As one would expect, Hakeem Jeffries, the first Black minority Speaker of the House, denied his history as a racist. Like many blacks, he may believe he can’t be a racist because blacks don’t have the “power to effectuate their prejudices,” or when blacks slur whites, they aren’t slurs because they’re truisms to achieve equity. Jeffries’ position highlights why American anti-racism programs won’t be successful until they eliminate that mindset and, instead, encourage blacks to be honest about their racism.

Black economist Walter Williams said: “Racial discrimination and racism in our country could have earned a well-deserved death, but it has been resurrected by race hustlers and poverty pimps as I call them, such as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton… who make a living on the grievances of blacks.” If Williams were still alive, he would have a longer list of well-known race hustlers, like Hakeem and several other senior people in Washington.

In 2013, Hakeem was asked about his overtly racist and anti-Semitic Uncle Leonard Jeffries. He said he had only a vague recollection of Leonard’s controversial positions. “There was no internet during that era.”

Last week, articles surfaced that made a mockery of his answer. Hakeem had invited his uncle to speak at Hakeem’s college, Binghamton University. Jewish students objected, noting the recent controversy surrounding Leonard’s being asked to step down as the Chairman of Black Studies at the City College of New York after a speech in which he called the president of the college the “Head Jew” of the “kabala” of Jews running the college. He also said Jews financed the slave trade.

Image: Hakeem Jeffries. YouTube screen grab.

Leonard was also infamous for his “Melanin” theory, which advances that blacks are the superior race with greater intelligence and spiritual qualities. He argued that African Americas are warm, humanistic sun people and European Americans are cold, materialistic, ice people.

Hakeem dismissed the Jewish students’ concerns about his uncle’s bizarre racist and antisemitic theories, stating in a press conference, “We have no intention of canceling a presentation that has factual information proven through scholarly documents and texts.” Instead, Hakeem asserted that characterizing his uncle as antisemitic was unfair and, in a 1992 op-ed in his college paper, defended his uncle’s controversial positions.

The problem with Leonard Jeffries’ manifestly racist Melanin theory, the one Hakeem vociferously supported and that Leonard defends on the grounds that it’s objectively true, is that Jeffries isn’t the only black academic asserting it.

While the Melanin “theory” is racist, Leonard claimed it was not, because he simply explains racial differences. Thirty years later, Ibram Kendi, whose book How to be an Anti-Racist is on the Navy’s recommended reading list and is one of the most important racial authorities on the left, asserts something similar. When he calls all whites racist, the word “racist is not a pejorative…. It is descriptive.”

Kendi’s book reads like an anti-white polemic, but he said he doesn’t hate white people. “How can you hate a group of people for who they are?” He also supports an idea promoted by Hakeem, that of good blacks and Uncle Toms. In his book, Kendi wrote: “I had imagined history as a battle: on one side Black folks, on the other a team of ‘them niggers’ and White folks.”

Most of Hakeem’s 1992 op-ed was spent denigrating black conservatives who he equated to “House Negroes.” He specifically mentioned Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell, and Shelby Steele. Now that it’s come to light, black conservative congressman Byron Donalds has said he thinks Hakeem should apologize for his house negro comparison.

Hakeem’s response was to tweet, “Right-wing extremists want us to step back.” Not much of an admission of prejudice, but Hakeem can’t apologize because his current thoughts about black conservatives have not changed, although they have been expanded. Today, per Hakeem’s incendiary theory, because whites are sore about Obama, black and white conservatives are trying to disenfranchise blacks.

Nor is Hakeem the only black politician in D.C. to assert openly racist theories denigrating whites as inferior and spouting antisemitic rhetoric. When she was a college student, Kristen Clarke, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, supported Leonard speaking at Harvard on the Melanin theory, and, like Leonard, she has anti-Semitic and anti-white conservative views. These have influenced her official duties.

There are other blacks in Washington besides Jeffries and Clarke who pretend they aren’t racist. In 2020, Kelisa Wing, the first Black DoD Education (DODEA) Chief of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, tweeted her racial views, “I’m so exhausted at these white folx in these [professional development] sessions this lady actually had the CAUdacity to say black people can be racist too… … I had to stop the session and give Karen the BUSINESS … we are not the majority, we don’t have power.”

Kelisa Wing actually had a very powerful position, which she leveraged to stoke racism against whites. At one summit, DODEA urged “white people to confess their crimes of privilege and silence.” Over 66,000 students attend DOD schools. On her watch, 600 of her books were made available in 49 DoD schools, and the books are anti-white. Responding to criticism, Wing denied she was racist. Instead, she insisted, she was seeking equity.

Under Wing’s boss, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, getting rid of white supremacists is a priority, even though extremists have been estimated at 0.005% of the military population. To do this, all whites are targeted. The DoD program includes leveraging critical race theory (CRT), which is racist against whites. Service people are trained on “systemic and institutional racism and bias against underserved communities.” No attention is given to racism against whites, for example, CRT, or to the impact that training people on white oppressors and non-white victims has on supercharging racism.

Kamala Harris is no stranger to race hustling. She responded reflexively to the Jussie Smollett hoax. “This was an attempted modern-day lynching. No one should have to fear for their life because of their sexuality or color of their skin. We must confront this hate.”

Commenting on race baiter and anti-Semite Al Sharpton, Kamala said, “Rev, I love you! And I thank you, on behalf of all of us, everyone, for all that you do and all that you are ... you are always a voice of truth ... you are part of the conscience of our country.”

Leonard Jeffries would agree. Sharpton came to Leonard’s defense when the media wrote about his antisemitic speech. Sharpton said, “If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house.” A few days later, Sharpton led blacks in the Crown Heights riots, as they chanted “Kill the Jew” and “Heil Hitler” while rioting through a predominantly Jewish neighborhood. They killed two people and injured 152 police officers and 38 civilians. Sharpton never apologized because he said he did nothing wrong.

President Obama didn’t have a problem with anti-Semitic, race-baiter Sharpton either. Sharpton visited the White House seventy-two times during his presidency. Politico said Sharpton was Obama’s go-to man on race.

Kamala doesn’t think she is racist, and neither do Wing, Austin, Clarke, Sharpton, Jackson, Leonard, or Hakeem. But their words and actions refute this, and they are stoking racism.

Walter Williams has it right: racism in America could be in the past, but the race hustlers won’t let it die. Indeed, it has entered a more dangerous phase because, as one black activist wrote, blacks in government are using their “power to effectuate their prejudices.”

They safely maintain this racism by hiding behind the myth that blacks can’t be racist, because, per master hustler Jesse Jackson, whites must be kept on the hook—which means perpetuating racism and the notion that only whites and Black conservatives are racist. Ironically, it is the colorblind conservative platform that is truly anti-racist.