This entry was posted on 2/6/2010 5:10 PM and is filed under uncategorized.
Before I'm too hard on the media, I gotta hand it to ABC News, because they were the first on the story.
It seems that on the opening night of the ongoing Tea Party convention,
their welcoming speaker, former representative Tom Tancredo of
Colorado, put forth the following idea:
That we should bring back into fashion literacy tests.
You remember literacy tests, don't you?
But before I enlighten those of you who are maybe too young to fully
understand what it meant, particularly in the deep South, for persons
of color to be asked to take a literacy test before they could vote,
I'll let Tancredo speak for himself, as quoted in the article in the online ABC News:
"The convention's first speaker, former Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado
said that people who voted for Barack Obama could not pass a basic
civics literacy test. "People who would not even spell the word vote or
say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White
House...named Barack Hussein Obama," he said.
"Yes, that's right. The president is a socialist, his supporters illiterate.
"Today, Tancredo stood by his comments. "These people didn't have
the slightest idea about what America is all about, about the
Constitution," he said. "And they went and voted!"
"The leader of the Tea Party convention,
Judson Phillips, had no problem with it, either. "I think what Tom
Tancredo was saying, he thinks a lot of people really didn't understand
what they were voting for when they voted for Barack Obama," adding,
"He did a fantastic job, didn't he?"
"Tancredo went even further about voters saying, "I think it
should be exactly the same test that we give immigrants coming into the
country. And if you can't pass a test about American civics that an
immigrant has to pass in order to be here, then I don't think you
should be able to vote."
Oh, I see.
Is THAT all?
Just a little civics test, to make sure you know what you're voting
for, so that all those Meskins who can't speak English can't be
bamboozled into voting for the colored guy, and all those ignernt
ghetto thugs can't be railroaded into the voting booths to vote for the
Negro.
THAT WAY we wouldn't wind up with a BLACK GUY in the White House!
I get it.
Really.
I do.
Although, just to enlighten things a TAD bit.
First of all, I might mention, just as an aside, that it is actually
EDUCATED people who are the most drawn to Barack Obama, according to
the latest Gallup Poll:
"Gallup has a new poll out. What does it indicate? That smart people like Barack Obama the most...What it says is that educated people
with advanced degrees tend to be Obama's most loyal supporters."
Just to clear that little point up.
And, just so we're clear on what LITERACY TESTS really are.
The Raw Story goes into a wee bit more detail:
"Southern states used literacy tests as part of an effort to deny
suffrage to African American voters prior to Johnson-era civil rights
laws.
"Prior to passage of the federal Voting Rights Act in 1965,
Southern (and some Western) states maintained elaborate voter
registration procedures whose primary purpose was to deny the vote to
those who were not white," a website for civil rights veterans explains.
"In the South, this process was often called the 'literacy test.' In
fact, it was much more than a simple test, it was an entire complex
system devoted to denying African-Americans (and in some regions,
Latinos) the right to vote."
"Because the Freedom Movement was
running "Citizenship Schools" to help people learn how to fill out the
forms and pass the test, Alabama changed the test 4 times in less than
two years (1964-1965)," the site adds. "At the time of the Selma Voting
Rights campaign there were actually 100 different tests in use across
the state. In theory, each applicant was supposed to be given one at
random from a big loose-leaf binder. In real life, some individual
tests were easier than others and the registrar made sure that Black
applicants got the hardest ones."
"White applicants could be approved even if they didn't pass the test.
"Your
application was then reviewed by the three-member Board of Registrars —
often in secret at a later date," the site continues. "They voted on
whether or not you passed. It was entirely up to the judgment of the
Board whether you passed or failed. If you were white and missed every
single question they could still pass you if — in their sole judgment —
you were 'qualified.' If you were Black and got every one correct, they
could still flunk you if they considered you 'unqualified.'"
Yeah.
THAT "literacy test."
And make no mistake about it. THAT was the literacy test Tancredo had in mind.
Now, when I first read that, I was so horrified I literally shouted
in my chair, at my computer, so loud that my husband came running to
make sure I was all right. I copied the entire Raw Story
article--which I encourage you all to read--into the body of an e-mail
and sent it to everybody on my list. I put it up on my FaceBook page.
Then I opened up the Washington Post and read THEIR version
of the opening day of the convention.
Tancredo's session was given
three short paragraphs at the end of an article entitled, "The Tea Party is Still Taking Shape," and was written by Ann Gerhart and Philip Rucker.
And here are those three paragraphs, in their entirety:
"On Thursday night, giving the opening address, former U.S.
representative Tom Tancredo (Colo.), who ran for the 2008 Republican
presidential nomination as an anti-immigration candidate, railed
against Obama and "the cult of multiculturalism." Americans could be
"boiled to death in a cauldron of the nanny state," he said. "People
who couldn't even spell the word 'vote,' or say it in English, put a
committed socialist ideologue in the White House."
"When Tancredo said, "His name is Barack Hussein Obama," the audience booed loudly.
"The race for America is on," Tancredo said. "The president and his
left-wing allies in Congress are going to look at every opportunity to
destroy the Constitution before we have a chance to save it. So put
your running shoes on."
In other words, "the cult of multiculturalism" was the only mention made of Tancredo's loathsome call for literacy tests.
Now, according to ABC News, Tancredo's remarks brought bursts of
applause, and furthermore, convention organizers defended the remarks.
And yet the Washington Post's political writers didn't even notice, or find reason to mention, them at all.
Back when I was writing and publishing suspense thrillers, I was
often a keynote speaker at writer's conferences around the country, and
it was not unusual for me to address hotel ballrooms packed full of
hundreds of people, so I know how these kinds of conventions go.
The keynote speaker is there to inspire and fire up the convention-goers.
But the opening speaker, the welcoming speaker--they set the tone for the entire event.
Tom Tancredo's remarks basically stated that the purpose for the Tea
Party movement is to ensure that we don't see any more people of color
in the White House, among other complaints.
Even one convention attendee commented to a reporter that it hurt
the movement that pretty much everybody there was white and middle-aged
or older and said, "We need more diversity."
Yeah well, that boat done sailed, buddy. It left the dock about the
time one of your organizers sent out a fund-raising e-mail showing our
president dressed as a witch-doctor.
When the New York Times covered the opening day of the
convention, it didn't even mention Tancredo's remarks at all, which is
why I'm not bothering to go dig up a link to it.
What I'm saying here is that, if a major political paper like the Washington Post
finds it necessary to tone down such a blatant expression of racism in
their coverage of a political event, to the extent that they don't even
bother to MENTION the literacy tests he clearly emphasized in his
remarks, and the New York Times doesn't even refer to them at all, then what that does is, it makes those remarks palatable,
acceptable.
Comfortable.
That way, we can all just settle in, get comfortable with our
prejudices, and not notice when, suddenly, a Tea-Partier we weren't
paying much attention to takes over the local election board and the
next thing you know, there are real literacy tests in place.
It's not just our elected officials who have to be accountable. It's our media.
Racial prejudice has been driven underground but make no mistake about
it; it still exists, and I swear to God some people don't even know it
when they're doing it. I have conservative friends I've known for 30 years or more who send me jokes comparing the president or First Lady to monkeys. They do it in a spirit of play. They honestly think these jokes are harmless
and are surprised to find that I find them racist and offensive. This
is what happens when we get comfortable with our prejudices. We don't
even know them when we experience them ourselves.
It's not a matter of being "politically correct."
It's a matter of
compassion.
I have African American friends who I love. I can't
imagine what they would think if I forwarded them the jokes that had
been sent to me comparing the Obamas to monkeys. These things are
deeply hurtful to people of color everywhere.
THEY CAUSE PEOPLE PAIN.
This is why we have to speak up. Speak out. Say, "That's not funny."
And say it to people whose job it is to report:
"Why didn't you call a literacy test a literacy test? A spade a spade, so to speak?"
If the Tea Party people truly want to be taken seriously as a serious
political movement, then I suggest they look more to the future, and
not, as a friend of mine who IS an avowed Tea Partier said to me one
time:
"I want to take this country back...forty years."
