There is a wonderful musical, Ain't Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations, on stage in Los Angeles.  It is a superb theatrical production.  For those of us of a certain age, the music of the Temptations was the soundtrack of our youth.

From "My Girl" of 1964 to "Papa was a Rolling Stone" in 1972, the Temptations made their indelible musical mark on the 1960s.  There were countless hits in between and many later.  The Temptations differed from the surf and car songs of the Beach Boys and of course sounded nothing like the Beatles.  They were the voice of the era all their own; the gospel-inspired sound of the South blended with the smooth, soul crossover R&B and the gritty urban sound of Detroit's blacks.

The Temptations were one of the most popular, most successful musical sensations of Motown's prodigious output, along with the Supremes and a host of others, from the early 1960s through the 1990s.  The group is still going strong, albeit with third and fourth generations of performers.  The Temptations of the '60s, though, were a new sound. 

The group's original members were Southern boys who had relocated to Detroit, as thousands of African-Americans from the South did in those years in search of jobs in the automotive industry.  Guided by Berry Gordy, they became a worldwide success, for good reason: they were extraordinarily talented young men, and their unique brand of vocal harmony and precise choreography was thrilling.  So is this theatrical production of their story. 

The left today revels in and promotes the ideal that America was and remains a racist nation.  This was Obama's mantra over the eight years of his presidency despite his having been elected by a majority of white people.  If so, how did the Temptations and their many, many gifted black musical colleagues become the fantastic celebrities they indeed became?

The Temptations, like Diana Ross and the Supremes, Johnny Mathis, Ray Charles, and the long list of other African-American musical groups and individuals (Aretha, Dionne Warwick, Nat King Cole, not to mention Lou Rawls and Marvin Gaye, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn preceding all of these by many years), were fabulously successful, popular with all Americans, popular around the world.  And yet we Americans are continuously maligned as racists.

Racists prevailed in the South long after the Civil War had ended, Democrats all.  There is a scene in the play that depicts the Temptations' tour bus being shot at by "rednecks" during their first foray into the South.  It is certainly possible that this happened, but nothing like that occurred throughout the whole of their career anywhere else.  This group was revered for its talent and the joy it brought to all who came to see its members perform.

The still living Berry Gordy, the mastermind who founded Motown Records with Smokey Robinson in 1959, was a genius in every sense of the word.  He knew what music would sell, how to package and market it.  He introduced Detroit's brand of black music to the rest of the world.  He recognized marketable talent when he heard and saw it, and he knew then what to do with it.  "He modeled his hit factory after the Detroit car assembly line that he knew so well: Make a good product, then make something similar, and make it quick." 

The Temptations, like every other Motown artist, were huge stars and have been since Motown was founded.  And yet the progressive left, like Hillary, Obama, and every Democrat running for office today, still insist this is a racist country when in fact it is the least racist nation on the planet.  This is not to make light of the despicable Democrat-created and enforced Jim Crow laws that were put in place after the Civil War, but the American people as a whole are not racist.

It is the left that is obsessed with skin color, sexual identity, and all the other nonsense that has nothing whatever to do with the character of an individual or with the American ideal of freedom.  Today's left has shamed Dr. King's dream that his children would be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.  (See Heather Mac Donald's new book, The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Our Culture.)

There is a dark side to the Temptations' story.  Life on the road led several of the original group to drug and alcohol abuse.  What is it about fame, celebrity, and wealth that leads gifted and talented people to self-destruction?  None of the group's members had a happy family life.  Perhaps the loneliness of the constant travel becomes too much to bear.  Consider how many successful musicians we lose today to drug overdoses on an almost monthly basis.

The Ahmanson Theater where Ain't Too Proud is playing is packed every night for this show (as was every theater that performed Dreamgirls, the story of the Supremes, which debuted in 1981).  Obviously, the audience is gloriously diverse.  The cast is 99% black.  The show gets a well deserved standing ovation after each performance.

And yet the left is out there each and every day, claiming that America is racist.  It is not and has not been since the end of the Civil War that cost Americans 650,000 souls to defeat slavery.  It was just those pesky and intolerant Southern Democrats who clung to their racist notions of their own superiority.  Even they are gone, replaced by a Republican majority that is not obsessed with skin color.

Universities across the nation are working tirelessly to take us back to the race riots of the 1960s.  Marxist professors see Black Lives Matter and Antifa as their forward operatives in the streets.  They welcome, foment, actually, the violence we are seeing more and more frequently.  They loathe the idea of a unified America that cherishes Western values.

It is their antipathy for America and everything it stands for that generated so much support for Trump.  He is the antithesis of them, those America-haters.  They are doing everything in their power to destroy him for interfering with their plan to unmake this country, to disparage the Founders and the Constitution.

But it seems they have lost already.  Black Americans are walking away from this party that never stops promoting racism, never stops telling them they are victims.  America's history of supporting talent without regard for skin color goes back generations.  That is an undeniable fact.  The racist left must be defeated in November, as it was in 2016.  Go see this wonderful show when it comes to your city.