Race and The Presidency

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We ran a couple of tweets yesterday about how the GOP leadership is treating the President without respect because he is Black.

We did not mean that all Republicans or even a majority are racists.

What we meant is that GOP leaders like Mitch McConnell, Eric Cantor, Dick Armey who created the fake, astroturf organization called Teabaggers believe they can get away with disrespecting a Black President inside the Republican Party, and refusing to work or negotiate in good faith with him.

For our Republican non-racist friends, I am sorry. I’m from Tennessee and Southeast Missouri. I for 15 years on politics in Georgia. I was organizing in Texas when racist Texan Republicans used race to turn the state from Democrat to Republican.

We are currently in the middle of two wars and a very dangerous deep recession created by Wall St. and Republican de-regulation. So when Mitch McConnell says that his top priority is denying Obama a second term, it is phenomenally disrespectful. People like Mitch McConnell have done this for centuries against people of color.

In my organizing in Georgia, I saw GOP ads flashing the rebel battle flag, in Tennessee I saw the GOP run a racist ad two weeks before the election to overcome a Harold Ford lead.

It is clear that Romney and Ryan have profound disrespect for working families and average people. Watch them use code to play the race card.

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Stewart Acuff is America’s best-known and foremost labor organizer. He is the former organizing Director of the AFL-CIO. Acuff has also written two books: Playing Bigger Than You Are: A Life in Organizing, and Getting America Back to Work, coauthored by Dr. Richard Levins.