By: Ali Elizabeth Turner
Wednesday morning, when my husband told me that Terry McAuliffe had lost his bid to be re-elected as governor of the commonwealth (small “c” is actually correct) of Virginia, all I could say repeatedly, was “Hallelujah.” Was I praising God? Yes. Yes, I was. Why? For a whole lot of reasons, the latest being his not-even-subtle patronizing disrespect of black people. That has never sat well with me, whether it comes out of the ignorant vocal cords of a hollering Klan member or the more insidious elucidations of a leftist politician on the campaign trail. At least with the Klan member you know where you stand.
That to which I am referring is the latest in a series of “terrible Terryisms” that is quoted below as he squarely shot himself in the foot the night before he lost. The sad thing is that the chances are good that he may think his idea would have actually been attractive to Americans who believe that all men are created equal.
“50% of the students at Va. schools K-12, 50% are students of color and yet 80 percent of teachers are white. We all know what we have to do in a school to make everybody feel comfortable in school. So, let’s diversify.”
What does that mean? Are you proposing that someone is no longer going to be able to teach school because of the color of their skin? What if a teacher is Asian? Is the purpose of education to educate, or to make people feel “comfortable,” whatever that is? Genuine, true, healthy diversity only occurs when it is NOT socially engineered. I had the privilege of getting to chat briefly with former Godfather’s Pizza CEO and US presidential candidate Herman Cain in 2012 when he was campaigning for office. What set Herman and every other conservative black person that I know who is in a position of authority and has been successful in their careers is that they actually believed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when he made that now famous statement in the “I Have A Dream” speech that says, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
No one who has even a smackerel of self-respect wants to be hired for any reason other than they are the best candidate for the job. As a woman, I don’t want to be hired because I am a woman, or in spite of being a woman, either. If I am the best fit, then I am your gal, and by God’s grace I’ll show you why it was a good idea to hire me because of how I do the job.
And then, the now-trounced Terry went on to manifest the Marxism we all knew was lurking when he said, “Here’s what I’m going to do. We’ll be the first state in America, if you’ll teach for five years here in Virginia in a high-demand area…we will pay room, board, and tuition at any college, any university, any HBCU (Historically Black College or University) here in the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
You might counter with, “Isn’t that what the armed forces recruiters do? Promise free education, room, board, training, medical, clothing, and travel if people agree to stay in for six years?” Yes, with one ginormous difference: EVERYONE gets those benefits, not just folks with more melanin in their skin.
Just before the debacle mentioned above, Terry also let his true colors show in terms of his lack of respect for parents. As you may know, a girl was raped in the restroom of a Loudon, VA school by a human whose birth-assigned gender was boy, and self-identified as a girl. Parents have been outraged by the lack of justice in the case and have shown up at school board meetings. Other Virginia parents have sounded the alarm about the teaching of Critical Race Theory and sexually explicit material in textbooks. This is because they don’t want their children to become racists or have their innocence sullied in school. And Terry’s response has been predictably dreadful: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” Right. Let’s leave that up to the “experts.” On the positive side, he did actually concede defeat as well as congratulate his opponent Glenn Youngkin. And let the record reflect that there are people of color in Younkin’s cabinet, all without any affirmative action quotas being filled. So for 54 percent of Virginians as well as many of the rest of us, a gorgeous glimmer of hope is shining brightly once again in the state that is often only thought of as a suburb of Washington DC.
April 19, 2024
