It was almost certain that nothing this summer would top the absurdity of the Ku Klux Klan trying to recruit African Americans to its cause through anti-immigrant sentiments.
But then the David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC) launched its latest project, “Change the Game.” And similar to the KKK’s campaign, DHFC’s intentions are equal parts ludcrious, perplexing, and bigoted.
“Change the Game” is the group’s attempt to coax the Black community into supporting its brand of far-Right rhetoric. The problem is, David Horowitz, the group’s founder, has previously authored and made racist statements against those he’s now trying to attract.
A deeper look into the project’s website reveals that DHFC plans to use “Hip Hop culture” to promote its conspiracy theories. The site features various articles and videos framing progressive policies as innately racist and responsible for further perpetuating poverty in inner cities. The project’s leaders also attempt to argue that the answer to the destructive policies of the Left is good old fashioned “American Capitalism.”
As a socio-political effort, “Change the Game” harkens back to a time when Blacks were allowed no agency in determining what’s right and what’s wrong for their communities.
For those unfamiliar with DHFC and its namesake, Horowitz uses funding he receives from right-wing donors to launch various platforms from which to distribute a wide spectrum of bigoted rhetoric.
Perhaps his most noted platform is FrontPage Magazine, an online magazine that exists as a hub for anti-Muslim and far-Right bloggers, reporters, and other communicators. From FrontPage, he and his cohort espouse racially charged rhetoric on par with views held by notorious far-Right figureheads such as Pat Buchanan and Jared Taylor (an internationally respected leader of the U.S.’s white nationalist movement). Taylor’s articles have previously been featured on FrontPage (more below).
If republishing bigots like Taylor isn’t enough proof, below are numerous examples further exemplifying Horowitz’s anti-Black racism:
- Horowitz previously accused U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder of leading a black “lynch mob” in Ferguson, Missouri after civil unrest erupted following the murder of Michael Brown by local police.
- Horowitz previously called President Obama a “dangerous, evil man” who only gets a “free ride” because he’s black. He added this was a just an extension of mainstream society because “in America today, if you are black you do get a free ride.”
- In a 1999 article for Salon titled “Guns Don’t Kill Black People, Other Blacks Do,” Horowitz lamented the “melodrama” surrounding “white oppression,” asking, “If blacks are oppressed in America, why isn’t there a black exodus?” The article has been lauded and republished on the virulently anti-Black and anti-immigrant website VDARE.com.
- In 2012, Horowitz co-wrote a pamphlet titled “Black Skin Privilege.” In it, he claims the concept of white privilege was manufactured and perpetuated by the Left. He further argues that true privilege comes with black skin, which he claims gives “license not only to commit no-fault crimes, but to be openly racist without adverse consequences.”
- In 2001, Horowitz published an ad in college campus newspapers titled “Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery Is a Bad Idea—and Racist Too.” In it, he asks where “the gratitude is from black America,” as without the “sacrifices of white soldiers and a white American president” slavery in America never would have ended.
- In the same ad, Horowitz claims reparations for slavery have already been paid to Black Americans in the “form of welfare benefits and racial preferences.” He adds paying reparations would “burden” the Black community with a “crippling sense of victim-hood,” and that it’s not America’s fault “blacks can’t seem to locate the ladder of opportunity.”
- As previously mentioned, Horowitz’s FrontPage Magazine promoted an article by white nationalist Jared Taylor in which he offered his own bigoted reflections on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Horowitz later defended Taylor, claiming he was the only one reporting on the “racial crimes committed by blacks during Hurricane Katrina that somehow didn’t become part of the discussion of racism during the Katrina flap.” In that piece, Taylor offered ideas like the following: “Natural disasters usually bring out the best in people….For blacks—at least the lower-class blacks of New Orleans—disaster was an excuse to loot, rob, rape and kill.”
- Horowitz also claims that Obama would never have been elected president if “he weren’t black,” given his “curious background and radicalism.” He says this is “part of the racism of our society,” that “if you’re black you can get away with murder.”
Like the quotes above, DHFC’s “Change the Game” project is just newest piece of evidence revealing the regard that Horowitz and his organization have for the Black community: They clearly assume African Americans will remain ignorant to the racist rhetoric his group has directed towards their communities simply because they’ve launch a website purporting “Hip Hop” values through fonts resembling spray-painted graffiti.
Horowitz’s latest project supposedly invokes “change,” but the underpinnings representing his racist, far-Right beliefs are clear.
Image Source: wikipedia.org & salon.com