Americans who grew up during the Cold War probably do not recognize the United States’ current policy with regard to communist regimes, particularly Cuba.
The U.S. first imposed a trade embargo on Cuba in 1960, roughly two years after Fidel Castro led the Cuban Revolution that threw out the Batista regime in favor of what became his Communist dictatorship. For decades U.S. leaders from both parties implemented a policy of “containment” in response to the Soviet Union’s efforts to expand communist influence around the world.
Today, President Barack Obama is working with Congressional leaders in both parties to lift the Cuban embargo, and an Alabama company is even on track to be the first business to have a factory on Cuban soil in over half a century.
We used to destroy commie regimes. Now our leaders hang out with them. https://t.co/Uf9SZPXJ7E
— Cliff Sims (@Cliff_Sims) February 18, 2016
There are, however, at least a handful of Congressional leaders who remain unwilling to tolerate even the slightest hint of support for communist regimes or their sympathizers.
That became clear this week as the U.S. House voted to rename a post office in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, after Maya Angelou.
Angelou passed away in 2014 after decades in the public eye as an award-winning poet, author and civil rights activists. She was a close associate of Malxolm X during the Civil Rights Movement and later became an outspoken advocate for same-sex marriage.
She was also a supporter of Fidel Castro and his oppressive Communist regime in Cuba.
“Of course, Castro never had called himself white, so he was O.K. from the git,” she once wrote. “Anyhow, America hated Russians, and as black people often said, ‘Wasn’t no Communist country that put my grandpappa in slavery. Wasn’t no Communist lynched my poppa or raped my mamma.’”
The U.S. House this week voted 371 to 9 to rename the North Carolina Post Office after Angelou. Among the nine congressmen who voted “no” was Alabama’s Mo Brooks (R-AL5).
Some of Brooks’ colleagues, particularly on the Democratic side of the aisle, did not understand his opposition to the measure.
“Naming post offices is one of the most benign and bipartisan duties we perform in the House of Representatives, and there is rarely any opposition,” said Congressman Steve Israel (D-NY). “The fact that these nine members would cast a no vote shows a blatant disrespect and only adds to the damaging actions they’ve taken this year to reverse progress from long and hard fought civil rights battles.”
North Alabama television station WAFF quoted one of Brooks’ constituents who opposed his vote, while not including any comments from the other side.
“I am horrified,” said the constituent. “She [was] such a treasure for the United States. We should be proud to have a post office named after her. We should be proud to have a city named after her.”
Congressman Brooks’ office released a statement Wednesday explaining his vote.
While Maya Angelou did many good things in her life, Congressman Mo Brooks did not believe it appropriate to name an American Post Office after a communist sympathizer and thereby honor a person who openly opposed America’s interest by supporting Fidel Castro and his regime of civil rights suppression, torture and murder of freedom-loving Cubans.
Who knew that being a fierce opponent of Communism was so controversial these days?
The post office renaming bill now goes to the Senate.
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