Rush Limbaugh uses Nelson Mandela's death to denounce the American civil rights movement

"Nelson Mandela would not qualify as a civil rights leader in this country," Limbaugh said

Published December 6, 2013 8:29PM (EST)

Rush Limbaugh                                                            (Jeff Malet, maletphoto.com)
Rush Limbaugh (Jeff Malet, maletphoto.com)

Rush Limbaugh, who has committed his life to racist, sexist, classist and otherwise abhorrent radio ranting, decided to use Nelson Mandela's death as an opportunity to denounce the American civil rights movement.

"So here's Nelson Mandela, 'Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies,'" Limbaugh said on Friday. "Nelson Mandela actually lived through the indignities, the punishment, the discrimination, the horrors of the South African apartheid system. Came out of it -- you realize when he was inaugurated president, he invited as his special guests the white jailers from his Robben Island prison? He literally did forgive everybody.

"Nelson Mandela would not qualify as a civil rights leader in this country with that philosophy. They can't let it go. It's become too big a business. They will not let it go. Mandela let it go. It just -- amazing."

Now that we know Limbaugh's thoughts on the American civil rights movement, let's hear what Mandela believed about it.

“As we enter the last decade of the 20th century, it is intolerable, unacceptable, that the cancer of racism is still eating away at the fabric of societies in different parts of our planet,” Mandela told a crowd at New York's Yankee Stadium in 1990. “All of us, black and white, should spare no effort in our struggle against all forms and manifestations of racism, wherever and whenever it rears its ugly head.”

h/t Media Matters


By Katie McDonough

Katie McDonough is Salon's politics writer, focusing on gender, sexuality and reproductive justice. Follow her on Twitter @kmcdonovgh or email her at kmcdonough@salon.com.

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Classism Nelson Mandela Racism Rush Limbaugh Sexism Video