Rick Perry Speech Analysis

As Texas' governor, Rick Perry did not have a great record on race-based issues. He signed into law the controversial voter-ID bill which disproportionately burdened minorities trying to vote. He also advocated immigration policies that discriminated against Latinos. Most recently, he weighed in on the question of whether states should remove the Confederate flag from government property by saying that was a matter for the states, effectively dodging taking a real stand on an important issue. Overall, Rick Perry is the last person anyone expected to talk about race in a compassionate and inclusive way.

Except that is exactly what he did. During his 30-minute speech to the National Press Club, Perry lambasted his own party for being backward on racial issues. In one particularly pithy line, he castigated his fellow Republicans, saying, "When we gave up on trying to win the support of African-Americans, we lost our moral legitimacy as the party of Lincoln, as the party of equal opportunity for all." Throughout his speech, he advocated that Republicans
Not exactly. ThinkProgress notes that his support for the death penalty led Texas to lead the nation in the number of executions, which are disproportionately applied to African-American inmates. He also increased the costs of reproductive health care by closing clinics in his state due to his opposition to abortion. He also disenfranchised many African-American voters in his state by signing voter-ID laws which, according to the courts, "ha[ve] an impermissible discriminatory effect against Hispanics and African-Americans." Those laws which Rick Perry signed were also found to have been "imposed with an unconstitutional discriminatory purpose." Despite his own actions, however, Perry placed the blame for inequality between races firmly on the shoulders of Democrats, ignoring his own role the matter