Progressive race baiting

Civilizations die when they cease to believe in themselves, when they lose the will to defend themselves, and thus the will to survive. The empowering inspiration that created American civilization is inscribed in the certificate of its birth. The Declaration of Independence is a proclamation of the equality of individuals, whatever their race, creed or origin, and it asserts their inalienable right to liberty. This statement of national principles is unprecedented in the five thousand years of previous human history.

Most important is the American Founding’s view of its citizens as individuals, rather than defined by memberships in racial, ethnic, and gender groups. For this reason, the words “white,” “black” “male” “female” “slave” do not appear in the Constitution. The guarantee of individual rights to equality and liberty is the inspiration that created the culture and country that led the world in abolishing slavery, made Americans the decisive force for freedom in three global wars, and established a society that today is rivalled by no other in its inclusiveness, tolerance and freedom. It is America’s founding principles and their practice that has caused this nation to be hailed as a “beacon of freedom” for the entire world, and that led its greatest president to call it, “the last best hope of mankind.”...

But the presidency of Barack Obama did not lead to a celebration of America’s achievement in creating a successful multi-ethnic and multi-racial society. It led to greater racial and ethnic tensions. That is because Obama was a lifelong political leftist who openly rejected this view of American exceptionalism, equating it with “British exceptionalism” and “Greek exceptionalism,” in other words not exceptional all....

On the eve of his election Obama predicted that, “we are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America,” as though America was so deeply flawed as to require a “fundamental” transformation....

In their official party platform, Democrats speak of “systemic” and “institutional racism,” even though systemic and institutional racism were explicitly outlawed over half a century ago in the Civil Rights Acts....

Slavery existed in all societies for 3,000 years before anyone declared the institution immoral. That was a contribution of white Christian males in England led by Wilberforce, and even more importantly by Thomas Jefferson and the American founders. The actual enslavement of black Africans was carried out by black Africans, who sold them to Muslim Arabs, and only later to white Europeans in the Atlantic slave trade – a trade that began in 1526 and lasted for 300 years. In other words, Americans generally did not “enslave” black Africans but bought African slaves from their black African masters...

In a more honest time, an African American writer and American patriot, Zora Neale Hurston, saw the historical reality with great clarity: “The white people held my people in slavery here in America. They bought us, it is true, and exploited us. But the inescapable fact that stuck in my craw was [that] my people had sold me. . . . My own people had exterminated whole nations and torn families apart for profit before the strangers got their chance at a cut. It was a sobering thought. It impressed upon me the universal nature of greed and glory.”

America – the United States of America – did not sustain 400 years of slavery as was long claimed by her attackers, or 246 years of slavery... It was only 78 years from the founding of America in 1787 with the signing of the Constitution, to the Emancipation Proclamation and the Union victory abolished the hateful institution. Thus, historically speaking – accurately speaking – black Africa enslaved blacks, and majority white America liberated blacks....

Every African American alive today owes his or her freedom to Thomas Jefferson and the American founders and the 350,000 mainly white but also black Union soldiers who gave their lives to end this evil. That is a heritage that black Americans share with white Americans, along with the entire multi-racial mosaic that makes up America today....

Editor's note: The Freedom Center is proud to debut its new pamphlet by David Horowitz, "How Progressives Use Race as a Weapon Against Our Country," which unveils the Left's use of race to delegitimize America and to erode our national legacy of tolerance and pluralism. Read the full pamphlet ... or order your copy.