As the Party of Lincoln Becomes the Party of David Duke . . .

. . . it validates and emboldens the racists out in the heartland to come out from under their rocks and start making their ugly business. Comments here by Dr. Cornel West on the latest snub by the leading Republican presidential contenders:

The GOP debate in Baltimore at Morgan State University, led and moderated by Tavis Smiley, and currently being snubbed by the leading candidates, is a pivotal moment in this election. It is a litmus test for a Republican Party that, in the past, has run away from black voters and only selectively interacted with Hispanic citizens.

At this moment in American history, it is clear that either the Republican Party wisely embraces people of color, or it chooses to be a losing political party in the future. The courage and vision of Tavis Smiley, and his often overlooked but historic Covenant movement, has put the limelight on this dilemma of the Republican Party.

We shall see which choice the Republican Party makes in regard to people of color in particular, but most importantly to their future as a party in the American democratic experiment.

Of course, we may see Jena, Tuscaloosa, and Greene County, Georgia as blatant examples of racism rekindled in schools. Now if the tens of thousands who showed up in Jena today could take some of that energy to the U. S. Department of Education and to the U. S. Supreme Court to protest the imposition of anti-cultural and anti-thinking curriculums in the SCOTUS-sanctioned segregated public schools that have become testing chain gangs, then we might really see a new movement born for human rights, civil rights.