Take a Load Off, Rusty

GOP activist Rusty DePass called a press conference to apologize for some racist remarks he made. Hmm, where did he go to hold this press conference?

Ahh.  He went to visit Dr. Lonnie Randolph, President of the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP.  The look on Dr. Lonnie Randolph’s face is priceless.  He would much rather be somewhere helping people, and rightly so.

OK, so why is Rusty DePass speaking over at the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP? Hmm, I’m suddenly recalling a group of Republicans at a press conference.  What was that?

Oh, yeah, it was Rep. Moss switching parties to join the Republicans.  Is Rusty DePass switching parties?  I don’t think so.  The people around Rep. Moss seem happy to have him with them.  Not so for the people around Rusty DePass.

I can’t figure out what’s going on.  It’s time to consult the man who understands — the Rev. Joe Darby.  Thankfully, he has written an op-ed in The State, “The silence on the right.”  In that op-ed, he described how many people from the right-wing perspective ordinarily lecture (or insult or ridicule or spew hate at) leaders in the African American community.

As I wrote here, I would love for Rev. Darby and everyone who gets hate mail to publish it.  The trouble is that it’s often anonymous.  But still, it would be worthwhile for people to know what kind of horrific junk mail people such as Rev. Darby get.

Anyway, Rev. Darby made an excellent appeal,

“The election of President Obama allows us a unique opportunity to deal openly and frankly with issues of division that have long kept America from becoming what it should be. I encourage my conservative friends to take the leap of political and ideological faith, embrace that opportunity, disavow those who dwell on the fringes of society and lurk in the shadows of bigotry and hate, and lead their followers to the table of mutual respect, dialogue and understanding.”

OK, so that’s what’s happening.  Rusty DePass is switching over from the table of bigotry and hate to the table of mutual respect, dialogue and understanding.  Excellent.

Now, who of our conservative friends will follow Rusty DePass?  Who will join Rusty DePass at the table of mutual respect, dialogue and understanding?

Rusty DePass was welcomed at the State Conference of the NAACP.  But now we can see the main reason Dr. Randolph looks unimpressed.  He’s asking Rusty DePass, Why didn’t you come here before you had to?  Why didn’t you bring followers?  Are you going to come back on your own?  Are you going to bring followers then?

Rev. Darby and Dr. Randolph are saying, The table of mutual respect, dialogue and understanding is set.  We can be ready with food for nourishing the body, mind and spirit whenever you want.  You can come because you’re forced to or because you want to.  You can come alone or with followers.  But please come, for our sake and for yours.

Sooner, rather than later.  And the more the merrier.

Come Out and Keep Talking

Back on this post, “The Purpose of Reaching Out,” I described a strategy for change that can be summed up by, “keep ‘em talking.”  This strategy, when it was combined with something else, worked well for Harvey Milk, as he defeated proposition 6.  Here, in this post, I describe the something else, the historical challenges for creating change, and a new strategy.

The something else: One key element of Harvey Milk’s strategy, and something that he is well known for, is calling for people to ”come out.”  Leave the closet.  Let people know that you’re gay or lesbian, if you are.  In this way, your plight (in how the proposition would affect you), becomes known to your fellow citizens.  And then they are more likely to support you, a fellow human being, than some hateful proposition.

The new strategy (part one of two): Come out.  Blacks, Jews, gays, Catholics, women, liberals, yankees, everyone who is targeted by the violent intolerants, such as the evil man who shot and killed at the Holocaust Museum, come out.  Let people know about the insults, the hate mail, the bomb threats, the despicable things that you typically ignore or refrain from publishing because you don’t want to be seen as causing trouble.

Do what the awesome Kathy Sierra did when she was faced with something hateful and threatening.  She said, “Death threats against bloggers are NOT ‘protected speech.’”  Publish the evil photos, statements, audio messages, videos, etc.  Let your friends, neighbors, coworkers, everyone know the vile garbage that you are faced with.

Be cautious, sure.  Not every little thing is worth mentioning and calling people racists can often be counterproductive.  The terrific Anthony Palmer described the situation thusly:

Why are some people so reluctant to acknowledge that the issue of race is a bigger and more persistent problem than they may think? (It’s amazing that people are still saying things like “Hang that darky from a tree!” in 2008.) And by the same token, why are some people so eager to tar others as racists at the slightest perceived injustice?

So, I’m advising that you report the facts and that you tell people how you feel. Don’t call people racists.  Report the actions, and let others reach their conclusions.  

The problems (the historical challenges for creating change):  MLK called for direct action as well as legislation and litigation.  He told supporters to fill up the jails.  It worked.  But now, they’ve built more and more jails.  We lock up far too many people in our free country, so many that one could argue that the 13th amendment allows (instead of abolishes) slavery.  The direct action strategy will not work.

Harvey Milk kept the extremists talking.  He challenged them on their home turf, and he trusted the media to report fairly, accurately, and thoroughly.  But now, the newspapers are folding, and Fox News and the right-wing talk radio talk all the time, spinning issues unfairly and inaccurately. 

Even when good newspapers report on people and issues, they focus exclusively on the horse race and function almost purely as PR outlets.  There is no independent reporting that provides people with fair, accurate and thorough information.  The keep ‘em talking strategy will not work.

And we still have to deal with the time-old tactics of our opponents: They lie.  They change the subject.  They seek to confuse the issue.  Here’s the brilliant Leonard Pitts describing the efforts of Newt Gingrich and others to derail Sonia Sotomayor:

Read the mewling of white victimization that rises any time blacks or browns are perceived as having won some victory over discrimination. There is to it a breathtaking cynicism and a willingness to manipulate for political gain one of the rawest places in the psyche of a nation. The goal is not to persuade. It is to muddy the water, confuse the debate. Because when you can’t win the argument, confusing it works almost as well.

The new strategy (part two of two):  We keep talking, anywhere and everywhere we can, and we use the broken record strategy to repeat, repeat, repeat exactly what we want.  We want to fly our state flag out in front of our State House.

Let’s take a second to regain our sense of humor.  Bill Cosby has a great story/joke about one morning when he made breakfast for his kids.  His wife asked him to do it, and he responded by asking her questions, such as “What should I make for them?” “Where are the pots and pans?” “Do we have any eggs?” ”Should I have them drink orange juice or milk?”.  So, he’s stalling, pretending to engage in the issue, but actually trying to avoid doing what his wife asked.

In much the same way, when we ask our fellow South Carolinians to take down the Confederate flag, some of the stallers and confusers respond, “Are you calling me a racist and insulting my great grandfather?”  Um.  No.  I’m saying that the Confederate flag is not the state flag of South Carolina.  Out in front of our State House, we should fly our state flag, not some other flag, regardless of how precious that other flag is to you.  Capice?

Looking for a Breakthrough

Gwen Ifill’s new book “The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama” is good, and it mentions a couple of South Carolina stories: (1) the successful beginning of the political career of SC State Rep. Bakari Sellers and (2) the SC Democratic Primary victory of Barack Obama.  Here’s Gwen Ifill’s description of the famous “Race doesn’t matter!” chant at the victory party:

“On the night Barack Obama won the South Carolina Primary, his supporters could barely contain themselves.  Bouncing back from a surprise defeat two weeks before in New Hampshire, the double-digit victory thrilled the multiracial crowd gathered that night in the heart of the South.  When their candidate appeared, they took up a chant.

‘Race doesn’t matter! Race doesn’t matter!’ they shouted in a chant that built and spread throughout the room.  Standing at the foot of the stage in a ballroom just blocks from the state capitol, Obama’s pollster, Cornell Belcher, watched in astonishment.

‘Here you are in South Carolina, three blocks from where the Confederate flag is still flying in front of the state capitol and all the history that has held in that state,’ Belcher, who is black, told me [Gwen Ifill] later.”

This “Race doesn’t matter!” chant describes a hunger that young people have for a breakthrough on race in this country.  Young people these days are so interested and involved in international events, activites, and cultures. 

But our leaders in South Carolina are stuck in the past.  Bud Ferillo said it best at a showing of his Corridor of Shame movie in Georgetown, SC: “What South Carolina invests the most in is the past.”

SC State Sen. Glenn F. McConnell, President Pro Tempore of the Senate, and member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans’ Secession Camp #4, spent $30,000 of his own money to buy … new technology, new communication, new something, new anything … a new civil war cannon.  And he’s spending millions of our state’s money on the Hunley, a Confederate submarine – I don’t know what his plans are, perhaps he’s interested in retrofitting the Hunley for active service!

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama is continuing to make breakthroughs with regard to race and politics, and he should be applauded for his Memorial Day gesture:

“…Mr. Obama continued the Confederate monument wreath tradition. But he also started another, the White House said, by sending a second wreath across the Potomac River to the historically black neighborhood in Washington where the African American Civil War Memorial commemorates more than 200,000 blacks who fought for the North in the Civil War.” 

Unfortunately, Dr. Randolph, President of the SC State Conference of the NAACP, instead is “drafting a letter on behalf of the state chapter of the NAACP to criticize the president’s action,” as reported by the excellent Yvonne Wenger of the Charleston Post and Courier.

Look, the Confederate soldiers, in President Obama’s words, “answered a call.”  The state leaders of South Carolina caused the Civil War by seceding, and these leaders called up soldiers to fight for South Carolina.  It’s quite similar to the starting of any other war, for example the Vietnam War or the War in Iraq.  Criticizing the reasons for the wars and the motivations of the political leaders involves a political discussion.  We should criticize the political leaders, not the soldiers.

We all want to get past this issue, and I want to get past it in the way that President Barack Obama wants to get past it, which is to break through it.

The Purpose of Reaching Out

The purpose of reaching out to extremists is to keep them talking so that everyone can see (1) how extreme they are and (2) how reasonable you are.  Then you can achieve your goal, because the people will adopt your goal as their own.

For example, the excellent movie Milk shows Harvey Milk doing everything he possibly can to keep the extremists talking, and it works!  No, the extremists didn’t change at all, but their position, as expressed in their bill, lost.

This is what we must do in South Carolina. 

We must be as reasonable as possible as we reach out to the extremists in our state legislature and keep them talking.  If they won’t change, then we can vote them out.  We can get a reasonable legislature elected and get our reasonable bills passed.  We can end payday lending, raise the cigarette tax, expand early voting, and take down the Confederate flag.

This is what we must do in the USA and around the world.

There is much ado from the right about President Barack Obama’s interest in talking with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran.  They say that President Obama is being extremely naive and egotistical if he thinks that talking to President Ahmadinejad will get Iran to change.  But they’re missing the entire point.

Sure, it would be wonderful if, after a conversation with President Obama, President Ahmadinejad made major changes in Iran.  And yes, President Obama is an excellent speaker and conversationalist: if anyone could convice President Ahmadinejad to get Iran to change, it would be President Obama.

But no one, not even President Obama, thinks that talking to President Ahmadinejad will get Iran to change.  President Obama knows that President Ahmadinejad is an extremist who’s not going to change.   So, what is President Obama doing?  Here’s how The New York Times described President Obama’s Iran strategy:

“The logic of his Iran strategy is to give Tehran a chance to come in from the cold with offers of engagement and economic and security incentives. If Tehran does not take him up on the offer — early signs are not hopeful — he must build support for tougher international sanctions to constrain Iran’s nuclear program.” [Editorial, April 24, 2009]

When President Obama reaches out to President Ahmadinejad, the world sees clearly that President Ahmadinejad is extreme and President Obama is reasonable.  Iran doesn’t change.  The world changes.  The people of Iran change.  And then President Obama continues to be reasonable as he gets the world and the Iranian people to require Iran to change.

What’s important to see is that giving Tehran a chance is, in fact, the crucial and critical first step in building support for tougher international sanctions.  Skipping this step is a huge mistake.

This was President George W. Bush’s mistake with Iraq.  The world agreed with us that President Saddam Hussein was an extremist.  The world implemented a solution that was working — weapons inspections.  But then, President Bush decided to tell and to show the world that he was unreasonable.  He chose to invade Iraq before the world was ready.

People in the USA and around the world kept asking, “Why Saddam Hussein (and not other extremist dictators)?  Why now, when the weapons inspection process is working so well?”  The answers that people came up with were, “Well, I guess the fear of 9/11 has made President Bush into an unreasonable person.”

We cannot afford to keep making this mistake, not in the world, not in the USA, and not in South Carolina.  We cannot skip the reaching out step.  In fact, we must always and constantly reach out to demonstrate our reasonableness.