Tarred
America In The Briar Patch
An objective review of the radio interview
leads to only one of two conclusions, neither of which can be proved conclusively: (1) Winging through an unscripted moment trying to explain the complexities of extracting his goals from the president's policies, the Rib Joint-less Mr. Lamborn simply reached for a classic literary mnemonic. It confounds the imagination to suggest the "Tar Baby" remark was planned. Uncle Remus and Br'er Rabbit are part of Mr. Lamborn's upbringing (the Tar Baby, a doll made of tar and turpentine intended to trap Br'er Rabbit, was a real reach) and I actually believe him when he says he did not immediately associate his remark's racial overtones.
Or, (2) Mr. Lamborn, a member of the Tea Party Caucus is, indeed, a fire-breathing Obama-Hating
racist but is really bad at it. This was a calculated
political move that has backfired badly, polarizing the
congressman's district, branding him a racist and torpedoing his
effectiveness on the Hill while earning him only if not exclusively
bad press. The tobacco-spitting build-your-own-still back woods
hick thing doesn't play in Southern Colorado as well as it once
did. I can't imagine the upside to Lamborn's pandering to
ignorance, unless this was some kind of effort to butch up for
the folks in the Statue of Liberty foam rubber hats. If it was, in fact, the
congressman's intention to get in on the race-baiting
Obama-hating fun, he is woefully inept at it. Or... is he? I
mean, we're all talking about him, his name's all over the news
now, right? The truth is, only Mr. Lamborn knows for sure.
Any
prosecutor would tell you that, when attempting to convict
someone of a crime, the first thing they look for is a pattern.
A pattern of behavior, a routine which suggests a person has a
criminal disposition. Congressman Lamborn has no such pattern.
The pattern at work is all the noise in Congress, most
notoriously epitomized by Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC)
calling the president a liar from the House floor during a
presidential address to a Congressional joint session. Wilson's
political fate has actually prospered since then. He should have
been dragged out of the chamber in cuffs by the Capitol police,
which is precisely what would have happened had George W. Bush
been standing at the podium. I was aghast and astounded that
nobody, not Speaker Nancy Pelosi, not Wilson Livingood, the House
Sergeant-At-Arms, not the Secret Service (who would have
arrested any of us had we done that), not the Capitol
Police—nobody did anything. Wilson just sat there. And his
constituents handily reelected him. This was the defining
moment, where America, black and white, realized Obama was not
seen by anyone as a legitimate president. Republican failure to
admonish Wilson in any measurable way and the president and the
public's failure to hold him accountable in any meaningful way
has created a kind of shark effect where disrespecting the
office
of the president has become both acceptable and politically
beneficial so long as a black man (or at least this black
man) is sitting in it. It is possible Lamborn was trying to jump
on the bandwagon and missed, but I find no evidence to suggest
Lamborn has any pattern of an abusive or intolerant tone toward
persons of color.
In a legal, ethic and moral view, where there is more than one
logical conclusion inferable from the same set of circumstances,
it is our obligation, as Christians, to assume the
interpretation that points to innocence. "If there is a
reasonable hypothesis from the proven facts consistent with the
defendant's innocence, then you must find the defendant not
guilty," People v Morris, 36 N.Y.2d 877 (1975).
I believe the uproar over the Tar Baby has been
an overreaction. Much as we might prefer America remove literary milestones like Uncle Remus and Huckleberry Finn from its historical mindset, to do so would do Black America a grave disservice. The recent publishing of Finn omitting the N-Word is a worse insult to Black America than the word itself. Black America does not benefit, in any way, from purging the evil of racism from the American zeitgeist. America needs to be reminded of if not horrified by its disgraceful record on human rights. We learn nothing by ignoring the past. This new trend toward whitewashing history, omitting Article One, Section Two from a reading of the U.S. Constitution on the House floor while invoking slavery repeatedly and for no apparent reason into current political dissuasion, inaccurate and ridiculous statements about our founding fathers having "worked tirelessly until slavery was no more," attempts to create the impression that slavery wasn't so bad and that African American families were happier then because, under slavery, they had both a mom and a dad—all part of conservative political dogma—angers and enrages people of good conscience. There needs to be an end to this. We're looking around for somebody to blame. This atmosphere set the stage for Lamborn's being mistaken for one of those guys. He might be, he might not be. Because we don't know for sure, we need to presume this is not Doug Lamborn.
The remark did, however, galvanize many of our local pastors. It absolutely thrilled me to see these guys come off the golf course and stop competing among themselves long enough to put some fire back into the African American church. For a moment, at least, there was, indeed, a black voice here in Southern Colorado, and I applaud these men and women for uniting in a common cause. I do believe, however, they could have formed a better plan. While celebrating a symbolic victory, what did confronting Lamborn actually achieve? Politics is the art of deal-making, and the community could have made a deal. In the blinding public spotlight over this molehill mountain, the community could have asked the congressman for something. They asked for something they weren't likely to be granted, Lamborn's resignation. The congressman's resignation would achieve no measurable community goal and make no one's life measurably better. It would leave Colorado under-represented in Congress during a critical time for our country, and Mr. Lamborn could run in a subsequent special election, where he would win hands down because the people most up in arms about this didn't vote for him to begin with and he still won in a walk. The relative handful of people in attendance Friday sent a clear message that Lamborn could ride this out politically, so the lonnnnng letter demanding his resignation, while I guess symbolic, was poorly thought-out and politically impractical. But Lamborn was listening and available, and, rather than seek to punish, the community leaders should have sought to engage, educate and empower; to touch this man's heart and to allow his African American constituency to bloom beyond a small statistic but transform into faces, into names, into places.
There was an insistence that Mr. Lamborn's letter of apology to the president was not enough, that Lamborn needed to apologize in person, perhaps over a beer (actually, "lemonade") as with the Skip Gates incident. This demonstrated a head-shaking lack of understanding of how difficult it is to get onto the president's schedule and how politically disastrous the president's well-intended but politically naive Gates beerfest was. Moreover, the entire Gates incident epitomized the Vestibule of Hell this Tar Baby thing represents. As with Lamborn, I hesitate to convict Cambridge, Mass. Police Sergeant James Crowley (or the black and Latino officers with him at the arrest, who are routinely and conveniently left out of this story) of racism. Here's what I wrote at the time:
It is likewise difficult to say, with surety, what was in Lamborn's heart. I believe the African American community needs to be deliberate in process, prayerful and submitted to God (Who was mentioned by only one pastor at the meeting) and painstaking in their decision to pull the race trigger on anybody. If even a glimmer of doubt exists, we all look like dopes. The politics of this thing have very long and complex tentacles intertwined at many levels. I've absolutely no doubt a beer with the president would be a GOP dream come true: it would make the president look like a schmuck and reinforce Republican claims of how weak he is. The president should do exactly what he is doing: ignore the racial slurs hurled at him. He knew this would happen. None of it surprises him, and Mr. No Drama is not rattled by any of it. A smarter move for the community would have been to carefully and prayerfully examine the community's needs, make a list, and let Lamborn order off the menu. Let's Make A Deal. The rally was a good start and the leadership get an "E" for effort, but a greater opportunity was missed.
The congressman gamely played the pińata as a gathering of his Southern Colorado African American constituents vented. The turnout was enormously disappointing, not because the congressman’s sin was so grave but that the black network, here, is so inefficient. Politics being a numbers game, any messages sent to Congress needs to have many, many authors. This accounts for the racially-charged atmosphere in Washington: they know they can get away with it. Most everyone in Congress, white or black, knew, the day the president was sworn in, that sooner or later it would be their turn: that they’d get dragged into a room like this. But much worse things have been uttered and in direct reference to the president (which the congressman’s remarks were not), and Black America has simply gone about its business.
The congressman repeatedly apologized for his choice of words while being repeatedly chastised for calling the president a Tar Baby—which Mr. Lamborn did not. Our regional NAACP president suggested the congressman take a course to acclimate himself with blacks and pressed Lamborn for a commitment, which was another bad call. What she should have done instead was invite the congressman to lunch. Buy the man some ribs. There were two large church picnics Saturday; no one invited the congressman. We want Mr. Lamborn to be more familiar with black people but no black people are welcoming him to hang out with them. Take a course. Black Folk 101. If we really want change or at least understanding, we need to make ourselves available. If a man desires friends, he must first show himself to be friendly. Jesus engaged people. Jesus went to where they were. Jesus despised religious hypocrisy but also recognized simple human failure for what it is. Rather than condemn, He created avenues of recourse and reconciliation.
The meeting ended without a major resolution, only with vague
ideas about advisory committees or focus groups or internships
or something. At the meeting, I cornered a pair of Lamborn staffers and shared
with them that it is the overheated political environment and
the over-the-top rhetoric that has everyone on edge. I wasn’t
particularly bothered by the congressman’s comment: I understood
the context while wincing at his choice of words. It was, in
fact, not those words but our drawing so much attention to them
that give them power. The
congressman made a poor choice of words within an atmosphere of
intolerance that offends and divides. My suggestion was the
congressman make an enemy not of the words but of the
atmosphere: introduce a non-binding resolution on the House
floor (assuming Speaker Boehner supports it) calling for
civility in political discourse. The 2008 election rhetoric
followed by the 2009 health care rhetoric followed by the 2010
Tea Party rhetoric has simply grown increasingly vile and shows
no sign of abating. And, now, here we go again, with the
Republican Texas
governor's veiled threat to punch the (Republican) Fed chairman
in the nose.
Seriously: enough already. I’m far less concerned about the
congressman’s poor choice of words than I am about how out of
control and poisoned the political environment is in Washington,
and how that intolerance and flat-out meanness filters down to
our children. That this assiduity might become institutionalized
and embedded within American society forever is a terrible and
frightening thought. If the congressman is looking for a way
forward, even a symbolic gesture like a non-binding
resolution—which no Democrat and no Republican could vote
against with a straight face—would be at least a start, a down
payment on liberating our children from this atmosphere of hate.
Christopher J. Priest
21 August 2011
editor@praisenet.org
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