Posted on 12/17/2002 10:22:53 AM PST by Chi-townChief
Sen. Trent Lott is in trouble. His suggestion that the country would be better off if it had elected Strom Thurmond's pro-segregation Dixiecrat Party in 1948 has embarrassed Republicans. Lott, selected by his colleagues as the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate, has revealed too much--particularly for a party that rose to power by offering sanctuary to Southern whites after the civil rights movement.
Belatedly, Lott is denouncing racism and segregation and apologizing for his remarks. But Lott's problem--and that of the Republicans who selected him as their leader--is that his rhetoric fits his record. The pronouncement is part of a pattern, a practice and a policy.
Ironically, Lott's comments initially drew little attention. The press slighted them. African Americans complained, but it took days before Al Gore called the comments ''racist,'' which they surely were. The president said nothing until it was clear that Lott's statements were not going to go away.
But Lott's comments were not an aberration. Once the sleepy press started to look, they found ample evidence of Lott's racial attitudes and policies. In 1980, for example, he made similar remarks about Thurmond's candidacy. In the 1980s, Lott led the fight to allow tax exemptions for Bob Jones University and others that enforce racial discrimination.
In 1982, Lott voted against the extension of the Voting Rights Act that protects the right of African Americans to vote in the South. (Thurmond voted for it.) In 1983, Lott voted against the Martin Luther King holiday (Thurmond voted for it). In the 1990s, Lott was censured for his involvement in the successor to the White Citizens Council, a group so racist the American Conservative Union kicked it out. In 2001, Lott cast the only Senate vote against African-American Roger Gregory, who became the first black member on the Fourth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals.
Lott could be elected to lead Republicans in the Senate because this record of playing racial politics was not offensive to them; it was an expression of their strategy.
For example, Lott helped convince Ronald Reagan to open his 1980 presidential campaign by talking about states' rights in Philadelphia, Miss., the town known only for the murder of three civil rights workers in the summer of 1964. Voters in the North didn't understand what that meant, but white and black voters in the South got the message clearly. Lott promised Reagan he would be the first Republican to win Mississippi since Reconstruction.
When asked about a statement he made at the Convention of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Biloxi, Miss.--that ''the spirit of Jefferson Davis (the former head of the Confederacy) lives in the 1984 Republican Platform,'' Lott responded: ''I think that a lot of the fundamental principles that Jefferson Davis believed in are very important to people across the country, and they apply to the Republican Party.''
All this is aggravating for a president who has nominated to the federal court a series of candidates committed to overturning civil rights laws and precedents. In 1948, the party of Lott's preferred candidate for president, Thurmond, distributed sample ballots warning a vote for Truman would be a vote to pass the ''so-called civil rights program in the next Congress,'' meaning that ''anti-lynching and anti-segregation proposals will become the law of the land and our way of life in the South will be gone forever.''
Will Republicans line up to vote Lott as their leader again? This is a party rebuilt on a ''Southern strategy'' that made it the party of white sanctuary, but now is anxiously trying to figure out how to attract minority voters. So dealing with Lott is tricky. They can denounce segregation and lynching, that's easy enough. But if they discard Lott, they may open the door for a broader look at their racial politics.
If they don't discard him, they will have to vote for a man whose views are simply out of step with America--and out of step with the new South. If Lott doesn't resign, we'll find out in January just how far the party of Lincoln has strayed from his principles.
The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr. is founder and president of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.
Thats not true. I met a black guy from Philadelphia, MS just this past weekend and he told me that rascism in Philadelphia is not overt. They actually have tried to change there. He actually thought some parts of Chicago were worse.
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It's all about gaining political leverage and power.
Did you notice that on network ABC radio for 7 hours, Don Rickles was the Senator from OK before they finally made Nickles a Senator? Makes you wonder about the messenger.
Note that the media is not giving credit to the fact that it is the ideological conservatives who predicted this a long time ago and opposed Lott because of the expectation that he would fumble the ball.
Note that it is the establishment Republicans who are lining up behind Lott and playing the spoiled brat game.
In Nov-Dec '64 (right after the Goldwater election) I hitchhiked from Chicago to Philadelphia (and Brookhaven, Hattiesburg, and all over Miss). Mayor Daley's Bridgeport neighborhood was definitely more dangerous at that time (and 30 years later) for a Black person. But how does one measure overt vs covert racism? When people don't go into another neighorhood because they think they know what will happen, is the overt or covert? Does it matter whether the fear was justified or not?
On going into Black areas of Chicago, and to Miss, I was told that as a White, I would be killed. As it turned out, when I was a victim of crime, it was at the hands of White City Employees on Mayor Daley's block in Bridgeport, and White Dem machine politicians in my inner city mixed area.
I never felt danger or heard threats from militants of either side: Malcolm X supporters, King death rioters and Black Panthers in Chitown...KKK, WCC, etc in Miss. The threats were always from the establishment that did not want any independent action they could not contol. So often what is interpreted as racism is just not wanting to lose what control a group or individual might have.
Now being from Chicago, I can tell you that when you went to Mayor Daley's Bridgeport was not a nice area for Afirican Americans. Neither is Berwyn.
Well Je$$e, we found out a couple of Januarys ago how far YOU strayed from your principles (marriage) so what the heck?
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