Leaning into the stereotype of white liberals being the most obsessed with race, Louisville Courier-Journal columnist Joseph Gerth used his Thursday column to smear Kentucky Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Daniel Cameron (R) as a betrayal to his black skin for incorrect views on education, health care, policing, and welfare to instead embody “the Black man who doesn’t scare white people.”
Gerth’s closing thought said it all about his white liberalism that permeates faculty rooms and newsrooms: “The fact that Republicans were willing to nominate a Black man for governor doesn't mean they aren't racists. It simply means they are willing to nominate a Black man who acts as if racism doesn't exist, because they think it's in their best interest to do so.”
Building up to that smear, Gerth whined that Cameron has a rosy view of America and talked about being “judged by the color of [his] skin but by the content of [his] character” in a paraphrasing of the famous Martin Luther King Jr. quote.
He also melted down over Cameron's daring to support police, which didn’t comport with the white liberal’s belief that black people were supposed to have somewhere from a skeptical to a hateful view of police. Gerth’s kvetching on that also stemmed from Cameron’s refusal to throw the book at the Louisville police officers involved in the Breonna Taylor case.
Nevermind the fact that he even admitted Cameron “also talked about policing and the toll it took on Black people.” No, sir, it can’t have any nuance!
Gerth’s race fetish kicked into gear when he outright blasted Cameron as if he were his master for not being a Democrat:
The fact is, even though he is Black, Cameron takes stands against what the vast majority of Black people believe. In 2016, the Pew Research Center found that 87% of African Americans identified as Democrats while only 7% said they were Republicans.
But, wait, there’s more! Gerth cheered a May 2022 column in the same paper by Ricky Jones that compared Cameron to Booker T. Washington, “the Black educator who rose to prominence in part because he didn’t want to challenge the white establishment and Jim Crow head-on.” He continued (click “expand”):
During the Atlanta Exposition of 1895, Washington promised an all-white crowd that they could trust “their” Blacks to be loyal, Jones wrote.
“You can be sure in the future, as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding and unresentful people that the world has ever seen,” Jones quoted Washington as saying.
“As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, in nursing your children, watching by the sickbed of your mothers and fathers and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to their graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defense of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both races one.”
Gerth found a way to go even deeper into the gutter of racist smears non-white Republicans face constantly, declaring Cameron as “the Black man who doesn’t scare white people and doesn’t challenge them on issues of race.”
“He doesn’t see police brutality because it would harm him politically if he did. He opposes whatever he thinks critical race theory is because it’s the latest Republican anti-Black buzzword,” Gerth added before touting another racist trope from Jones you’d see from Joy Reid or Al Sharpton: “Through Cameron, Kentucky can give the illusion of change without changing at all. It’s white supremacy in blackface.”
Gerth’s proof of Cameron being a Benedict Arnold to his skin color?
Along with black Republican O.J. Oleka not prevailing as the GOP pick for state treasurer (which he attributed to Oleka having “spoken up against police brutality” and for “implicit bias training”), Gerth outlined facets of life where, in his mind, Republicans refuse to address areas where black people are less likely to be healthier, more educated, safer, or live a long life than whites.
Notice how he created this universe in which black people should somehow be made dependent on the government in order to lead successful lives, as if the private sector was elusive (click “expand”):
We live in a society in which Black people are more likely to be poor than white people. They’re more likely to be in prison for minor drug crimes. They’re more likely to die at the hands of someone in their own community, and they’re more likely to be killed by police.
In our world, Black children are more likely to have parents without a college degree or a high school diploma, which means they're less likely to earn a college degree or a high school diploma.
(....)
We over-police predominantly Black neighborhoods, which means that even though white people abuse illegal drugs at about the same rate as African Americans, Black people are more likely to be arrested and go to jail.
The Republican positions on all these things do little to correct these problems.
They believe the way to lift Black people out of poverty isn’t to strengthen public schools or raise the minimum wage, it’s to let the private sector create and provide high-paying jobs for people – no matter their race. Unfortunately, this does little to help those who the educational system has failed.
They want to divert money away from public schools to charter schools, which have a mixed record of success and failure[.]
(....)
The GOP plan is to make it harder for families to qualify for government health care, which would likely mean more Black families would be left without husbands and fathers and wives and mothers.
