Written by Les Payne, The Root
Republican presidential candidate, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) (C) greets government students from Franklin High School from Franklin, Mass.
(Chip Somodevilla - GETTY IMAGES)
The debate fell silent Saturday when Ron Paul trotted out of the closet the GOP skeleton of denial: racism.
Initially confronted with "racist" diatribes penned by another writer in a newsletter under his name, Rep. Paul dismissed them as a 20-year-old nonissue. Then, suddenly, as if the 76-year-old libertarian realized that he had nothing to lose, Paul pivoted dramatically away from alleged petit racism of words to gross de jure racism of deeds.
"True racism in this country is in the judicial system," he said in his counterattack to the ABC News panelist at the New Hampshire debate. "And it has to do with enforcing the drug laws.
"Look at the percentages. The percentages of people who use drugs are about the same with blacks and whites. And yet the blacks are arrested way disproportionately. They're prosecuted and imprisoned way disproportionately. They get the death penalty way disproportionately.
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