Yankee Doodle Dandy
December 2002
by Mike Webb

Monday night I came home a little depressed and wrote a diatribe about how sad it was that Trent Lott was going to get away with his racist comments. But I didn't send it in because it seemed passé since earlier that day, the Democrat that I wish would disappear, spoke out about how bad Lott's comments were, and he called for him to be censured. Now I still hope Al Gore doesn't run, but I have to give him props for calling Lott out on his bigoted statement.

My hunch is that Lott is going to get away with saying if we'd elected Strom Thurmond President (who left the Democratic Party to run on a platform of segregation forever) we'd have been a lot better off. Trent ole buddy – you and your fellow white friends might've been better off, but a black brother like me would not have. An I'm an American just like you, only your family probably came here by choice, unlike mine. If Thurmond had been elected President, I would not have the right to vote, the right to an equal education, or the right to be a free man in this society. And I'll never understand why it's so hard for someone like you to understand that I'm just like everyone else who just wants the opportunity to make the most of themselves. Can't a brother have the chance to be a better brother? I don't get why that's so hard to understand, or why it's a bad thing.

But I do get that Trent Lott is a racist bigot. And I do know that I would be ashamed to be a part of a political party where he is the leader in one house. At the least he should be removed as Majority Leader. At the least he should be censured.

Lott's words were not accidental, or humorous (unless you find Thurmond's defense of hanging colored people kind of funny), or poorly chosen. Please do not let anyone get away with telling you that. Trent Lott has been exposed again and again – supporting the work of the segregationist Council of Conservative Citizens, writing legal briefs in support of Bob Jones University (who banned inter-racial dating), voting against a Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, working to keep blacks out of his fraternity, saying that "the spirit of Jefferson Davis" (you know, the guy who led the effort to destroy the country and keep slavery intact) "lives in the 1984 Republican Platform", and just by the fact that the guy found it necessary to lead the effort to get Jeff Davis' citizenship back. There's more – so much more – should you be interested, check out Joe Conason's Journal on Salon.com. I wish I was just making that stuff up, but the guy is a legally elected racist, bigot, and I hope that few people will stand up to defend him.

The Declaration of Independence says "WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness...." At some point in my life, I'm going to wake up and realize that Tom Jefferson, the other signers & Founding Fathers, and far too many other American politicians never really meant those words at all.

(Mike Webb is a volunteer staff writer for 2 Walls Webzine)