“Mitt Romney And Paul Ryan, Two Men Who Will Destroy Our People…”

by John Hawkins | August 13, 2012 10:26 pm

The headline is a quote from Russell Simmons[1] of Def Jam and is, all at once, both utterly bizarre and an all too common sentiment amongst black Americans.

Look back to the Bush years; were black Americans destroyed? How about during the presidency of Bush’s father? No. What about when Reagan was in office? No. Nixon? No. To the contrary, Republicans have persistently and consistently supported Civil Rights since the Civil War, when the party was formed to fight slavery.

Moreover, here’s a simple question: Did black Americans do better economically under George W. Bush or Barack Obama?

The answer is W and to the best of my knowledge, no one is even disputing that. The numbers are certainly indisputable.

Moreover, there’s absolutely no reason for any reasonable person to think Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan are racists, or for that matter, have any sort of racial animus towards black Americans at all.

In other words, what Simmons is saying has absolutely no basis in reality. It’s a mirage. This is problematic in that what Simmons said is commonly believed by black Americans. When it doesn’t matter how many times you say A, B, C because the other person is going hear X, Y, Z no matter, what you do, it’s hard to break through to people.

But, that’s where we are with race relations in this country.