Racial Revisions: GOP Edition

With their continued stuggle to balance honest socio-political debate with having to continually insist that their party has no racial animus within it, it appears that the GOP has a way of making things worse. But not just worse, ridiculous.

The Republican National Committee released a new website on Tuesday that goes to great lengths to depict the party as open to minority interests.

The most obvious example comes on the "Heroes" page where the RNC pinpoints 16 figures who were "Patriots: American Heroes & Famous Republicans." The list includes seven African-Americans, one Hispanic-American, and four women. Only four white men are included, three of whom had direct ties to the advancement of civil rights in America. Former President Abraham Lincoln made the list, as did former Justice Frank Johnson, who was instrumental in court decisions that helped end segregation in the South. Finally, there was former Sen. Everett Dirksen of Illinois, who helped write and pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

More from Sam Stein.

While liberal/progressive Democrats have long since been a party of open arms to people of all races, creeds, and backgrounds, it's a rather difficult pill to swallow when the GOP claims to be "inclusive". Hell, they've even gone so far as to claim that they don't have to be, so when we one visits Heroes section of the GOP website and we see Jackie Robinson and all these other "non-white" figures, it's not a stretch of the imagination to know what is going on.

Is it a reasonable assumption to think that Micheal Steele wouldn't have his current job if it weren't for the fact that the GOP were trying not to look so segregated, so pale in comparison to the Democratic party?

Revisionist history is quite prevalent within the conservative movement, but to completely white-wash ( pun fully intended ) the well-documented history of one of American's great black figures is beyond pathetic. It not only shows that the GOP does have a problem, it shows that they will go to any length necessary to make people think this problem simply doesn't exist.