On Monday night, my social media blew up… “I’ve seen hate and bigots but I’ve never seen someone so sickening as I saw tonight (at the University of Delaware)…”.

Who was speaking?  After a couple of clicks I found it was MILO, a Breitbart gay who supports Donald Trump. His opening line was “there are three genders:  male, female, and retarded…”

On Tuesday I heard afterward how Newark had taken down his fliers off telephone poles. Perusing the Breitbart site  I saw several stories there about the UD event.

You can watch it here;

Invited by The College Republicans and the Delaware Federation of College Republicans, he was allowed by the University to speak despite many other groups objections.

“I will close with this advice. Never feel bad for mocking a transgender person. It is our job to point out their absurdity, to not make the problem worse by pretending they are normal. Much like fat-shaming, if our mockery drives them to get the help they need, we may save their life.” was the closing argument.

Delaware’s best know transgender advocate responded:

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. This is Trump’s Republican Party and mocking people has become its modis operandi. At worst, the UD College Republicans hate people like me so much that they support their speaker’s words and, at best, our dignity and worth mean so little to them that they didn’t think twice before throwing it under the bus for a decent crowd, a couple laughs, and some un-nuanced, childish approach to “celebrating” free speech….

This event caused controversy in the local branch of the Republican party.

Delaware GOP spokesman John Fluharty, who is gay, said the College Republicans’ choice to bring “shock jock” Yiannopoulos showed poor judgement.

“They need to think in terms of is what we’re about to do going to grow the party or is it going to hurt the party? And I think they’d be hard-pressed to be able to come up with one new voter for the party based upon what happened on-campus this week,” said Fluharty. “It is really is a shame.”

On Amy Cherry’s piece on WDEL, he continues.  “Andrew Lipman, head of the Delaware Federation of College Republicans, when I spoke to him, was neither open to our request, or sorry for the harm he caused our party….”

And at this point I am finally going to get to my point in this article.  Those following me know I have given Republicans a taunting hard time (similar to MILO here), for saying they are diversifying their party outside the normal Republican definition, and failing to abandon the head of their party who represents the exact opposite of the words they say..

It is hypocritical to say you are open to Hispanics when your presidential candidate is saying all 15 million will be deported.. That is almost comical and so I commented as such.

But hearing this exchange on WDEL caused me to see something different.   The tactic taken by the leadership of the adult Delaware Republican Party probably should be applauded, not disparaged.   These type of things take time to ferment and develop. Most likely the seeds of this policy towards inclusion and openness were started back when all assumed Jeb Bush would be their candidate. They were surprised as most of us, that Donald Trump grabbed the title first and held on to the lead.

But what they did was brave and probably the perfect response to racism.. We know that children tend to take the attitudes of their parents while growing up. At some mature point, they either choose to stay with them, or switch… But whatever the parents believe and they absorb while growing up, is basically what they believe.  It is not determined by melanin, or the degree of slant on one’s eyes.   Race is an artificial categorization, one we imposed to put people in our boxes, so it is easier for us to categorize them.

A black growing up in an environment dominated by investment banking, will tend to be for policies that make sense to investment bankers, not a life he has never seen, but which is populated by most of those sharing the color of his skin.

A Hispanic growing up in a fundamentalist religious sect will obviously share the ideals of that sect more than he will share the values of others in a completely different environment growing up.

And this is what must happen if we are to move to a race-equal society, where race no longer matters because everyone is seen as an individual.  not a member of one race or another. Most likely in all of us within our own race, we don’t make distinctions like:… “Oh, she will have Republican values because she lives in Limestone Hills”.  That is ridiculous. Instead we meet them, talk to them, and only then, we pigeon hole or classify them as this type or that type, based on their individuality….

So shouldn’t we do that with all people, all races?

Which is why this openness in the Delaware Republican party should be encouraged and flamed into something exciting and  liberating.  The sad thing, is that since it is so new, only two among them have chosen the less-traveled path of throwing off the bigotry of their leader, and making political hay out of the opportunity to promote their brave new path.  All the rest took the path instead, of obfuscating this new idea by insisting on the same old prejudice by which they have always been historically tainted…

So I did want to illustrate the fine line and explain though I will continue to bash the Republicans’ moral lassitude for political expediency, it was a good plan and one I hope they continue… just learn that character is more important than following the party… When your party is wrong, sticking with it against your convictions, makes you look wrong whether you are or not…