This week, Hank Aaron broke the hearts of millions of Republicans and conservatives who supported him and cheered him on in 1974 while racists threatened his life.
USA Today quoted “The Hammer” in an interview as saying, “We can talk about baseball. Talk about politics. Sure, this country has a black president, but when you look at a black president, President Obama is left with his foot stuck in the mud from all of the Republicans with the way he’s treated. We have moved in the right direction, and there have been improvements, but we still have a long ways to go.”
“The bigger difference is back then they had hoods. Now they have neckties and starched shirts.”
That statement, saying “They,” referring directly to “Republicans” by one of America’s most respected and beloved heroes of millions of Republicans is a stab in their hearts.
Some Republican fans lashed out in anger, writing to his employer, the Atlanta Braves, swearing they tore up their season tickets, are shredding and burning their copies of his book, “I Had a Hammer” and calling Hank a racist.
Naturally, such an accusation by the beloved Aaron brought actual racists out from under their rocks, one reportedly calling him the “N” word. Racists are cretins, but they do not represent the Republican party as Hank Aaron so blithely stated.
If that were the case, then the nearly 6,000 North Carolina Democrats who voted for the racist KKK murderer of three innocent people at the Overland Park Jewish Community Center back in the 1984 Democratic primary would represent all of the Democratic Party.
They don’t.
I don’t blame Hank Aaron for his belief that Republicans who oppose President Obama’s policies are racist. This is a man who stood tall against racists who threatened to shoot him on home plate if he dared to break Babe Ruth’s home run record.
He was the target of such vile, evil hate for so many years that he knows dearly that it exists and when President Obama’s party has been campaigning on the theme that Republicans are racist and that black Republicans such as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas are “Uncle Toms,” it’s not easy to quell the ringing from that echo chamber.
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews pollutes the liberal airwaves with accusations that Republicans who oppose raising the minimum wage are racists, even though published government data has shown that raising the federal minimum wage puts a large segment of minimum wage earners, African American teens, out of work every time it’s increased.
While on the floor of the Alabama House of Representatives, Rep. Alvin Holmes, a black Democrat, explained why he dislikes Clarence Thomas: because “he’s married to a white woman,” reporter Mary Sell of The Decatur Daily and Tim Lockette of the Anniston Star posted on Twitter.
When reached for further comment by a reporter for the Anniston Star, Mr. Holmes said he was “misinterpreted”, but added that Justice Thomas was an “Uncle Tom,” the National Review reported.
This is a theme of the Democratic Party: anyone, black, white, whatever, who opposes big government and a growing federal government intruding into everyone’s lives is “racist” or an enemy to people of color.
It’s a powerful way to silence opposition, as being labeled a “racist” is humiliating and the Democratic leadership knows this.
Fortunately, more and more Americans are standing up to this horribly dishonorable and purposefully divisive tactic.
When the same Rep. Holmes said pro-life Republicans would abort mixed-race babies and said he would “bring you $100,000 tomorrow if you showed me a bunch of white people who adopted blacks in Alabama,” a Facebook page called “Faces of Families in Alabama” was put up by transracial adopters and now has hundreds of posts by white families who adopted children of many races including blacks.
The page has over 14,000 “likes.”
Pelosi, Reid and too many other Democrats gleefully sneer that Republicans who oppose their policies are “racist.”
It’s an oft-repeated theme designed to anger their base into voting this year.
No wonder Republicans are loathe to work with them.
It’s heartbreaking that a great man like Hank Aaron has fallen into this ugly, divisive echo chamber.
Rick Jensen is Delaware’s award-winning conservative talk show h ost on 1150AM WDEL and 93.7FM HD3, Streaming live on WDEL.com from 1pm - 4pm EST.