Sorry, "Nikki" Haley, the Civil War was all about Slavery!

Get the Point...

I am not a racist...

I am not a sexist...

I am not homophobic...

I am not a religious bigot...

But I DETEST willful ignorance and DESPISE conscientious stupidity!

In fact, the older I get, the angrier I get when otherwise bright human beings write or say willfully ignorant/stupid things in the public square or on social media. 

Last week, former South Carolina Governor Nimarata Randhawa, more popularly known as "Nikki Haley," was pitched a slow ball down the middle of the plate when asked about the root causes of slavery during a town hall function in New Hampshire. The current Republican presidential candidate could have slapped a towering home run into deep center field with one VERY simple answer, "SLAVERY!!!" But nope, Nimarata Randhawa Haley swung and missed by giving the same sophistry that the Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy, the Ku Klux Klan, and the White Citizens’ Councils have been giving since the late 19th Century, which is that the Civil War was fought over the mystical "States’ Rights!”

Now, from what I've observed through the years, Nimarata Randhawa Haley is VERY intelligent and knows good and well that the U.S. Civil War was fought over "States' Rights” alright—a state’s right to enslave Black people!

Period…..

You see, Nimarata Randhawa Haley was born in 1972, the same year as I, so I know without a shadow of a doubt that she received the same lessons in social studies and history which reinforced that every major controversy in early American history, from counting enslaved Blacks as 3/5ths of a whole white person for Census purposes, to the Compromise of 1820, the Wilmot Proviso, the Compromise of 1850, and the Fugitive Slave Act, on through to the Dred Scott decision four years before the war began, ALL related to sectional disagreements over the expansion of slavery throughout the South and West—disagreements which ultimately led to a bloody Civil War which ended in 1865 with Blacks being freed per the Emancipation Proclamation (and the 13th Amendment). 

Nimrata Randhawa Haley knows that...

But Nimarata, like far too many politicians in the South, was acting dumb last week ONLY so that she doesn't lose the respect of the legions of dummies in her political party who were either talking, sound asleep, or simply too dense to comprehend lessons about the causes of the Civil War during their school days. The very dummies, mind you, who vote in droves for Republican candidates who soften, dilute, or white-wash America's historically horrific mistreatment of Black people! 

I found it interesting to see that her presidential rival Chris Christie, the moderate Republican former Governor of New Jersey, offered a defense of sort:

“(Haley) didn’t say what she said last night and today about this because she’s dumb. She’s not, she’s smart and she knows better. And she didn’t say it because she’s a racist, because she’s not. I know her well and I don’t believe Nikki has a racist bone in her body. But for purposes, this race, the reason she did it is just as bad, if not worse, and should make everybody concerned about her candidacy. She did it because she’s unwilling to offend anyone by telling the truth, and so she isn’t willing to say the same things about abortion in New Hampshire that she says in Iowa because she doesn’t want to offend people in Iowa who have a different feeling than people in New Hampshire. But then she comes to New Hampshire, she doesn’t want to offend them either.And she’s unwilling to tell the truth about Donald Trump. She says he was the right president for the right time…"

On the major point, Mr. Christie and I agree; Nimrata Randawha Haley isn't dumb, and perhaps she isn't a racist, but she sure is catering to the dumb racists who will be voting in the Republican caucuses and primaries in a few short weeks—and I don't like that one bit!

Perspective…

I find it disturbing when any human being, in order to remain popular, feels the need to profess popular lies instead of hard truths in the public square—and Slavery being THE root of the American Civil War is one of the easiest hard truths in the historical realm!

But I cannot say that I am surprised when considering that, unlike our first POTUS of color who was proud of his real name and heritage, Barack Hussein Obama, this Republican presidential wannabe actually allows the dumb racists in her party to think that she is the Anglo "Nikki Haley," instead of the Indian Nimrata Randhawa Haley. 

And, having just finished watching Imitation of Life, the 1959 classic about “passing” that starred Lana Turner and Juanita Moore, I can only shake my head when one person of color disrespects the history of other people of color in these color conscious United States of America. Even when the backlash caused Nimarata yesterday to backtrack and say “of course the Civil War was about slavery”—a week or so too late!

Lest we forget...