By Joan WalshUnited Negro College Fund's "A Mind Is Gala" - March 7, 2013.
Rush Limbaugh attacked them as “lunatics” running a “plantation” for black “slaves.” Another right-winger claimed a “white” union president was out to hurt “disadvantaged black youth,” even though the union president in question is black.
It’s no surprise AFSCME’s decision to end its partnership with the United Negro Colllege Fund, in the wake of UNCF accepting a $25 million contribution from the Koch brothers to establish a “Koch Scholars” program, as well as participating in their annual right-wing strategy summit, has conservatives trashing the influential public sector union. It fits their favorite story line: Liberals are the real racists.
But even some non-wingnuts have piled on. The Root’s Keli Goff blasted the decision as “progressive intolerance,” insisting that the Kochs’ support of public sector union busting “has nothing to do with educating African-American students.” That’s led to renewed interest in AFSCME’s move, which president Lee Saunders announced two weeks ago.
In a letter to UNCF president Michael Lomax, AFSCME’s Saunders called the Kochs “the single most prominent funders of efforts to prevent African-Americans from voting.” Lomax’s appearance at the Koch brothers’ annual summit, where they plot conservative strategy – this year’s focus was taking back the Senate in 2014 — was “a betrayal of everything the UNCF stands for.” Members of AFSCME, a union that supports Democrats with money and people power, voted unanimously to back Saunders’ decision at their annual convention in Chicago last week.
“This is not a Democrat or Republican issue,” Saunders told Salon, in his first interview since the fracas. “It’s an issue of right and wrong.”
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