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December 27, 2002/Tevet 22 5763, Vol. 55, No. 18
Lott reminds us that history matters
JONATHAN S. TOBIN
Philadelphia Jewish Exponent
Does knowledge of our political history count for something in this country? For those who doubted that, the past week's headlines have certainly made the point clear.
The controversy over the remarks made by Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) about the desirability of Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond being elected president in 1948 has provided us with an unexpected look at our own political history. And it reminds us that though we believe we have arrived at something like consensus over issues like race, a troublesome minority still is fighting the conflicts of another era.
Though one would think the echoes of the Civil War long ago have been drowned out, this central event in American history still seems to have the power to contort and distort American culture and politics.
With Lott's resignation following his repeated apologies and the accompanying political maneuvering, it would be easy to dismiss this imbroglio as just a case of a political foot-in-mouth disease.
Already factors such as President George W. Bush's deft maneuvering to orchestrate Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) as the incoming majority leader are now being talked about more loudly than anything else.
But as the 24-hour TV news channels obsess about the latest twists and turns of this story, it is still important for Americans to think seriously about what this strange piece of political theater really means.
Considering that Americans are a people who are, by and large, not terribly concerned or particularly knowledgeable about history, it may be odd that so much attention would be devoted to the question of whom we think should have won the 1948 presidential election.
Indeed, how many Americans are aware that in that election, three serious candidates contended for the top spot against President Harry S. Truman? Truman beat the odds and defeated Republican New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey, the Progressive Party's Henry Wallace, as well as Thurmond.
Had Lott expressed the wish that Wallace had won, I doubt that we would be discussing the end of his political career. But to say that is not to excuse him, because that argument is about something that is dead, namely communism. But the detritus of American racism is with us yet.
Lott's counter-factual whimsy about a party that was devoted solely to depriving some Americans of their civil rights cannot be divorced from the history that flows both forward and backward from that point in time. The Mississippian's comments speak volumes about the way too many of us have shoved the American nightmare of racial hatred and slavery into the back of our heads without understanding the meaning of the symbols of this era.
As it turned out, in the same week that Lott was trying desperately to save his career, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas spoke eloquently from the bench during oral arguments concerning a Virginia law banning the burning of crosses. Thomas reminded his colleagues that cross burning, a horrific symbol of the Ku Klux Klan's reign of terror, is a symbol of hate that should not be treated as protected free speech.
Thomas was right, but nostalgia in some quarters for the old Confederacy is by no means limited to the remnants of the Klan. I don't begrudge those Americans whose relatives were Confederate veterans a measure of pride in their ancestors. But I still find it hard to believe that flying the Confederate battle flag - a symbol of racism and, yes, treason - is, in some states still a political battle many choose to fight.
And though I am fond of Civil War history, don't any of the accountants, lawyers and doctors camping out in period costumes of butternut and gray reenacting Civil War battles think there is something creepy about honoring a cause that sought to protect human slavery?
And that goes double for those who have devoted themselves to preserving the memory and defending the good names of the tiny number of American Jews who served the Confederacy. Judah P. Benjamin may have been the first Jew to serve as an American Secretary of State, but I don't find this accomplishment a source of Jewish pride.
If so many of us can be so cavalier about this sort of thing, who can be surprised by what Lott said?
Race is no longer the primary focus of civil strife in this country, though some prefer to pretend that it still is. Ending segregation is a battle that has been fought and won.
The point about this controversy is that if America has truly risen above its racist past, then no one in our top political leadership should be allowed to get away with making light of an event such as the Thurmond candidacy. What Lott and others who think like him have done is to reinforce the idea that we have not left that chapter behind. And that is a sin for which he deserved to pay a heavy price.
Some may look at the Lott affair and be puzzled at this obsession over history. But they shouldn't be. History counts, and the sooner more Americans take that concept seriously the better off we will all be.
Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia. E-mail him at jtobin@jewishexponent.com.
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