New Deal legislation racially discriminated because it needed southern Democratic votes.

Evidence

To secure the congressional votes of southern Democrats, Roosevelt and northern Democrats crafted these bills such that, to southern Blacks, they seemed more like the Old Deal. Just like in the old days before Roosevelt, segregationists were given the power to locally administer and racially discriminate the relief coming from these federal programs. And segregationists made sure that farmers and domestics—Blacks’ primary vocations—were excluded from the laws’ new job benefits, like minimum wage, social security, unemployment insurance, and unionizing rights. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 868

Categorization

• XREF: This is a textbook instance of Kendi’s core inversion: racist policy (New Deal exclusions) driven by political self-interest (southern votes), not ignorance or hate. — connects to: Racially conservative whites’ defection drove the Southern realignment; Southern Democrats used labor law to block CIO-driven voter realignment — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 211; Targeted Southern Democrats carried anti-union lawmaking to Congress and HUAC — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 226
• DEFINE: Concrete example of what Kendi means by ‘Old Deal’ — segregationist administration of nominally federal relief.