When it comes to monuments of the Confederacy, Herman Cain wants the black community to turn a blind eye.
On Monday (Aug. 21), the conservative businessman published a shallow op-ed about the current political climate on his website titled, “My fellow blacks, please: Stop wasting time on statues and solve today’s problems.” Cain argued that the removal of statues of Robert F. Lee will damage how history–good and bad parts–are told.
My fellow blacks, please: Stop wasting time on statues and solve today's problems https://t.co/mJqMtDinoG #cainsays pic.twitter.com/aAT6DlTc7V
— The Cain Gang (@THEHermanCain) August 21, 2017
“Tell you what: Why don’t you erase from history every reference to a person who had a serious character flaw?” he said. “Do that and you’ll have very short history books. You’ll be able to get through a semester in a day or two. There’d be almost nothing you would be able to teach. Also, they were participants in an institution that was evil, if very common for wealthy men of their day. They might have been better men if they had rid the world of that institution, and they did not do that. But they did create the political system through which it would be eliminated less than a century later. That is not nothing.”
Instead, Cain wants African Americans to gravitate their attention to violence, crime and education. “Slavery was an awful historical injustice, and it helped set in motion many of the problems the black community faces today,” he added. “But it is not the problem we need to solve today. Those problems are poverty, illiteracy, drugs, crime and violence.”
Cain might’ve forgotten about the power of multitasking. While these problems aren’t wholeheartedly solved in the black community, they have been exaggerated by politicians in the past.
Cain concluded with the notion to continue education about the Confederacy and keep the statues remaining at pubic spaces. “So how do you regard them? As heroes or as villains? It’s the wrong question. The right question is how to ensure that people know the full story. Maybe one of the things we can learn from this is that history has offered us very few people who had no character flaws at all. I can think of only one, probably the same one you’re thinking of.”
Cain has stayed out the political public eye since his failed run at the presidency in 2012. The 71-year-old ran under the Republican bill and earned a co-sign from Donald Trump. His poll numbers were strong and even surpassed former President Barack Obama until cases of sexual assault and a 13-year-affair came to light.
Throughout his site, Cain shares his thoughts on the existence of a “atl-left” party, Obamacare and the Charlottesville tragedy.
Read the rest of his op-ed here.