Ron, I thought we were cool.

The republicans had a debate in Greenville, SC last night. I know I know,who knew? Exciting bunch those republicans, but hey, it takes two parties to make the republic go round so we have to pay attention to them.

Anywhoo, one of the candidates in the debate was Ron Paul.

Paul, I must admit, is a man who I find myself agreeing with when it comes to some of his public positions. (Public positions.) His position on the war and the legalization of drugs comes to mind.

But then, after reading an article about my friend Ron, I have come to realize that you just never know about some people.

"Ron Paul is back in the hunt for the Presidency. Many see him as an appealing candidate, one who opposes the wars, wants drugs legalized and supports fiscal responsibility. What they don’t know, is his long history of racism and connection to white supremacists. He has dodged questions on his connections to white supremacists and the newsletters, full of abhorrent racism that he put out in his name and he made millions from, spreading racism.

There has been controversy over Ron Paul’s ties to racism for some time now. Many people have pointed to Ron Paul’s Newsletters as proof of his racism. Paul has previously admitted to writing the newsletters and defended the statements in 1996, then blamed them on an unnamed ghostwriter in 2001 and then denied any knowledge of them in 2008. He has given no explanation, for how the racism entered his newsletter and has dodged questions about them without casting blame on anyone. If we are to take Paul at his word, he is guilty of at least promoting racism on a large scale. Paul earned almost a million dollars a year from the racist, conspiracy theorist newsletters. Here are some excerpts that I’ve found.

In this story Ron Paul writes about “needlin” and blames packs of young black girls for spreading AIDS to white women. I could find no evidence of this “epidemic” and the article seems to have no point other than to make white people scared of Black people.

In this piece he criticizes Martin Luther King as a pro-communist philanderer and says the MLK holiday is “Hate Whitey Day.” This is in great contrast to 2008 when he told Wolf Blitzer that Martin Luther King was one of his heroes. When activists suggested naming a city after Martin Luther King Paul suggested other names such as “Welfaria,” “Zooville,” “Rapetown,” “Dirtburg,” and “Lazyopolis” He would continue:

In another piece he blamed Black people for the riots that happened in Chicago in 1992 after the Bulls won the NBA Championship

Paul here is using false information to attack African Americans. The Washington Post reported that 1000 people were arrested but did not indicate their race. The riot, like most sports riots was multi-racial, including Blacks, white and Latinos, yet Paul used the incident to demonize African Americans. The Washington Post also reported that two officers suffered minor gunshot wounds and that 95 were injured in total, but the way Paul phrased it, it would seem most of the 95 officers injured were shot.

In this article Paul uses the “carjacking” epidemic to put fear into white people. He advises them to carry guns and shoot “carjackers” illegally and then dispose of their weapons. He also refers Black people as “animals” and directly refers to his home town of Lake Jackson, Texas." [For the articles Casey Gane-McCalla is referring to go here]

Ron, I am disappointed in you. And here I thought I was going to consider supporting a republican for a change. Oh well, it's back to the drawing board for me. I wonder how my man Herman Cain did last night?