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Jan. 14, 2021 - Epoch Times
13:42
Who Will Be Next in the Cancel Culture Movement? | Larry Elder
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Well, the cancel culture is in mid-season form.
Next up on the docket, John Wayne.
What did John Wayne do?
The man's been dead for years?
Well, he gave an interview in 1971 to Playboy magazine in which he said, I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility.
I don't believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people.
I don't feel guilty about the fact that five or ten generations ago these people were slaves, end of quote.
Well, with today's sensibilities and today's cancel culture, that means John Wayne is, by definition, a racist, right?
What did he say?
Basically, he said this.
I don't believe in race-based preferences.
I don't believe in giving people jobs until and unless they've earned those jobs.
That's not all that different from what this gentleman once said.
And the gentleman I'm referring to?
John F. Kennedy.
In a 1963 interview with U.S. News& World Report, here's what he said about quotas and about race-based preferences.
The Negro community did not want job quotas to compensate for past discrimination.
What I think they would like is to see their children well-educated so that they could hold jobs and have themselves accepted as equal members of the community.
I don't think we can undo the past.
In fact, the past is going to be with us for a good many years in uneducated men and women who lost their chance for a decent education.
We have to do the best we can now.
That is what we are trying to do.
Oh my God!
Is he saying that black people shouldn't get jobs until they're qualified to do them?
He went even further.
I think it is a mistake to begin to assign quotas on the basis of religion or race, color, nationality.
On the other hand, I do think we ought to make an effort to give a fair chance to everyone who is qualified, not through a quota, But just look over our employment roles, look over our areas where we are hiring people, and at least make sure we are giving everyone a fair chance.
But not hard and fast quotas.
We are too mixed, this society of ours, to begin to divide ourselves on the basis of race or color." How is that all that different than what John Wayne said?
JFK said, look, people ought not get jobs until and unless they're qualified.
It would be unfair.
Our society is too mixed to give people certain advantages because of race or color and certain people disadvantages because of race or color.
He said nothing any different than what John Wayne said.
Shall we remove his name from JFK Airport?
Please.
Next up, Martin Luther King.
What did he do?
What did he say?
Well, he once had an advice column in Ebony Magazine, and in 1958, a young gay man in the closet wrote to him, and here's what happened.
The man wrote, My problem is different from the ones most people have.
I am a boy, but I feel about boys the way I ought to feel about girls.
I don't want my parents to know about me.
What can I do?
Is there any place where I can go for help?
And what did MLK say to this young man?
Your problem is not at all an uncommon one.
However, it does require careful attention.
The type of feeling that you have toward boys is probably not an innate tendency, but something that has been culturally acquired.
Your reasons for adopting this habit have now been consciously suppressed or unconsciously repressed.
Therefore, it is necessary to deal with this problem by getting back to some of the experiences and circumstances that led to the habit.
And then MLK got real specific about what this young man ought to do.
In order to do this, I would suggest that you see a good psychiatrist who can assist you in bringing to the forefront of conscience all of those experiences and circumstances that led to the habit.
You are already on the right road toward a solution since you honestly recognize the problem and have a desire to solve it." Wow.
That advice today would be deemed homophobic, if not downright cruel.
Shall we cancel MLK? And one more word about JFK. Recall the heat that Donald Trump took for allegedly referring to Haiti and some African countries as s-hole countries?
Remember that?
Well, JFK said something very similar about African countries.
There's a book called The Dark Side of Camelot written by a former New York Times reporter named Seymour Hersh.
And in the book he describes an instance in which JFK was angry Because a man who did not support his candidacy nevertheless wanted a job as a diplomat in the Kennedy administration.
To which Kennedy said, I'm going to F him.
I'm going to send him to one of the, quote, boogie republics, close quote, of Central Africa.
How is that any different than what Trump said?
And JFK treated Sammy Davis Jr., a black entertainer who campaigned tirelessly for him, horribly.
Sammy Davis Jr.
even postponed his wedding to a white actress because he did not want to alienate potential JFK voters.
JFK wins, Davis gets married, and JFK disinvites Sammy Davis Jr.
from attending the inaugural, let alone performing at it.
Can you say racism?
Shall we cancel JFK? Here's another.
We all remember Andy Young, don't we?
Andy Young, the well-respected civil rights worker who worked prominently with MLK. In fact, you can see Andy Young in that famous photograph where he and others are pointing where the shot came from when MLK was assassinated.
Andy Young later on became a lawmaker.
He became the longtime mayor of Atlanta, and then he became later on in his career a spokesperson for Walmart.
He gave an interview with the Los Angeles Sentinel Black newspaper, and the newspaper asked Andy Young, how can you support Walmart when Walmart has been displacing all of these mom-and-pop stores, some of which are owned by Arabs?
To which Andy Young said this, Well, I think they should.
They ran the mom and pop stores out of my neighborhood, but you see, those are the people who have been overcharging us.
Selling us stale bread, and bad meat, and wilted vegetables.
And they sold out and moved to Florida.
I think they've ripped off our communities enough.
First it was the Jews, then it was Koreans, and now it's Arabs.
Very few black people own these stores.
Well, he apologized, but Walmart dropped him.
And as we speak, there is a prominent statue downtown Atlanta featuring, you got it, Andy Young.
Do we cancel Mr.
Young?
Now this brings us to Harry Truman.
Harry Truman, very respected Democrat, he's the one who dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Without Harry Truman's support as president, the modern state of Israel very likely would not have come to fruition.
However, in 1911, Harry Truman wrote a letter to Beth, his future wife, and said...
Uncle Will says the Lord made a white man from dust a n***er from mud, then threw up what was left and it came down a Chinaman.
He does hate Chinese and Japs.
So do I. It is race prejudice, I guess, but I am strongly of the opinion Negroes ought to be in Africa, yellow men in Asia, and white men in Europe and America." And reportedly, Harry Truman routinely used the slur that starts with a K to refer to Jews and refer to New York as K-Town.
Do we remove Harry Truman from buildings, from memorials, from highways?
Really?
It even gets complicated when it comes to Confederate generals.
Congress just voted to remove their statues from Congress.
But it gets complicated.
Let's take Confederate General Patrick Mahorn.
Mahorn was one of Robert E. Lee's most able commanders.
He owned slaves before the Civil War.
But after the war, he led an interracial political movement.
He became a leader of a party called the Readjuster Party, the most successful interracial political alliance in post-emancipation South.
Really?
In 1881, Mahorn was elected to the U.S. Senate.
At the time, split 37-37 between Republicans and Democrats.
Mahorn aligned with the Republicans, which of course was a party that was founded two decades earlier by Northerners to stop the expansion of slavery.
From 1879 through 1883, Mahorn's readjuster party dominated Virginia with a governor in the state house, two readjusters in the U.S. Senate, and readjusters representing six of the state's ten congressional districts.
Under Mahorn's leadership, his coalition controlled the state legislature, the courts, and many of the state's coveted federal offices.
And the readjusters established a black university?
The readjusters established what became Virginia State University, the first state-supported college to train black teachers.
By the way, Democrats called the hated readjusters and the hated Republicans advocates of, quote, And what about one of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's favorite generals, General James Longstreet?
After the Civil War, Longstreet moved to New Orleans, where he urged Southerners to support the Republican Party and endorsed their candidate, a fellow named Ulysses S. Grant, for president in 1886.
Longstreet commanded blacks in the New Orleans Metropolitan Police Force against the anti-Reconstruction White League, a paramilitary arm of the Democratic Party, at the Battle of Liberty Place at 1874.
Longstreet was shot and held captive for several days.
He accepted political appointments from Republicans, even dared criticize General Lee.
For this alleged betrayal, white Southerners called Longstreet a scallywag and a leper of the community.
So how should historians deal with Generals Mahorn and Longstreet?
And what about General Patrick Claiborne?
You know, Patrick Claiborne?
Claiborne was born in Ireland, moved to America, moved down South, loved Southerners, didn't have a particular issue one way or the other with slavery, but he felt that he should side with the South during the war.
Near the end of the war, 1864, he realized that the war was being lost.
And he suggested that we free the slaves and that the slaves would therefore be so grateful they'll fight on our behalf in order for us to maintain our independence from the North.
Because he did not feel that the Civil War was about slavery.
Let's just say this idea went over like a lead balloon.
Here is the letter he wrote endorsing his idea.
Satisfied the Negro that if he faithfully adheres to our standard during the war, he shall receive his freedom and that of his race.
And we can change the race from a dreaded weakness to a position of strength.
Will the slaves fight?
He adds, quote, the experience of this war has been so far that half-trained Negroes have fought as bravely as many other half-trained Yankees.
And as I said, Claiborne did not fight to preserve slavery.
Here's what he said.
It is said that slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up, we give up all.
Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for.
It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.
End of quote.
Not too surprisingly, a lot of Confederates, who were in fact fighting for slavery, were not happy with Claiborne's proposal, and he was then passed over several times for promotion, ultimately died in the Battle of Franklin in 1864.
Things do get complicated, don't they?
And there are many other candidates for cancellation.
Robert Kennedy, when he was AG for his brother, he was approached by the dreaded J. Edgar Hoover, who sought support for wiretapping MLK. Robert Kennedy gave approval to Wirecap Martin Luther King.
Should we cancel RFK? RFK Stadium?
Should we do that?
Now, this gentleman explains exactly why the Cleveland Browns cut him as punter.
Check this out.
What's that?
You haven't seen my movie Uncle Tom yet?
Here's a brief trailer.
I focus on three things.
Belief in God.
Belief in myself.
And my belief in the United States of America.
Being a black conservative is just natural.
It's what my family raises on.
Faith, family, individual responsibility, education, service to the nation, an entrepreneurial mind.
Being a business owner in America is one of the greatest privileges of being an American.
I think black Americans should believe and uphold the ideas of constitutional inherent rights.
I always felt that if I worked hard that I could overcome the circumstances of my life.
I never felt that because I was black or I was poor or a woman that I couldn't do something.
Humans are naturally conservative.
You grow up being taught to work hard for what you got.
You don't grow up being told you're going to get something because you just want it.
Like, you ain't got to work for it.
But Democrats, they say, hey, we give you everything for free.
That ain't reality.
I'm Larry Elder, and we've got a country to save.
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