Rep. Charlie Rangel isn’t budging, and in post-Election Day televised comments, he reiterated, rather than repudiated, his earlier expressed views on race — that the South was still pro-slavery and under the impression the Confederacy won the Civil War.
He first made such comments a week ago at a campaign rally for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. But on Wednesday on CNN, he told host Wolf Blitzer that yes, he still stood by the remarks.
Moreover, he implied the “slave-holding states” in the South were partly to blame for the Democratic Party’s big election losses, Mediaite reported.
“I meant that they used to call themselves ’slave-holding states,’ ” he told CNN. “They’ve been frustrated with the Emancipation Proclamation. They became Republicans, then tea party people. These are the people that are trying to frustrate people from voting, changing the voting rights that we fought so hard for. And all I’m saying is, if you want to challenge the statistics, find out where the slave-holding states are — find out where the tea party is.”
Mr. Rangel also suggested, in context of discussing the Southern Democrats who lost their Senate seats on Tuesday, that perhaps voter ID laws and other Republican-inspired agendas were to blame.
“I’m just saying that it’s unfortunate America doesn’t deal with the problem of racism,” Mr. Rangel said, Mediaite reported. “Until we acknowledge that it exists and fight hard to eradicate it, then we still have to be frustrated by people. They all come from the south and they all have these feelings about superiority and that’s true whether you’re picking cotton or you’re president of the United States.”
Mr. Blitzer then asked if Mr. Rangel perhaps wanted to change tune and soften his remarks.
“You’re not walking away from them? As you know, they caused quite a stir, raising the specter of racism out there,” Mr. Blitzer said.
He also added that Tim Scott, a black from South Carolina, won his re-election bid to the Senate. Mr. Rangel, however, stood by his views.
“We’re not talking about America,” he said, Mediaite reported. “We’re not talking about the advancements we’ve made — a black president, the explosive number of African-American and others that are now in Congress — we’re talking about a cancer that we have in the United States of America. America knows who they are. They know how they feel. And we’re talking about dealing with them … Racial superiority, unfortunately, is a disease that a handful of people have. And they were holding back the Republican majority in the House of Representatives.”
Mr. Rangel refused to name names, but said, “the whole world knows who they are and certainly Americans do, and certainly Speaker Boehner does,” Mediaite reported.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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