In 2021 America, leftist leaders and the mainstream liberal media somehow tie almost anything and everything to racism.

Case in point: Rep. Ayanna Pressley's (D-Mass.) Twitter feed.

Here a few of Pressley's recent tweets regarding racism:

Policing is a public health crisis. Mass incarceration is a public health crisis. Housing injustice is a public health crisis. Medical apartheid is a public health crisis. Racism is a public health crisis.

You can't be anti-racist if you're anti student debt cancellation.

It's long past time to end the Jim Crow Filibuster.

Before going any farther, perhaps we should correct the record.

First, Pressley lobs race bombs without any evidence to support her unsubstantiated claims.

Second, Pressley is basically saying that if you believe that everyone (white, black, Asian, Hispanic, etc.) should pay back loans he took out, then you are a racist.

Third, is Pressley unaware that the Senate filibuster dates back to 1789, well before the phrase Jim Crow entered the American lexicon?

As noted by the United States Senate, "[t]he tactic of using long speeches to delay action on legislation appeared in the very first session of the Senate.  On September 22, 1789, Pennsylvania Senator William Maclay wrote in his diary that the 'design of the Virginians ... was to talk away the time, so that we could not get the bill passed.'  As the number of filibusters grew in the 19th century, the Senate had no formal process to allow a majority to end debate and force a vote on legislation or nominations."

Although I disagree with Pressley's views on the state of modern race relations in the United States, I do rejoice in the doctrine espoused by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Lest we forget, MLK said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

MLK uttered those famous words in 1963, during a time when Jim Crow actually existed and blacks were treated as second-class citizens under the law.

I wonder what MLK would think of where America stands today in terms of its racial relations and discourse.

First, I think he would be proud of how far we have come in bridging the racial divide.

Second, I think he would be flummoxed that leaders like Ayanna Pressley (and many others) continue to cry racism at seemingly every turn.

Consider the following:

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, "the percentage of all marriages which were interracial increased from 0.4 percent in 1960 to 2.9 percent in 1990.  Between 1980 and 1990, interracial marriage became more prevalent among all gender, educational and racial groups, but especially among the more educated."

The interracial marriage percentage among blacks and whites is an underreported yet telling statistic.  Unlike many other racial statistics spouted these days, the interracial marriage number is emblematic of how far we have come in coexisting, literally.

There are scores of other statistics one can cite in proving that America is far less racist today than it was decades ago.  We did twice elect a black man to the American presidency  — as well as a black woman more recently to the vice presidency.

Yet all of this monumental progress seems completely lost on so many aggrieved leftists, such as Ayanna Pressley.

Perhaps Pressley should take a step back, study some history, and learn that America, although not 100 percent free from racism, is far from the racist country that she claims it to be.

After all, Pressley is a black woman representing a state in the U.S. House of Representatives with a population that is more than 80 percent white.

Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is senior editor at The Heartland Institute.

Image: U.S. House.

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