I know the original Republicans were a lot more like our modern Democrats than our modern Republicans, but I still wanted to know how someone like Clarence Thomas could be such a blatant sellout.
So, when I saw Clay Cane on “The View” to promote this book, I immediately requested it from my library. It took a few months for my library to get the audiobook, and then someone else beat me to it, so I had to wait a little bit.
It was worth the wait.
Cane doesn’t quite start with the birth of the Republican Party, but he comes pretty close.
He starts by tearing down Lincoln’s legacy as an abolitionist.
In fact, we know Lincoln repeatedly stated his priority was to keep the Union whole, with or without slavery. But the Civil War forced his hand.
It’s funny to think that the Southern states freaked out over Lincoln’s election to the Presidency because they were convinced he wanted to take away their “right” to own slaves, despite his repeated claims to the contrary.
But they overreacted to a fiction, causing the Civil War, which not only resulted in the very abolition of slavery they had so feared in the first place, but at a cost that was exponentially higher than anyone could have imagined.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Lincoln also did not believe Blacks were equal to whites. That I had already known, and though I had thought of Lincoln as a racist, I had not thought of him as a white supremacist until Cane used those words to describe him. Of course, thinking white people are superior to Black people is the literal definition of a white supremacist, but until reading this book, I hadn’t heard those words applied to Lincoln, nor thought to apply them myself. I don’t know if that’s an indication of how hesitant white Americans are to use those words at all, or just our commitment to putting certain people on a pedestal to the point of disavowing their faults.
What I had not heard before reading this book was Frederick Douglass’s reticence to support Lincoln. He knew Lincoln didn’t have his community’s best interests at heart, but he also knew the alternative would have been disastrous.
As disappointed as I have been with Clarence Thomas, I did not realize he was not the first of his kind.
In fact, Douglass himself warned there would be grifters and opportunists in the Democratic Party who would say whatever white people wanted them to say so they could develop and maintain their personal wealth and some semblance of power.
Cane details several Black Democrats (and then Black Republicans after Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968), and the things they said and did to win elections in a party that caters to the desires and stokes the fears of white people.
Some things they tend to have in common:
✅A message that includes some form of “I’m not THAT kind of black person”
✅Denying that racism exists (or ever existed) in America
✅Playing the race card when it suits them and allows the white people of their party to feel good about themselves.
I can’t believe I hadn’t put together for myself the contradiction of those last two, despite the numerous times I’ve heard the same person deny the existence of racism, then cry racism almost in the next breath.
I hadn’t realized until reading this book that there was an incident in which Sammy Davis Jr. famously hugged Nixon. An event that was photographed, went viral by the standards of its time, and was widely denounced in the Black community.
It rang so strongly of Tim Scott telling Trump “I just love you,” that I couldn’t believe it wasn’t included in this book. I can only conclude that the Tim Scott event happened after this book went to print.
But Cane does spend a significant amount of time talking about Tim Scott in this book, including how he allegedly told a colleague that, while the colleague was in politics to represent the people, he [Scott] was there to make money.
Cane also breaks down Scott’s claim that his family went “from cotton to Congress in one generation.”
In addition to being the kind of pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps story Republicans love, it happens to be false.
While Scott’s father did pick cotton, he did so, not to earn extra money for a family that was struggling financially, but to help out his own family, which happened to be the largest landowner in the area. Not the largest Black landowner. The largest landowner. Turns out Scott came from exactly the type of family you would expect to send their child to Congress.
I think it’s important to note that this book does not claim that every Black Republican is a grifter. There are a few examples of Black people in the Democratic Party prior to 1968 and the Republican Party after 1968 who are actively working for their community within the party.
One prominent example (both in recent memory and in the book) is Colin Powell. He’s not the only Black Conservative to get featured in this book, but I think he’s worth mentioning because, when I was growing up, he was what I thought of when I thought of a Black Conservative. I understood how racist the Republican Party was, but reading Powell’s thoughts on his party never made me roll my eyes. It made me wish his party would nominate him for president instead of the white guy who had a Confederate flag in his dorm room and couldn’t pronounce the word, “nuclear.”
Cane does not insult Powell’s intelligence by calling him a grifter. He honors his perspective, even though it’s different from his own.
What differentiates a grifter from a true Black Conservative is whether they work for or against their own community.
Let’s not let white people off the hook. They prop up people like Clarence Thomas and Tim Scott to shield their racism. As soon as those Black people stop touting the Party Line, they lose their elected office, along with any money that came with it.
As if that weren’t enough, grifters tend to get elected in primarily white districts, proving they are neither representing the Black community, nor are they trying to.
I’m so glad I read this book, and I highly recommend you read it too if you haven’t already.