood in the schoolhouse door to block integration—remained loyal Democrats for decades. The Dixiecrats who broke away in 1948 over civil rights? Most of them crawled right back into the Democratic Party when the heat died down.

The myth says racists fled to the GOP. Reality? Most just rebranded and stayed where they were. Their voters kept reelecting them. Their party made room for them.

Yes, the South started shifting Republican—eventually. But it didn’t happen overnight, and it had a lot less to do with racism and a lot more to do with religion, economics, anti-communism, backlash to counterculture, and growing distrust of federal power.

What really happened was a slow, generational realignment. As the Democratic Party leaned further into and embraced progressive policies — on welfare, taxes, abortion, gun rights — conservative voters gradually peeled off. But the idea that everyone with a white hood on their head ran straight into GOP arms? Total fiction.  That drift wasn’t about racial enlightenment — and it didn’t erase the fact that the Democratic power structure, including the worst segregationists, remained intact for a long time.

Yes, today’s GOP has its own issues. But if Democrats want to erase their past by pointing at Strom Thurmond, they need to explain how Robert Byrd — a former Exalted Cyclops and actual documented and self-admitted leader of the Ku Klux Klan — remained a Democrat until 2010, served as Senate Majority Leader, was praised as a mentor by Hillary Clinton, and was eulogized by Joe Biden.

Strom left. Byrd stayed. One got vilified and used as a political punchline. The other got a standing ovation.

So no, the parties didn’t “switch.” They evolved. Slowly. Messily. And not in the way the Twitter version of history would have you believe. Pretending otherwise is just historical cosplay to make today’s tribalism feel righteous.

So let’s not pretend Democrats suddenly stopped being racist. They just changed tactics. Lyndon B. Johnson ... yes, the same LBJ who signed the Civil Rights Act ... allegedly told Democratic governors, “I’ll have those n*****s voting Democratic for the next 200 years.”§§ Whether or not you believe the exact quote, his policies spoke loud enough. The Great Society didn’t empower Black families; it decimated them. Multi-generational dependency on welfare? Skyrocketing fatherless homes? That’s his legacy.

Fast forward. Joe Biden spent the 70s fighting school desegregation, warning that busing black and white kids together would create a “racial jungle.” In the 90s, he co-authored the 1994 Crime Bill, which led to the mass incarceration of black men and turned minor drug offenses into life-destroying prison sentences. Hillary Clinton wasn’t far behind, famously calling young black men “super predators” who needed to be “brought to heel” in 1996.

Even Barack Obama, hailed as a racial unifier, did more to divide than unite. He had a once-in-a-generation chance to bridge the gap, but instead he doubled down on identity politics and stoked resentment. Remember how every criticism of his policies was framed as racism? How police were painted as systemic villains after incidents like Ferguson, fueling riots and the rise of Black Lives Matter? Obama had the bully pulpit to calm the waters. Instead, he poured gas on the fire. He gave speeches that nudged division just enough to keep both sides simmering while he played above it all. Race relations didn’t improve under Obama. They cratered. By the end of his presidency, America felt more polarized than it had in decades.

Meanwhile, Republicans ... who get smeared as racist every election cycle ... were the ones who appointed the first Black Secretary of State (Colin Powell), the first Black woman Secretary of State (Condoleezza Rice), and fought for school choice in inner cities. The first Black senator? Hiram Revels, 1870 a Republican. The next two; Blanche K. Bruce, 1875 and Edward Brooke, 1967 also Republican. The first Black Democratic senator? Carol Moseley Braun… 1993. That’s a 123-year gap kids. The story in the House was much worse for the Democrats. Joseph Rainey served as the first black Republican in the House in 1870 and there were 8 other black Republican representatives before the first black Democrat was man showed up in 1935.

And don’t even get me started on projection. Every dirty trick the Democrats pull, they accuse Republicans of. Censorship? Democrats are in bed with Big Tech throttling speech they don’t like. Authoritarian overreach? Democrats gleefully weaponize the IRS, FBI, and DOJ against political enemies. Racial division? Democrats are the ones teaching kids to obsess over skin color under the guise of “equity.”

This isn’t about carrying water for Republicans either. I’ll drag them when they deserve it. But let’s stop pretending the Democratic Party is some moral North Star. It’s not. It’s a machine. It’s been a machine since Andrew Jackson ... the guy who founded it ... used his presidency to force Native Americans off their land in the Trail of Tears.

The branding’s changed. The tactics got slicker. But the game? Same as it ever was.

Stop swallowing the fairy tales. Stop clapping like trained seals. Start asking who benefits every time you’re told who the “bad guys” are. Stop calling me a racist for being white.

The history is all there. You just have to give a damn enough to read it… and quit parroting whatever nonsense makes your side feel like the “good guys.”

Oh, and before someone accuses me of being a Republican partisan hack, let’s be clear: I’m not blind to their bullshit either. This is the same party that gave us endless wars in the Middle East. The Patriot Act. Bank bailouts. Bloated military spending while vets rot at home. Leaders who talk about small government but happily balloon the national debt when it’s their turn at the wheel. Neocons who kissed the ring of Big Pharma and Big Ag just as hard as any Democrat ever did. The Bush family dynasty ... don’t even get me started. And let’s not forget their uncanny ability to fold like a cheap lawn chair whenever actual cultural fights land in their lap.

I’m not here to worship elephants or donkeys. Both sides have sold out the people they claim to serve. The difference is I’m willing to say it.

This isn’t, shouldn’t be, and never was a “left vs right” fight. It’s us vs them. And “them” isn’t your neighbor with a different yard sign; it’s the political machine at the top, a machine built to stay in power and keep us fighting over scraps.

This is Democrats AND Republicans vs US. If we can’t call the balls and strikes on our own side as well as the other, then we’re no better than the people who came before us.

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† Black Codes The Black Codes were a set of laws passed in Southern states right after the Civil War (starting in 1865) designed to control and oppress newly freed Black Americans.

On paper, these laws claimed to give rights—like the ability to marry, own property, or sue in court—but in reality, they were about keeping Black people as close to slavery as possible without calling it that.

Here’s what they did:

• Restricted movement: Freedmen needed special permits to travel or live in certain areas.

• Forced labor contracts: If a Black person didn’t have proof of employment, they could be arrested for vagrancy and “hired out” (basically back to forced labor).

• Job restrictions: Many Black Codes banned Black people from certain professions altogether.

• Apprenticeships (aka child labor): Black children could be “apprenticed” to white employers without their parents’ consent.

• No weapons or assembly rights: They couldn’t own firearms or gather without white supervision.

In short: slavery ended on paper, and the South immediately came up with a workaround.

Congress eventually responded by passing the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment to try to override these laws. But even then, states kept finding new ways to enforce racial hierarchy, like Jim Crow.

‡ Jim Crow

Jim Crow laws were a system of state and local statutes in the American South that enforced racial segregation and discrimination from the late 1800s through the mid-1960s. They created a rigid racial caste system designed to keep Black Americans politically powerless, socially inferior, and economically disadvantaged long after slavery ended.

Here’s what they did:

• Segregation everywhere – Separate schools, buses, trains, restaurants, theaters, bathrooms, drinking fountains. “Separate but equal” was the legal excuse, but facilities for Black Americans were almost always inferior.

• Voting suppression – Literacy tests, poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and outright intimidation made it nearly impossible for Black citizens to vote.

• Marriage bans – Prohibited interracial marriages and relationships in many states.

• Economic oppression – Black workers were often locked into exploitative labor contracts or denied access to certain jobs entirely.

• Legalized discrimination – Courts routinely upheld racist laws, and law enforcement looked the other way (or actively participated) when violence was used to enforce the racial order.

• Violent reinforcement – Lynchings and mob violence were common tools of terror to “keep people in their place,” often with no legal consequences for the perpetrators.

  
  

In short: slavery was gone, but Southern Democrats replaced it with Jim Crow—laws that baked segregation and discrimination into everyday life.

It took nearly a century, federal intervention, and a whole lot of bloodshed to tear it down. And even then, Democrats found slicker ways to keep racial hierarchies alive under different names.

And let’s not kid ourselves, just because Jim Crow got ripped out of the law books doesn’t mean the mindset died. Today it shows up as policies that keep people locked in generational poverty, identity politics that divide instead of unite, and a patronizing “we’ll save you” attitude that treats minorities like permanent victims. Same game. Different branding.

†† Poll taxes

Poll taxes were fees people had to pay to vote, designed to block poor Black citizens (and poor whites) from the ballot box after the 15th Amendment. Many couldn’t afford it, which is exactly how Southern Democrats liked it.

‡‡ Literacy tests

Literacy tests required voters to prove they could read and interpret the Constitution before voting. In practice? Black citizens got impossible questions or were failed arbitrarily, while illiterate whites were waved through.

§ “Separate but Equal” Doctrine

This legal doctrine came from the 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson. It said racial segregation was fine as long as facilities were “equal.” Spoiler: they never were. This decision gave cover to Jim Crow for nearly 60 years.

§§ Did LBJ really say that?!

The quote attributed to Lyndon B. Johnson; “I’ll have those n*****s voting Democratic for the next 200 years” has been widely circulated, but its origins are admittedly murky. It’s often cited as coming from author Ronald Kessler’s Inside the White House (1995), where it’s reported as something Johnson said privately to Democratic governors during the push for civil rights legislation.

Critics argue there’s no audio, official transcript, or contemporary news report verifying Johnson said it exactly that way. But here’s what is documented:

• LBJ was known for using shockingly racist language in private. Biographer Robert Caro and others have detailed his liberal use of the N-word and other slurs during his political career.

• He famously referred to the Civil Rights Act as “the n***** bill” in conversations with Southern Democrats resisting it.

• Johnson’s political calculations were cold-blooded. Even if the exact quote is apocryphal, it fits his documented pattern of framing civil rights as a way to secure Black votes long-term.

In short: whether LBJ said those precise words or not, his attitude and strategy toward civil rights and Black voters were transactional. The Great Society programs he championed created dependency systems that kept Black Americans voting Democratic for generations. So, yeah I think its very likely he did say it, especially most of the reporting on it comes directly from southern democrats.