WSJ Opinion: Jim Crow and the Smearing of Byron Donalds

And so one of the things that's actually happening in our culture, which you're now starting to see in our politics, is the re, in the reinvigoration of black families. Florida Congressman Byron Donalds is now on the short list to be Donald Trump's running mate. He's hot as a pistol. Oh, boy. He has a future. And he's a great friend of mine. Byron Donalds, come out, please. With Joe Biden's black sport slipping according to the polls, he goes a long way to explaining why Democrats and the liberal media are distorting observations he recently made. During Jim Crow the black family was together. During Jim Crow more black people were not just conservative cause black people always have been conservative minded, but more black people voted conservatively and then hew Lyndon Johnson and then you go down that road and now we are where we are. Mr. Donald's was saying that LBJ's Great Society destroyed the black family, but not according to the Biden Harris campaign. A lot of people are offended that you would repeat Jim Crow three times. As if to suggest that was a time period to be nostalgic for. Came their response on X, although they did include Mr. Donald's response. I didn't say that. I didn't even insinuate that. But then they wrote he did in fact say that. In reality, he didn't say or suggest anything of the kind. He merely reiterated what many scholars of black history has said for many years. As of 1960, which is almost 100 years after slavery has ended, the majority of black kids were being raised in two parent households. But within one generation after the welfare state, that had dropped down to a minority so that the majority of black kids today are are raised in one parent households. Sadly, rather than discuss the issues surrounding why the black family was more intact during Jim Crow, critics for Ted Mr. Donalds was saying black families were more intact because of Jim Crow. No, Byron Donald's Jim Crow didn't create stronger black families, said the New York Times. Byron Donald's expresses nostalgia for the Jim Crow era when quote the black family was together wrote political while the New Republic went with Byron Donald's cannot stop praising the Jim Crow era. The Speaker has come to my attention that a so-called leader has made the factually inaccurate statement that black folks were better off during Jim Crow. To be clear, at no point did Mr. Donald say that black people were better off during Jim Crow, as Mr. Jeffries put it. And after listing some of the many injustices black suffered during Jim Crow, Mr. Jeffries concluded, How dare you make such an ignorant observation. You better check yourself before you wreck yourself. Talking to X, Mr. Donalds accused the president and members of the Democratic leadership of gaslighting Black America. Then he appeared on MSNBC. Is there a specific period between 1867 and 1968 that you thought was this golden era for Black families or a time that was good for Black families? Joy, I never said that. And see, this is where the gaslighting said it was an ugly exchange. And despite her best efforts, Miss Reed couldn't dispute Mr. Donald's point. The marriage rates of black Americans was significantly higher than any other time since then in American history. This occurred at a time when the black income was rising. And so we're saying that previous generations of blacks with lower income and more racial barriers stuck to the family, stuck together under those conditions and under the new conditions which were advertised to make for great progress, in fact created retrogressions. The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. The War on Poverty's expansion of the welfare state didn't just devastate black family life. America's white working class suffered too, and included the collapse of family and marriage, increased dependency on government and young male alienation from work. It is not a government problem. It is a moral and spiritual crisis that results in people losing respect for life. When you lose respect for life, you will take your own of someone else's. That's why the suicide rate is highest among upper income whites and and homicide is the leading cause of deaths of children. So it's a lack of meaning and content that's missing when you think about it. I mean, centuries of slavery, generations of Jim Crow, did not destroy the black family, but one, one generation of the welfare state did. The tragedy is that an honest national debate might help clarify what went wrong and what we ought to change today. But the last thing Mr. Donald's Democratic critics want is an honest debate about the Great Society, especially within the black community. How can you even live with yourself acting like Jim Crow was a good era or better era for blacks? Right now you're lying about what I said. I was talking about black family. I think many people who were gung ho for the idea of this was going to be progress simply cannot bring themselves to look at the evidence and say, my God, we made things worse.