The RNC Claims Rosa Parks Ended Racism, Demonstrating What’s Wrong with the GOP

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The Republican National Committee claimed in a tweet that racism is dead, “Today we remember Rosa Parks’ bold stand and her role in ending racism.”

And then they corrected it with “Previous tweet should have read ‘Today we remember Rose Parks’ bold stand and her role in fighting to end racism.’ Apparently someone informed them that contrary to their PR push, minorities are still insisting that racism exists.

Today we remember Rosa Parks’ bold stand and her role in ending racism. pic.twitter.com/uxIj1QmtkU

— RNC (@GOP) December 1, 2013

Previous tweet should have read "Today we remember Rosa Parks' bold stand and her role in fighting to end racism."

— RNC (@GOP) December 1, 2013

Yes, that’s right patriots, racism is dead, except when the Republican Party (see above) is denying African Americans the right to vote or suggesting (via their PR arm at Fox News) that Trayvon Martin was a “thug” or wrongly asserting that most welfare recipients are “urban” (their code for “African American) “takers”.

Rosa Parks is called “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement”. The RNC’s tweet is not a gaffe – but rather, the statement of people who don’t get it.

Republicans fight against civil rights and freedom for anyone who isn’t white, rich, male and heterosexual. They stand for the status quo and the patriarchy. Rosa Parks did not.

Today is the anniversary of the day Rosa Parks was arrested because she refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Her refusal to move spurred a city-wide boycott. Guess who would have her arrested today? The RNC.

Republicans have been trying to claim racism is dead since Obama got elected. It was going to be their one consolation to take away their need to heed “political correctness”. And yet, it never occurred to them that they are not in charge of determining when racism is over. That call is best left to people who actually experience it.

Only a racist would think that they are the privileged people who get to determine when other people’s experiences are over. Why else would they assume a smug superiority over others? Sure, it’s covert racism and not overt — but it’s still judging people based on nothing but their skin color and finding that they are naturally, inherently below you so that you are in charge of naming their experiences.

But what can you expect from the GOP who held their rebranding to minorities meeting in a plantation room named for a “state’s rights” (aka, pro-slavery) defending slave owner.

Racism isn’t dead. The Republican Party, abusers of the Southern Strategy, do their part to keep it alive with their rhetoric and their policies.

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