By Ms. Arelya J. Mitchell, Publisher/Editor-in-Chief
The Mid-South Tribune
We have been following the Arkansas gubernatorial race and were set to endorse former press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. After the October 21 debate, our position was reinforced. The debate between Sanders, a Democrat candidate, and a Libertarian candidate amplified our assessment of Sanders: She has leadership. Sanders was up against two black male candidates which immediately put her in what could have been the PC (politically correct) mode of ‘let me be careful not to offend, so I won’t be called a racist.’ Sanders did not take the PC route. Instead, she tackled an issue that the Black candidates should have brought to the forefront but failed to do so: Education. The Democrat candidate was too busily toeing his party’s line without coming right out to reveal what we already know, which is the Democrat Party’s line is pro-Critical Race Theory (CRT). CRT is a Marxist theory which teaches that Black students will always be the Oppressed that White students will always be the Oppressor. This theory presupposes that Black students are incapable of learning and will always have an inferiority complex when it comes to education. It even goes so far as to call math ‘racist’ and ‘white supremacist’ as an excuse not to teach Black students math and other STEM subjects. To our knowledge no black Democrat has denounced CRT pedagogy.
CRT dovetails nicely with those early Democrat segregationists who fought desegregation of the public school system and who introduced Black codes to stifle education. In the 21st Century, the Democrat Party is back to its roots of segregation now disguised as CRT and hidden under the PC banner of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity. Even the Libertarian candidate did not adequately broach the subject of education. Instead, these two Black male candidates became a tag team against Sanders who took them on, which made them look weak and preempted any ability they had to show leadership. The tag team kept retrieving that old Democrat Party standby of playing the race card. At one point, the Libertarian implied Sanders’ association with Trump made her a racist. To reiterate, the Libertarian did not outright call her a racist, but we got his drift. We, in fact, knew this was the usual modus operandi of using trigger words such as ‘Trump,’ ‘Republican,’ and ‘conservative’ to label a person as a racist, but Sanders kept relentlessly on her path of education being her top priority, avoiding his race baiting.
As long as the Democrat Party supports CRT, we will not support the Democrat Party which has now become the Democrat Socialist Party.
Underlying the weakness of the two Black male candidates were the soft, tippy toe questions from the journalists on the panel. Dare we say it? Yes, we dare say these journalists were trying to make it easier on the two Black candidates to benefit them—not Sanders. This is an example of why media has become a message of mediocrity and behaves as a quasi-arm of the Democrat Party. In her role as press secretary to President Donald Trump, Sarah Huckabee Sanders received the harshest treatment from a so-called professional press than any press secretary in history. She could not even go out to have dinner with her family without being harassed by anti-Trump and anti-Republican protesters who were aided and abetted by this anti-Sarah Sanders media. She never complained, she never sulked, she never went into that hood known as ‘victimhood’. She was a leader in taking on a hostile media every step of the way.
We have purposely put in the word ‘Black’ several times to flat-out point to the ‘color’ of Sanders’ two opponents only because the Black Democrat and the Black Libertarian couldn’t get beyond ‘black’—color. Even when the ‘Black’ Democrat candidate came out with his acronym of “PB&J” as a political sandwich for his Pre-School, Broadband, and Jobs agenda, he gave it to us on stale bread. For decades, we’ve heard such rhetoric from black Democrats who have managed to get elected for being Black and Democrat and remain in office with no accountability to the Black community and the overall community. Sanders’ opponents were high on rhetoric and low on substance; thus, why they had to tag team her.
Frankly, my dear, we don’t give a damn about color anymore. Ignorance is colorless.
For decades, our priority has been on education, just as Sanders’ priority has been on education. Since the 1960s and before, Blacks had an agenda of education and that’s what the early Civil Rights Movement was about, i.e., Brown vs. Board of Education and the Little Rock Nine. We strongly believe that education is the twin of economics and have editorialized about this for decades. Sanders did not beat around the bush in her opening statement about education or the role of leadership. If the leadership is not strong, there cannot be strong comprehensive policies in education which will stimulate economic growth to accommodate a 21st Century workforce with capitalism as its foundation—not socialism, not CRT or the hypocritical Marxism that BLM advocates while using its $90 million in Corporate America donations to build themselves mansions.
We have read Sanders’ Arkansas LEARNS education plan, an acronym for Literacy, Empowerment, Accountability, Readiness, Networking and Safety. Sanders has stated on LEARNS: “I believe every child growing up in Arkansas should have access to a quality education, a good-paying job, and a better life right here in our state, and I believe Arkansas LEARNS is how together we will achieve it. This is a bold plan that will improve access, create greater transparency, offer more flexibility, empower parents, reward good teachers, and ensure no child is ever trapped in a life of poverty or government dependency.”
In the debate, Sanders came out boldly in her opening statement: “…Anybody can talk about specific policy and the things they want to do. But the real test of a leader is when they’re challenged with things that they never see coming. I’ve been tested at the highest level of government under the most intense criticism you can possibly imagine and never once backing down from who I am and what I believe but always rising to the moment facing every challenge head on, never changing who I am and what I believe in and knowing exactly who I am and not looking at the critics to define me…”
Yes, Sanders is former Gov. Mike Huckabee’s daughter, and she is her husband’s spouse, and like all of us who have been ‘born’ into any family or married into one, these relationships define us to a point, but it is our being who we are which creates our uniqueness.
We hope that Sanders goes out to dialogue with and work with dedicated teachers and parents who want real education back in the classroom. And, in this 21st Century, we believe it is time for the public school system to have competition, and, if that means more freedom of choice in parents choosing how they want their children to be educated, so be it. Competition in education will eliminate this latest kowtowing to teachers’ unions which have the propensity to be about politics and not education. In a 21st Century, neither parents nor the community-at-large can afford to be trapped in a non-competitive education system which continues to produce mediocrity, stalemate, group think, and kill Dr. King’s Dream. Education is the twin of economics. They are conjoined twins and must be treated as such. We believe Sanders will deliver and create a workforce and economy to benefit all of Arkansas.
The Mid-South Tribune ENDORSES Sarah Huckabee Sanders for Governor of Arkansas.
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