ALJAZEERA: What a difference 24 hours made for former champions of Cliven Bundy, a Nevada rancher first hailed by some GOP politicians as “a patriot” for standing up — with rifles — against what he saw as the yoke of the federal government, and now backed away from as an unreformable and politically toxic bigot.
That was before Bundy mused to The New York Times about whether “the Negroes” were “better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things.”…
“Conservatives are able to run around and say they believe in states’ rights and not have it associated with anti-black racism the way it used to be. Cliven Bundy’s comments reinvigorate that connection,” [Leola Johnson, chair of the media and cultural studies department at Macalester College] said. “These prairie rebellion people who say we don’t like the federal government — part of the reason they don’t like the federal government is because they believe that the state intervenes on behalf of African-Americans. Now they’ve exposed it.”… (more)
