Presidential contender Rick Santorum’s vitriolic attack on black Americans is yet another example of the Republican Party’s exploitation of racial stereotypes to score political points. Speaking to a group of supporters in Sioux Falls, Iowa, 2 Sundays ago, Santorum stated, “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.”

 

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdfZmcuomcE

Santorum is playing right out of the book of Ronald Reagan’s 1976 presidential campaign in which Reagan introduced the racially coded term “welfare queen” into the lexicon. This dramatic hyperbole continues to unfairly stigmatize black Americans, most of whom pay taxes and and are law-abiding citizens who don’t shirk their responsibilities. In fact, 84 percent of food-stamp recipients in Iowa are white. Nationally, 70 percent of food-stamp recipients are white.

(Now it all makes sense, he was saying Blah people lol)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnjEYcT6n-s

Not only is such rhetoric racially divisive but it unfairly makes working-class families of all colors scapegoats for political leverage. A study by the Economic Policy Institute found the median net worth of black households was about $2,200 in 2009 — the lowest in history — compared with a $97,900 median for white households.

People of all backgrounds are struggling to make ends meet, and in many cases would not be able to provide for themselves or their families if it weren’t for government entitlements. We can’t allow ourselves to be bamboozled by the divisive rhetoric of hungry politicians who are more than willing to use the American people as pawns on their electoral chessboards.

.