Dinesh D’Souza: The Left ‘Hates’ Black Icons Like Harriet Tubman Because They Were Republicans
Right-wing author and pseudohistorian
Dinesh D’Souza wildly claimed that modern progressives “hate” black American icons like
Harriet Tubman and
Frederick Douglass because they were Republicans.
D’Souza made the comments during an appearance on
Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show last night as the two were discussing if the left can still promote
Martin Luther King Jr. in light of unearthed FBI tapes about his alleged affairs and sexual misconduct.
“[The left] can’t really dispense with someone like MLK. I mean, that’s a body blow to a lot of what they represent today, correct?” Ingraham asked.
“When you think about it, the great black Americans of our history — I think of people like Frederick Douglass, the runaway slave, Ida B. Wells who fought against lynching, Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, all of these were Republicans — they were conservatives,” D’Souza replied. “They were celebrators of self-help and of what Douglass called the self-made man so the left hates them. The left doesn’t want to teach them.”
D’Souza provided no evidence to prove that progressives “hate” these African-American icons, but there is an ample amount of recent evidence disproving his claims.
During former President
Barack Obama’s administration, he
established the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument and pushed for Tubman to become the face of the $20 bill to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment passing (which the Trump administration has delayed). As vice president,
Joe Biden celebrated Frederick Douglass’ legacy by debuting a statue in the U.S. Capitol depicting the civil rights icon, while Sen.
Bernie Sanders cited Douglass just a few months ago while arguing for policies to curb corporate money in politics.
He continued:
“
The only guy they’ve been able to push to the front is Martin Luther King. He was the only guy that they in a sense can cling to. So if they lose King, they’ve sort of lost their one claim to be a champion come if you will, of African-American rights. This is a very awkward situation for them. Of course, the #MeToo movement came from the left, so this is not a right-wing critique they can dismiss.”
Earlier in the segment, D’Souza argued that King is not just celebrated “for his antisegregation views or for his dream about wanting us to live in a country where we are judged by the content of our character, people treat king as a secular saint.”
“Innumerable schools are named after a king. so think about it, how can you actually have a school upholding a role model when the actual conduct, I mean this was not a matter of having foibles or falling short, this was behavior which, if true, goes way beyond that,” he added.
