Bush's strategy of racial innuendo a telling and troubling sign Bush's strategy of racial innuendo a telling and troubling sign
By JOHN LEWIS
U.S. Rep. John Lewis is an Atlanta Democrat.
Today our nation comes together as one family to celebrate the life and the work of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., America's greatest human rights advocate of the 20th century. King sacrificed his life to tear down the political, legal, economic and social walls that divide us. Because of his sacrifice, our nation and our world are not the same as they were 30 years ago.
The United States has become the most diverse, the most tolerant and the most accepting nation in the world. In the 35 years since King's death, we have made great strides toward his dream of a beloved community, a community that embraces the diversity of all people, a community at peace with itself. Despite our progress, recent actions by our president and other national leaders are glaring reminders of how far we have to go to build a beloved community.
Today, as we celebrate a man who sought to lead our nation so that he could unite it, we have a president who has been all too willing to divide our nation so that he can lead it. Like too many elected officials, President Bush is willing to use the policies, code words and innuendo of racial division to curry political favor. When it comes to his racial policies, a word is worth a thousand photo ops. On Jan. 15, the anniversary of King's birth, that word was "quota."
Five times Bush used the word "quota" to denounce the University of Michigan's admission policy, a policy that does not use quotas but does include diversity among the many factors of its highly competitive admissions process. Five times Bush uttered racial code words that appeal to the worst within us. Five times he divided our nation into "us" and "them."
Behind the racially charged code words is the message that the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit were wrong when they determined that campus diversity is a "compelling government interest" that justifies narrowly tailored affirmative action programs at universities. Behind the word "quota" is a president declaring that despite the racial disparity on college campuses, his administration is willing to turn back the clock on diversity in higher education.
The president's use of racial innuendo is not an isolated incident but is part of a deliberate political strategy inherited from the Southern segregationist leaders of the past. For Bush, it is a pattern of behavior that dates back at least to his actions during the 2000 South Carolina Republican primary. Trailing John McCain in the polls, George W. Bush resorted to the tried and true Republican Southern Strategy.
He made a pilgrimage to Bob Jones University, whose history of racism and segregation is notorious, to give a major speech. His South Carolina victory propelled him to the White House. Having won the presidency, Bush appointed John Ashcroft as attorney general, the person entrusted with enforcing our nation's laws against racial discrimination.
This is the same John Ashcroft who told Southern Partisan, a racist publication that espouses segregation and celebrates the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, that he shares its values. Last year, Bush campaigned and even raised money for Sonny Perdue, a Georgia Republican who made the previous state flag with its Confederate battle emblem a central theme of his campaign.
And Bush recently renominated a racially divisive judge, Charles Pickering, to the federal bench. Like Trent Lott, Bush has engaged in a pattern of exploiting race for political gain. His approach may be subtler than Lott's, but Bush's words and actions are different symptoms of the same disease, a disease that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spent his life fighting.
King knew that the fight for a truly interracial democracy would take more than a month or a year. It would take a lifetime. King also knew that, for all the racial injustice our nation has endured, we could not move forward without forgiveness. Forgiveness was at the heart of the civil rights movement. Forgiveness allows us to understand that there can be no progress in the future without reconciliation of the past. When Lott uttered racially divisive words several weeks ago, he came to see the harm those words caused.
Lott specifically asked for my forgiveness, and in the spirit of King, I forgave him. It was my hope that, in light of Lott's experience, there would be fewer racial transgressions to forgive. I hoped that Lott would teach us once and for all the terrible damage racist innuendo inflicts on our society. Unfortunately, Bush's words and actions show us that that lesson is not so easily learned.
U.S. Rep. John Lewis is an Atlanta Democrat.
News and Announcements | AAD Home Page