A Lott to Fix

by James A. Landrith, Jr.

December 2002/January 2003

Trent Lott. I asked for his resignation several years ago in a letter that become slightly famous or infamous in the “multiracial” movement, take your pick. “White” supremacists were non too pleased either. It led to a nasty exchange of emails between me, Tom Metzger and his idiot son. Further, a leader of one of the national “multiracial” organizations attempted to seize upon the letter as an opportunity to politically Balkanize the “multiracial” community along the lines of “righteous liberals” and “evil conservatives”. I am neither liberal, nor conservative so I’d ask those so inclined to repeat the mistakes of the past to hold their tongues. No good can come of it and I doubt I’ll be so cordial if this nonsense occurs a second time. In December 1998, the Washington Post among others exposed the fact that Senator Lott maintained a six year long association with the Council of Conservative Citizens, which he lied about for weeks and then finally admitted in the face of mounting evidence. Now, Lott repeats the mistakes of the past with these ridiculous remarks made at a party for Strom Thurmond, espousing his admiration for Thurmond’s 1948 Presidential campaign:

“I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.”

During that campaign, Thurmond said:

“All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches.”

And for supporting this type of candidacy, Trent Lott is proud. Further, he made similar comments 22 years ago at a campaign speech in Jackson, Mississipi with regard to his embrace of Thurmond’s 1948 candidacy. This isn’t a one-time, off-hand utterance. It’s a pattern. A trend. A pathology. Lott needs to come clean and admit his “racism.” Then he needs to resign and go home. And be quickly forgotten. The good ole boy, “I mispoke, ain’t I a stupid redneck” schtick won’t work anymore. Six years of association with the Council of Conservative Citizens kind of makes that a little hard to swallow. Touching on a similar topic, Radley Balko said it quite well September 1999 in The American Partisan regarding stupid remarks by Senator Robert Bennett:

Such “misstatements,” as they’re called, aren’t innocent. This isn’t Freudian psycho-babble. These aren’t ethnic jokes among friends, or silly stereotypes spilled out in relaxed moments (ala Fuzzy Zoeller). These were statements knowingly made by elected officials while on the record. They are evidence of incipient bigotry.

When I’ve spoken out against bigotry on the Left, lefties have called me a right winger. When I’ve spoken out against bigotry on the Right, righties have called me a Marxist. You can’t win with some people, but they haven’t won either, unless they’re able to silence you. This goes double for the paleolibertarians who agree with Lott as well. I ain’t shutting up boys. Lott needs to go. So does Diane Watson and Robert Byrd. For the record, I’d call for Jesse Jackson’s ouster as well, but he holds no elected office. You wouldn’t know it though, from all the hate mail I got from conservatives after my Lott letter in January of 1999. These brain surgeons called me a hypocrite for not calling for Jesse Jackson to resign from public office. As I said before (and hopefully those folks will pay attention this time), Jesse doesn’t hold any public offices, therefore I can’t demand his resignation from said offices. Got it? Or did I use too many big words, again? This doesn’t mean that I don’t object to his bigotry or that of Al Sharpton or Louis Farrakhan. It just means that since they hold no public office, I can’t ask for their resignations. So please, Mr. Righteous Conservative, think before hitting send on that email you’re typing. In the blogosphere, several prominent bloggers have touched upon this issue in the last week. You can read Radley Balko’s take here, D.C. Thornton’s take here, Jonah Goldberg’s take here, Jim Henley’s take here, Josh Marshall’s take here, Andrew Sullivan’s take here and Glenn Reynolds’ take here. Many conservatives have also criticized Lott and/or called for the Majority Leader’s resignation:

Linda Chavez: “Despite Lott’s apology — which came belatedly, only after criticism within Republican and Democrat ranks began to mount — there is no way to explain away his words. Nor were his comments last week the first time he’s gotten into trouble on the race issue. In 1999, Lott addressed a local rally of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a group that has espoused racist positions. At some level, Lott appears to be comfortable in such company and, perhaps, to harbor nostalgia for the South’s segregated past. In a free country, Lott is entitled to his views. But the party of Abraham Lincoln should reject such views and anyone who holds them as its Senate leader.”

Cal Thomas: “Trent Lott might as well be a Democratic Party mole, placed among Republicans to cause his party severe political damage. Republican senators, some of whom have wanted to move in a new direction, must now decide whether Lott is a hindrance to the party. Will it be politics as usual, or will Senate Republicans clearly break with the past and proclaim not only to black Americans, but to all Americans, that their party is the party of emancipation, not segregation?”

Charles Krauthammer: “This is not just the kind of eruption of moronic bias or racial insensitivity that cost baseball executive Al Campanis and sports commentator Jimmy the Greek Snyder their careers. This is something far more important. This is about getting wrong the most important political phenomenon in the last half-century of American history: the civil rights movement. Getting wrong its importance is not an issue of political correctness. It is evidence of a historical blindness that is utterly disqualifying for national office.”

Thomas Sowell: “Anybody can put his foot in his mouth but making it a habit is too much, especially when you are in a position where your ill-considered words can become a permanent albatross around the necks of other people whom you are leading. That is the situation now, in the wake of Senator Trent Lott’s latest gaffe, his widely publicized statement that we would have been better off if Senator Strom Thurmond had been elected president in 1948. Senator Thurmond ran on a platform of continued racial segregation. Does Senator Lott have any idea what racial segregation meant to black Americans — and, indeed, to many white Americans, whose support was essential to passing the landmark civil rights legislation of the 1960s that did away with Jim Crow in the South?”

Further, Robert A. George, writing for National Review comes correct on Lott in this piece:

“In 1998, it was revealed that Lott had spoken several times to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a “racialist”, neo-white supremacist organization. Lott claimed that he didn’t know about their philosophy, believing it to be a benign “conservative” group. In fact, he had written a regular column for the CCC’s “Citizen’s Informer” publication over the course of several years. It’s also rare for any member of Congress to write for an outside group’s publication without getting an idea of what positions the group advocates. Furthermore, Lott’s uncle popped up to say that his nephew well knew what the CCC was about. Just ten years ago, Lott praised the CCC’s philosophy. A year before all this came to light, Lott hosted the CCC in Washington.”

The outrage among liberals, libertarians, conservatives and others is clearly evident. I think that Trent’s time is almost over. It’s about time. I’ll thank him to take Diane Watson and Robert Byrd with him on the way out. James Landrith is the notorious editor and publisher of The Multiracial Activist and The Abolitionist Examiner, two cyber-rags dedicated to freedom from oppressive racial categorization. Landrith can be reached by email at: editor@multiracial.com or at his personal website/blog.