Beyond disgusting:
The flier, which provides the name and telephone number of Rev. George Brooks of Murfreesboro, Tenn., has been in circulation since at least last Thursday. On Monday, Brooks took responsibility for the broadside, saying, “I sent that out.”
…
Brooks said he sent the flier because the 9th Congressional District is “about 90-something percent black. That’s the reason.” According to the latest U.S. Census, in 2000, the district was 59.7 percent black.
According to an editorial in yesterday’s Memphis Commercial Appeal, Cohen’s primary oppponent, Nikki Tinker, had been slow to condemn the flier. A newer AP article says she was “incensed” by it.
Previously, Rep. Cohen has been attacked by clergy in the district for supporting a federal anti-hate crimes bill, a measure favored by the NAACP. Cohen also says that no one ever questioned Rep. Harold Ford (his predecessor in the seat) for supporting this bill, too. One clergyman responded:
“He’s not black and he can’t represent me, that’s just the bottom line,” said Rev. Robert Poindexter of Mt. Moriah Baptist Church.
It goes without saying that racist and antisemitic attacks have absolutely no place anywhere in the world, and especially not in American politics.
That’s how it feels whenever I see hypocrisy like this. One minority has absolutely no business hating another minority. Where is empathy? Where is insight? Hell, where is knowledge of history???? American Jews displayed tremendous solidarity with the black community during the Civil Rights Movement. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., worked closely with Rabbi Jacob Rothschild of the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation of Atlanta to organize the movement at its beginning. Furthermore, the only non-African-American who gave a speech at the culmination of Dr. King’s March on Washington was Rabbi Joachim Prinz of Temple B’nai Abraham in New Jersey. Rabbi Prinz, himself a Holocaust survivor, spoke of the necessity for solidarity between the black and Jewish communities, as both shared a history of persecution.
I take note of this because, as a proud Jewish citizen, I hope to continue moving forward to eradicate racism, anti-Semitism, and any other form of irrational, knee-jerk hatred. One of the main reasons I align myself with the Democratic Party is the simple fact that, whether covertly or overtly, the GOP uses underlying prejudices as simple tools to manipulate the public. That’s bad enough; when I see it happening within our party, it breaks my heart.
He won that seat fair and square, and now the sore-loser Memphis machine wants it back. He’s a fine Congressman, probably better than the district deserves. Anti-war, pro-choice, not particularly afraid of gay folks, and a co-sponsor of the bill to impeach the Vice President.
Send him some cash, to fight this slander with, at his own website:
http://www.cohenforcongress.com/
or at the ActBlue slate below:
http://www.actblue.com/page/20…
This kind of crap still happens in A.D. 2008?
people, Nikki Tinker did the same thing last time, sent out attack fliers, saying he couldn’t represent the district jsut because he was white. Tinker is a business conservative like Harold Ford, a former corporate exec, and a district that gave Kerry 78% of the vote has no business being perpetually represented by highly conservative blue dog democrats with their eyes on state office. Cohen has infinitely more experience than Tinker, better views. Last year she tried to used racism and anti-semitism to beat him, it failed. But that was with the black vote split up among several “local” candidates. Hopefully it will continue to fail, and voters will not vote for some one solely because of race.
Fwiw, Steve Cohen tried to join the CBC but they said no. He has done a heckuva lot better job for this district than Harold Ford or his minions and successors.
what is the next step? What is being done locally to heal this rift?
Outrage is easy. Outreach and sharing the same room is hard. But that’s the only way breaches like this get repaired…people of good will sitting together to chart a course.
My father is Jewish, as is his entire family. Racism and anti-semitism are disgusting, but it will continue as long as we allow it. Before Marty Chavez dropped out of the Senate race here, he was doing the same types of things (not nearly to this extent, mind you, but still, pretty bad), one of the things which can also be done is to right a letter to the editor to a local newspaper. Here’s a copy of something I’ve written:
“I’m writing in response to a statement made by Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez concerning Representative Tom Udall which was published in the New York Times. In the article, Chavez refers to Udall as being the “fair-haired boy” of Senators Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate leader and Charles Schumer who is the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, who worked on recruiting Udall for the senate race. This, in itself, might be seen as a simple jab about getting “outside support” which reasonable people can disagree with, however; when taken with Mayor Chavez’s emphasis on his Hispanic heritage, he seems to be calling Reid and Schumer, as well as Udall, racists. The real irony is that no one affiliated with Reid, the DSCC or Udall’s campaign has even made any sort of hint that Chavez shouldn’t be running because of his Hispanic background or that Udall himself is better because he is not Hispanic. In fact, it is Chavez himself who has been trying to say that he should be elected to the Senate BECAUSE he is a Hispanic, which one might argue, makes him the real racist of this campaign. This is not the only race where a candidate’s race or gender has been used as a political tool. In Tennessee, freshman Congressman Steve Cohen represents a district where black leaders are trying to rally a candidate to defeat him, because he is not black. Many have argued that Congress, and the Senate in particular, is badly overrepresented by white males. They are correct to state this, but that doesn’t mean that we should expect our candidates to pass a litmus test based simply on race, depending on what state he or she lives in. Hispanics, as well as every other ethnic and racial group living in New Mexico, are not served by a man whose core argument for being elected to represent New Mexico in the United States Senate is his or her race. The real question is who can most effectively grant their state a voice in Congress and who is a more substantial candidate on issues. Tom Udall has run a campaign based on the issues and on being an effective voice for the people of New Mexico. I wish Martin Chavez would be willing to do the same, but with a 30-point deficit against Udall, I suppose the only thing which Chavez can do is to call Udall a bigot because he dares to run against a candidate who happens to be Hispanic.”
I even mentioned the Tennessee race in this letter. Things like this must be pushed back, if for no other reason, than to stop this destructive use of identity politics.