9 Ways FDR's 'New Deal' Purposely Excluded Blacks [View all]

[bravenak]

Many people seem to be stuck on FDR nostalgia and try to use it to lure black voters into their camp. I am posting this to explain why we black folks are MOSTLY NOT nostalgic for FDR and why claiming to be an FDR Democrat just gets them the side eye, rather than the utmost adoration that many seem to think they deserve for being so 'progressive'. There are many many many reason why we are not interested in going back to the policies of the past or in revisiting the FDR era and HELPING those 'progressives' bring back those times that were soooooo good for them but sooo shitty for us. FDR was no great liberator of Black/Colored/non-white people.

Segregated Camps in the Civilian Conservation Corps
The CCC was created to employ young single men from ages 18 to 25 on outdoor conservation projects. Enrollees had to be physically fit and come from families that were on relief and to whom they were willing to send most of their pay. During its nine-year existence, the CCC distributed more than $2.4 billion in federal funds to employ more than 2.5 million jobless young men (up to 519,000 were enrolled at any one time) who worked in about 3,000 camps. According to the Texas Almanac, the CCC was of very limited assistance to Black families because of local bigotry and national CCC leaders’ political concerns. Though CCC rules forbade discrimination based on race, color or creed, the local relief boards often refused to enroll Blacks, particularly in the South. When they were enrolled, Blacks were almost always placed in segregated camps, not only in the South, but all over the country.

Black-lynching
Roosevelt Refuses to Support Anti-Lynching Bill
The president disappointed Black leaders by failing to support an anti-lynching bill and a bill to abolish the poll tax. Roosevelt feared that conservative Southern Democrats, who had seniority in Congress and controlled many committee chairmanships, would block his bills if he tried to fight them on the race question. In 1938, liberal congressmen attempted to pass federal anti-lynching legislation to halt the most horrific type of anti-Black terrorism. Southern Senators angrily filibustered, and FDR defied Black leaders and his own wife by refusing to throw his support behind the measure.

Roosevelt’s Programs Widened the Gap Between Blacks and Whites
Ira Katznelson, a political science and history professor at Columbia University, in his book, ”When Affirmative Action Was White,” contends that Roosevelt’s programs not only discriminated against Blacks, but actually contributed to widening the gap between white and Black Americans — judged in terms of educational achievement, quality of jobs and housing, and attainment of higher income. Arguing for the necessity of affirmative action today, Katznelson contends that policymakers and the judiciary previously failed to consider just how unfairly Blacks had been treated by the federal government in the 30 years before the civil rights revolution of the 1960s.

http://atlantablackstar.com/2015/02/04/9-ways-franklin-d-roosevelts-new-deal-purposely-excluded-blacks-people/2/

Now, people may get upset at this view of history from the perspective of black people, but it is factual and I will continue giving my side-eyes on the regular. Just because FDR was wonderful for whites during that horrible time in history does not mean that we poc will see him the same. All that bragging about being FDR style Dems seems to be because people either forgot, never knew, do not care, or have re-written history by viewing it through rose colored glasses and want to pick and choose which parts of history get discussed. Time to start discussing the bad too, so we can help our allies discover why we are never ever ever going back. No THANK YOU!