I thought I was clear that I was speaking of Helms before he was ever elected. But to become a senator, he had to at least moderate his speech, if not his views.
Colton mentioned his opposition to the economic boycott of apartheid South Africa. This is entirely consistent with his views of local and individual "rights" to conduct life and business in the manner that suits the prevailing local powers, (otherwise known as the status quo of segregation, "separate but equal" schools, and discrimination in so many forms they are too numerous to list here) viewing intervention from anywhere--be it from the federal government in the form of a Civil Rights Act, or from some foreign government, or even from the next town in the form of community organizers, as some form of communism bent on upsetting his precious "way of life," which was, in fact, the most entrenched and institutionalized racism there was.
For someone like that, who plainly advocated the prevailing racism, which illegally denied access to employment, real estate, education and career advancement to African Americans on the basis of race to then turn around, after perceiving the social, political and legal tide turning against him, and rail against "quotas" and affirmative action as "discriminatory," is the personification of hypocrisy and evidence of his unreconstructed racism. |
