Nikki Haley certainly needs American History lessons about racism, slavery and civil rights

Echo opinion published in NOLA.com in Lousiana:

Not long after sundown on the day the United States of America honored the life of one of its greatest civil rights leaders ever, Martin Luther King Jr., an animated politician blurted out one of the most ridiculous claims in the history of this great country.

Ed Pratt: Never a racist country? Surely Nikki Haley knows better than that❗

Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley proclaimed, “We’ve (the USA) never been a racist country.”

Wait❗ Isn’t battling racism and seeking rights for Americans the reason why King is annually saluted? 

So, I guess Haley, and those like her, never got the memo. 

Or, maybe she is joining the group working hard to whitewash our country’s history.

I’ve written before about my U.S. Army veteran dad and me being confronted by a White teenager who refused to sell him two sno-balls, and she made it clear why when she said, “We don’t serve Negros.”

My brokenhearted dad was convinced that he was a victim of racism. Silly, right?

In my early days as a reporter on the old evening newspaper State-Times in Baton Rouge, a White reporter held up a magazine for me to see the headline about a popular television miniseries: “Roots best watched from end to beginning.”

Let’s be clear, most folks in this country are working hard to treat people as people and that has led to improvements in employment, education, housing and other areas. But, my goodness, Nikki, there is a contingent who are unabashed racists and another group who don’t believe they are racist.

I’ve written before about my U.S. Army veteran dad and me being confronted by a White teenager who refused to sell him two sno-balls, and she made it clear why when she said, “We don’t serve Negros.”

My brokenhearted dad was convinced that he was a victim of racism. Silly, right?

In my early days as a reporter on the old evening newspaper State-Times in Baton Rouge, a White reporter held up a magazine for me to see the headline about a popular television miniseries: “Roots best watched from end to beginning.”

Get it, Nikki? Funny, huh? But not racist, right?

Let’s talk about the biggie — slavery. I guess holding human beings just a step above captive animals was just a thing or a phase, huh, Nikki? Nikki, have you seen what the belly of the slave ships were like?

Nikki, I know you read stories about places where people who look Black like me could not sit at the front of a city bus. 

I’m thinking that if you and your family were around at that time, some folks may have said something about you sitting in those front seats, too. But asking you to move to the back would not have been racist, though, right?

Nikki, Nikki, Nikki. Did you hear about the White people in Tulsa, Oklahoma who went into a prosperous Black section of town and burned it down? After finishing the dastardly deed, no harm nor foul to the perpetrators. Your thoughts?

Now, that I’m thinking about it, I recall you saying a couple of weeks ago that slavery was not at the heart of the Civil War. 😒😟😳❓ 

Indeed, even many racists agree that keeping slaves on those cotton farms was the foundation for the Civil War.

Hey Nikki, you know several GOP-controlled legislatures around the nation are trying to make it more difficult for Black and poor people to vote. Shouldn’t voting be as accessible as possible?

You know, Nikki, I’m anxiously waiting for your comments leading up to February. You do know what that is, don’t you? 

You know, February is Black History Month. Pay attention 😅, Nikki, you may learn something about what a race of people has faced since 1619, and what they have been doing about it.

Or, given your recent outlandish comments, you may say something else to cause jaws to drop and for you to appear, well, you know.

Email Edward Pratt, a former newspaperman, at epratt1972@yahoo.com.