# Another case of GOP hypocrisy (how many is this now?)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-case-of-gop-hypocrisy-how-many-is-this-now/979101>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [January 31, 2023, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-case-of-gop-hypocrisy-how-many-is-this-now/979101 "2023-01-31T15:49:59Z")\
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**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2023, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-case-of-gop-hypocrisy-how-many-is-this-now/979101/5 "2023-01-31T17:39:22Z")

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I did check the reviews of Kelley’s book, it is clear that historians, for example, praised the book about the history of the communists in Alabama, because in essence it does not praise Communism, but descibes how it was that the gross racism and inequalities made some fall for that idea. And how the activism of then was used later for better ideals.

> **[Hammer and Hoe](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammer_and_Hoe)**
>
> Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression is a 1990 book on U.S. history by Robin D. G. Kelley. It describes labor, racial and social history in Alabama during the Great Depression, focusing on black communist organizing. In particular Hammer and Hoe describes the way black workers brought existing traditions of resistance to racial oppression to their development of a unique version of Marxism. The book won several prizes and was republished in a 25th anniversary edition Ro...

> Reviewing _Hammer and Hoe_ for _[American Quarterly](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Quarterly)_ , historian [David Roediger](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Roediger) emphasized Kelley’s methodological approach as descriptive rather than normative project: “Kelley asks not whether the Communist party was good (or correct or independent) but how the party came to attract a substantial number of African-American workers in Alabama and to energize _their_ struggles [emphasis in the original]. Or, more exactly he asks how these black workers could embrace and use the Communist party as a vehicle for organizing themselves. He insists on measuring radicalism not by its ideological purity but by its ability to interact with a received culture to generate bold class organizations.”[[5]](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammer_and_Hoe#cite_note-:1-5) Writing at _[The Nation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nation)_ , [Sarah Jaffe](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Jaffe_(journalist)) says, “Kelley details […] how black workers in Alabama made communism their own, blending the teachings of [Marx](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx) and [Lenin](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin) with those of the [black church](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_church) and the lessons of decades of resistance to [slavery](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States), segregation, and racist terrorism.”[[2]](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammer_and_Hoe#cite_note-:0-2)

As Hegel would say, one grabs from history what is good from the past to make the present better, as in not looking at communism now, but how activism can make things better.

And the admistrators in Florida can’t have that.

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