Beyond the Rhetoric
Is Mitt Romney a Racist?
By Harry C. Alford
Thursday, December 6, 2007
 
  
Is Mitt Romney a Racist? That is a very important question to raise about someone who is seeking to become the President of the United States. With Romney there is always something new.
  
First of all, Mitt Romney has been raised a devout Mormon. He’s a leader in the group.  The founder, Joseph Smith, was actually an abolitionist who vehemently fought against the ills of slavery and welcomed Blacks into his new religion replete with its own bible, The Book of Mormon, written by members of this group. But Smith’s successor was Brigham Young, who indeed was a racist, and who introduced the doctrine that Blacks were descendents of Cain, the bad son of Adam and Eve.

Thus, he taught, they were cursed with the mark of Cain (their Blackness) and were forbidden entry into heaven and prohibited from the priesthood of the Mormon Church. This started as Jim Crow laws were being written throughout the nation during the late 1800’s and post Reconstruction.
  
It wasn’t until 1978 that the Mormon Church felt encouragement to change this policy.  In the meantime the Romney families were thriving under it. A member of the Carter Administration’s Justice Department decided that if the Mormon Church wants to embrace a racist doctrine they should no longer be given 501-C3 tax exemption status. As the federal government was about to make its move, the Church proclaimed that God visited their president and 12 apostles and proclaimed the curse lifted. Blacks from then  on were believed to have a chance beyond Hell. How convenient. 
  
Romney, as an elected official, has been known to make racial slurs. He recently referred to a construction boondoggle, The Big Dig, as a “Tar Baby” he needs to avoid.  Tar Baby - That’s an old school racial slur. It’s not something we want a presidential candidate to say and have such a thought process about.
  
Romney’s successor as Governor of Massachusetts is the Deval Patrick, a Black man who served as chief of the Civil Rights Office in the Clinton Administration’s Justice Department. That is the same office that went after the Mormon Church’s racist policies in the late seventies. There seems to be some serious “bad blood” caused by that. It is a long tradition that when inaugurating a new governor in Massachusetts they have a ceremonial passing of the gavel.

The outgoing governor stands and hands over the gavel to the new governor and exits the building as the new governor stands at the podium and delivers his inauguration address. For the first time in history and without comment Mitt Romney refused to participate in the ceremony and recognize the new Black Governor.  That sounds like the old George Wallace or Strom Thurmond type of stuff.  The people of Massachusetts were outright embarrassed.
  
Very recently, well known Black Republican J.C. Watts publicly complained that the Romney presidential campaign was absolutely void of Blacks, Hispanics or any other ethnicity other than White. It was lily White and this needed to be corrected proclaimed the former Black congressman from Oklahoma. When approached about J.C.’s comments on CNN News, Mitt Romney retorted, “What’s the charge? Is there something wrong with that?” He then explained that he hired only the best workers and if that means an all White staff – so be it.

This, my brother and sisters, is “bigot code.” It is the same thing they would say to keep us out of the military, college and professional sports, the better public institutions and corporate offices. It wasn’t because of racism. We just weren’t good enough and that’s how God made it, they said. It falls right along with the “Cain Curse Doctrine.”
  
Slick haired Romney is starting to appear to be very arrogant for all the wrong reasons.  There is an aura about him that smells anti-American and anti-Christian. He appears to be a blast from the past and that is not good for us as a whole and harmonious society.
  
Is Mitt Romney a racist? Racial slurs, racist upbringing, racist slights, racist hiring and racist excuses – seems like an easy question.
  

Harry Alford is the co-founder, President/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce.  Website:  www.nationalbcc.org.