The significance of Virginia Lt. Gov.-elect Winsome Sears’ victory cannot be overstated. But her victory is significant not only because she is a black woman and the “first” of her race and gender to hold the office of lieutenant governor in Virginia, but also because she has been described as an anti-racist. Sears does not buy into a victimhood that characterizes the Democratic Party’s view of people of color.
In her victory address, she said, “I’m telling you that what you are looking at is the American dream.”
I recall seeing white racists jeering at black students integrating a high school in Arkansas and a university in Mississippi. Last week the polarization was reversed with love replacing hate. Sears stood on a stage with her husband and two daughters and was cheered by a crowd that included many white people in Richmond, once the capital of the Confederacy.
She recounted her personal story: “When my father came to this country (from Jamaica) Aug. 11 of 1963, he came at the height of the civil rights movement. … I said to him it was such a bad time for us, why did you come, and he said, ‘because America was where the jobs and the opportunities were.’ And he only came with $1.75, took any job he could find, and put himself through school. … He came and got me when I was 6 years old.”
Sears said when she joined the Marine Corps, she was still a Jamaica citizen, “but this country has done so much for me, I was willing to die for this country.”
She then drove a stake into the heart of Democrats’ appeal to racism, discrimination, and victimhood, which the party has sold to black people for generations.
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