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December 20, 2002/Tevet 15 5763, Vol. 55, No. 17
A Lott to loseEditorialBookends of racial intolerance, supporting sordid chapters in between, document Trent Lott's leadership career.While a student at the University of Mississippi, he led a successful effort to prevent his Sigma Nu fraternity from admitting blacks to its chapters. Almost 40 years later, he proclaimed his pride that his fellow Mississippians voted for segregationist Dixiecrat presidential candidate Strom Thurmond in 1948, adding, "If the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years either." We can't conclude brashly that Lott is a racist; we know, however, what he has said and how he has voted as an elected official in the years between college and today. The pages of his professional career are not a good read. He supported a constitutional amendment to prohibit school busing. He opposed extending the Voting Rights Act that removes voting obstacles for minorities. He voted against establishing Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday. He supported granting tax exempt status to Bob Jones University, an institution that prohibited interracial dating. He voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1990. Several times in the 1980s and 1990s, he appeared with members of the Council of Conservative Citizens, an alleged White Supremacist organization. At CCC's 1992 national board meeting, he remarked: "(You have) the right principles and the right philosophy." On rare occasions, he has backed pro-minority legislation, most often benefiting his Mississippi constituency. For example, he advocated funding for a space research center at traditionally black Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss. Lott has apologized - repeatedly - for his recent Strom Thurmond gaffe. But his words ring hollow when weighed against his litany of no-votes and rhetoric hearkening back to the dark, segregationist, days of Jim Crow. "(Lott's) long-standing pattern of behavior ... can no longer be ignored or tolerated," the Congressional Black Caucus has said. Even Republican President George W. Bush distanced himself from Lott when he said, "Any suggestion that the segregated past was acceptable or positive is offensive and it is wrong." Lott's poor judgment and dismal voting record reveal that he is ill-prepared to lead our pluralistic, diverse 21st-century America, so far-removed in decades and principles from his segregationist past. It's time for the Senate Republicans to write the final chapter on Trent Lott's leadership by choosing a new majority leader when the Senate reconvenes Jan. 6. |
