Posted on 12/15/2002 8:37:09 AM PST by Chi-townChief
At a time when our country is facing the ills of terrorism and war, we need to be unified. But if our country is to ever put our painful past behind us, we must make sure that those who still harbor racist views are never placed in national leadership positions.
When Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott made the insulting, insensitive, racist and now-infamous remarks at Sen. Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party, his intent, undoubtedly, was to salute and honor Thurmond. However, he succeeded in doing little more than opening the nation's old wounds of segregation and dropping the veil on his true desires and beliefs.
Lott stated that if the rest of the country had followed the lead of Mississippi and voted for Dixiecrat presidential candidate Strom Thurmond, ''we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years.'' This belief drips with the venom of segregation and takes us back to the days of Jim Crow. That was a time in our nation's history when basic civil rights were denied African Americans and ''social intermingling of the races'' was deemed undesirable and unacceptable. The Dixiecrats sought to preserve this way of life in America, and it appears Lott seeks to do so today.
Many Americans of varying races, religions, creeds and colors marched, fought and died to see Jim Crow policies become dead and buried. So we cannot tolerate any national leader's covert or overt effort to resurrect them.
Lott has since apologized and described his remarks as ''a poor choice of words.'' Yet the national media have revealed that he has made strikingly similar comments as long ago as 1980, when he, again, was endorsing Thurmond. This revelation undermines his apology. His plea for penitence is shallow because the transgression is repeated. So, were those truly a poor choice of words, or is that his true intent? It is my belief that whatever the answer is, Lott's credibility as a national leader is unequivocally and irrevocably damaged.
I think the only conclusion to come to is that Trent Lott, a man who clearly lives in the past, is not the right man to lead the Senate into the future.
Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.)
If we cannot find Lott unworthy of a leadership position who would be unworthy? It's up to his constituents to decide if he belongs in the senate.
Where are you now, Rep. Bobby L. Rush?
Speak up, child.
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