Where's the Outrage? Slurs Go Largely Unanswered

This month, I had the chance to see the best and worst of America's progress on race. In Bennettsville, S.C., citizens of every color joined in a joyous grand opening of the Marian Wright Edelman Public Library of Marlboro County. It was a homecoming for the founder of the Children's Defense Fund, who was prevented from using the town's library and other public facilities when she was growing up because of the color of her skin.

It took many decades for Hugh McColl, who grew up 100 yards and an impassable racial distance from Edelman, to become close friends with the famed civil rights lawyer and children's activist. McColl, the retired chief executive of Bank of America and another famous Bennettsville native, eloquently described the road that the country and his town have traveled as "a journey of democracy." That Marlboro County and its public schools are still mired in poverty could not overshadow the hope and optimism of the day.

You wanted to believe that the sign above the front door -- "Welcome to Everyone" -- extended beyond the space of a small-town library to include America in 2010 and its diverse people with diverse points of view.

But this month also saw a detour on McColl's journey in the threats and violence that marred the contentious debate over the health care reform bill.

On March 20, a small group of health-care protesters shouted racial slurs at black lawmakers, according to House members and staff. A spokesman for Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II of Missouri said someone spat on the congressman as he walked to the Capitol. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was subjected to anti-gay slurs.

At first, it was shocking. For a lot of people, the notion of yelling out gay insults or racist names is unimaginable; if it's on the tip of your tongue, there is something seriously wrong. There are those who question if any of it even happened. That's not something you want to make up; unfortunately, you don't have to. Some thought it was much ado about a few incidents. Is one too many?

If the person shouting a racial slur at Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) walked into a library like the one in Marlboro County, he would discover why this American patriot is worthy of praise and gratitude even if you don't agree with his politics. He rose from an Alabama sharecropper's son to U.S. congressman, making history along the way. Lewis put his life on the line in the cause of human rights, believing in America's promise even while being beaten unconscious for what he calls "the beloved community."

For "his extraordinary courage, leadership and commitment to civil rights," Lewis was awarded the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2001. His ethics and moral principles have "won him the admiration of many of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle," his congressional Web site reads.

Lewis must have been wondering where all those colleagues were when he was being called names, until he looked up on the House balcony outside the chamber and saw some of them grinning and encouraging the bill's opponents with signs and support.

That, not the "N-word," or the "F-word" directed at Barney Frank, is the chilling part of this noxious piece of political theater. The racial slurs disturbed me about as much as they did Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, who said he told hecklers: "I am the hardest person in the world to intimidate."

There are always going to be idiots on the left and right who go too far, who have hateful words at the ready and need little provocation to spew. As someone who sees the danger in painting members of any group with too broad a brush, and dislikes it when it's done to me, I would never judge the Tea Party movement or the Washington protesters by the actions of a few on the fringe. Discontented citizens have a right, even a duty, to express their views.

But where were the unequivocal denunciations of even one instance of hate speech by people who should know better? A few Republican leaders expressed disapproval, but those words usually came with reservations.

Others excused it. Rep. Devin Nunes of California told C-SPAN: "Yeah, well, I think that when you use totalitarian tactics, people, you know, begin to act crazy. I think, you know, there's people that have every right to say what they want. If they want to smear someone, they can do it."

Let's leave aside the calling of a democratically elected president and Congress "totalitarian." Excusing hate-speech -- under any circumstance -- is disgraceful. If your child lobbed a gob of spit at a teacher he disagreed with or ended a classmate confrontation with a slur, would that behavior be justified as long as the issue at stake was judged worthy? Would faxing a hand-drawn noose be going too far? While schools have adopted anti-bullying rules, a few government officials are elevating bullies to keepers of the democratic flame.

As Republicans have been targeted, as well, we now have a battle on the best way to react to a threat: talk about it or maintain a stoic silence. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) says he won't release threatening e-mails because it would only encourage more to be sent. He accused Democrats of using the threats for political gain. Only a wimp, it seems, calls out hooligans -- another lesson for the kiddies.

While covering the Tea Party convention in Nashville, delegates who were personally nice to me talked a lot about "taking the country back," and I would always ask, from whom? If they are the "real Americans," the only ones whose opinions count, I asked, who are the fake ones? The ones who voted for President Obama and Congressman Lewis? At the convention, Tom Tancredo was cheered when he said Obama was elected because "we do not have a civics literacy test before people can vote."

It is disingenuous for a Tea Party member to suggest that anyone with a sense of history could hear those words and not discern the racial code and, perhaps, think, "Here we go again."

So why are Republicans wading so gingerly into this toxic stew? Their carefully parsed statements seem designed not to lose one vote, even if it comes from a gauntlet that a congressional colleague must wade through. That it all may boil down to cynical calculation is depressingly familiar.

After he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, President Lyndon Johnson was said to have predicted that the Democratic Party would lose the South for a generation. When Republicans are challenged on matters of race today, they often point to the Republican support of that bill – led by Sen. Everett Dirksen of Illinois -- conveniently ignoring the Southern strategy that proved Johnson right. It's this strategy that led my Republican parents to change their perspective, though not their political party.

Newt Gingrich, one of the modern-day spokesmen for the party of Abraham Lincoln, recalled that history when he was quoted in The Washington Post as saying that if Democrats pass health-care legislation, "They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years." He later backed away from the original interpretation of his remarks by saying he didn't mean Johnson should have opposed civil rights. He blamed Johnson instead for overreaching on the economy, Vietnam and the follow-up to civil rights reform, such as busing to integrate schools.

So that's what he meant. It wasn't a warning to Democrats to consider the political implications of a vote they may believe in for moral reasons. Later in the week, Gingrich was back in the news, saying Democrats bear some responsibility for the rage directed at them.

After we talked about how thrilled Marian Wright Edelman was to be sitting in a library that gives young people in her home community a place to prepare themselves for their future in America, I asked Edelman what she thought of the mood in Washington. While she didn't think Jim Clyburn's "stiff spine" was in any danger, she said: "We've got to re-instill in our children and our public discourse a sense of civility, a sense of mutual respect."

"It's a sad state about the shrill voices and the negativism that's overtaken this country. Good people have to stand up and drown them out."

Whether the lessons of this past week count as a step back or just a bump in the long road this country has traveled will depend on those good people.