Before the Democratic Convention began, I inquired of the supposedly very race-conscious Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — through her press office — of the following:

Dear Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez:

This is Jeffrey Lord from The American Spectator.

With the approach of the Democratic National Convention amid the current racial turmoil in America, and the announcement that you will be speaking at the convention, will you be introducing a resolution that calls on your party to apologize for its repeated support for slavery, Jim Crow laws, and the Ku Klux Klan?

Congressman Louie Gohmert of Texas has introduced a Privileged Resolution in the House quite specifically listing the Democratic Party platforms supporting slavery. There were five: 1840, 1844, 1848, 1852, 1856. He has also specifically cited efforts by your party that “systematically suppressed African-Americans’ right to vote” and condemned your party’s support for the Ku Klux Klan.

Is it not time for your party to adopt a resolution apologizing for its repeated support of slavery, segregation and the Ku Klux Klan? And will you be introducing a resolution demanding that your party finally apologize for all of this? And if not — why not?

And the answer to my question of whether the Congresswoman would propose a resolution at the DNC that demands her party apologize for its well–on the record support over the centuries for slavery, segregation, and the Klan?

Silence. Stone-cold silence. For that matter no move on getting the party to apologize has been made by the supposedly race-conscious members of AOC’s so-called “Squad.” CBS News describes the Squad this way:

They are known as “the Squad” — four progressive Democratic congresswomen of color who have become the new face of the Democratic Party, whether you like it or not. All four were elected to the House last year and became part of the most diverse Congress in U.S. history.

Progressive? How “progressive” can they possibly be if they cannot denounce their party’s repeated outright racist policies, policies that Texas Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert detailed in his landmark House Resolution? As I wrote in this space the other week, Congressman Gohmert has called out Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her party for the party’s repeated, on-the-record support for slavery, segregation, and the Klan, not to mention its deep ties to the Confederacy.

As Congressman Gohmert wrote in Breitbart:

Many on the left and their willing accomplices in the media would tell you otherwise, yet a cursory examination of our nation’s factual history and records proves the riots and chaos that have swept across our country in recent months stand as a devastating reminder of the racist policies and values held by the Democratic Party throughout much of its history.

Because of this, I introduced a privileged resolution in the House calling upon Congress to acknowledge the indecorous history of the Democratic Party. I asked that the Speaker of the House be instructed to ban any political organization or political party that ever publicly supported slavery or the Confederate States of America.…

On June 18th of this year, Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered the removal of portraits from the Capitol building honoring four previous Speakers of the House — all of whom were Democrats. That was a good start on the job that she should now finish if she is going to avoid blatant hypocrisy.…

Efforts by Democrats to destroy all public traces of their own history of supporting slavery, the Confederacy, and segregation in an attempt to shift blame onto Republicans must no longer go unchallenged. It is time for Democrats to play by their own rules, and accept the standards they have forced onto everyone else. They must divest themselves of their name that has denied so many the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Their recent actions demand nothing less. Instead of canceling our culture and history, it’s time to #CancelDemocrats.

Suddenly the supposedly very race-conscious Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and her Squad colleagues fell unaccountably silent. Just as she fell silent to me when specifically asked if she would use the Democratic Convention to demand, at long last, an apology for her party’s blatant racism.

The Congresswoman even had a literal minute at the virtual DNC podium in which she could have introduced her resolution — and mysteriously the virtual cat had her virtual tongue.

All of which means one very simple thing. Like her slave-owning, segregationist, Klan-supporting Democrat Party forebears, race for AOC and the Squad is nothing more than a tool to be used to push the progressive agenda of the moment.

Shameful. But good to know — and remember.