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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Another week for Republicans to FAFO their way to the 2024 election [1]

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Date: 2023-04-17  

Jonathan Weiler/”Jonathan’s Quality Kvetching Newsletter” on Substack:

Remembering Jackie Robinson

Robinson also became embroiled in the larger politics of the country in a way that would remain part of his public image for the rest of his life. In 1949, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), the notorious entity that hunted for subversives in American society, asked Robinson to testify against another Black icon, the singer and political activist, Paul Robeson. Robeson was a political radical, an outspoken critic of the injustices of the American system, including in its treatment of Black people. Earlier in 1949, he'd spoke to a Soviet-sponsored symposium in Paris. An Associated Press story misquoted him as saying that Black people could never join any armed American conflict against the Soviet Union, after which Robeson was vilified as an enemy of the United States.

Robinson did not share Robeson's politics. He grew up in a Republican household and remained one for most of his life. His parents gave him the middle name Roosevelt in honor of Teddy Roosevelt. But Robinson also knew that he was being used by HUAC to denounce Robeson because of his race. And Jackie was intimately familiar with some of America's deficiencies. He told HUAC that if Robeson made the comments he did, that "sounded very silly to me" and rejected the notion that Robeson spoke for Black people in general. Otherwise, Robinson largely avoided taking the bait, telling HUAC:

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