White conservatives are the worst kind of racist. These people are adamant that systemic racism isn’t a thing in America, they dismiss critical race theory out of hand, and, I swear, they all need to have “died wondering why everyone keeps playing the race card” inscribed on their tombstones—but none of that stops them from invoking race when it suits them.
While speaking with Sean “I don’t vet my info” Hannity on the Republican version of Comedy Central, Fox News, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul decided that the peak of Mt. Caucasity wasn’t a high enough reach and decided to reach all the way into the Heavens of Holy Hueless People in claiming—I shit you not—that President Joe Biden’s goal of increasing the national minimum wage means he hates Black teenagers.
From USA Today:
Speaking with conservative personality Sean Hannity Friday night, the Republican congressman repeated his claim that Biden’s goal of increasing the national minimum wage to $15 would cause 4 million people to lose their jobs.
“And the people who lose their jobs first when you hike up the minimum wage are Black teenagers,” Paul said. “So, you know, ‘why does Joe Biden hate Black teenagers’ should be the question. Why does Joe Biden want to destroy all these jobs?”
Paul’s claim about job loss is a distortion of the Congressional Budget Office’s median estimate, according to FactCheck.org at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
Paul said Friday “even the government says that nearly 4 million people will lose their jobs” after the minimum wage hike, but the claim is a reference to the high end of the budget office’s range of potential outcomes, according to FactCheck.org. The low end of the range was “about zero” jobs lost.
So, Paul not knowing what the fuck he’s talking about is news in the same way that “Donald Trump’s tanning process turns him a weird shade of orange” would be news—so that’s not even my focus here.
Just last week, The Root reported that Paul got offended on behalf of Republicans everywhere at the mere mention of systemic racism during Biden’s inauguration speech—despite the fact that Biden spoke on racism without naming a single name.
Even if it’s true that Black teens would be the first to lose their jobs as a result of the minimum wage hike—which Paul claimed without citing evidence—that would be the result of systemic racism. Paul—author of Paul Patrol: An Investigation Into Hit Dogs Hollering (that’s not really a book he wrote; I’m just throwing suggestions out there)—also chooses to ignore the various reports that show workers of color are more likely to work for minimum wage and thus would benefit the most from a sweeping wage increase. Somehow, that’s not even what pisses me off the most about Paul’s comment.
It’s the trivializing of race and racism for me.
Paul could easily have made his loud-and-wrong comment about job losses as a result of raising the minimum wage without arbitrarily bringing Black people into his white nonsense. He went out of his way to sneak in that tidbit about Biden hating Black teens in order to bolster a narrative that—and I’m going to quote the Hueless Holy Book of Wypipo Proverbs here— “had nothing to do with race.”
Right-wingers only ever bring up race when they’re taking a cheap jab at a political opponent. Not to say that Democrats don’t also invoke race when it’s politically convenient, but with conservatives, it’s especially hypocritical considering how much time they spend trying to convince America that it doesn’t have a race problem.
Let’s not forget that Paul once blocked an anti-lynching bill because he wanted to make sure that violent and racist crimes that don’t quite constitute a lynching aren’t included under the law.
His argument was essentially, “A chokehold does not a noose make,” but sure, Paul is dead serious about tackling Biden’s racism.
What’s truly amazing is that Paul thinks it’s a major reach to say that Trump was directly responsible for the violence at the U.S. Capitol—even though Trump pushed “stop the steal” propaganda for months and told his supporters to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell” just before the attack—but then he turns around and makes Stretch Armstrong arguments like these and pretends they’re perfectly reasonable.
It’s the sheer caucasity for me.