"All These Problems...."

Lott Decried For Part Of Salute to Thurmond
GOP Senate Leader Hails Colleague's Run As Segregationist

By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 7, 2002; Page A06

[...]  Speaking Thursday at a 100th birthday party and retirement celebration for Sen. Thurmond (R-S.C.) in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Lott said, "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either." [...]

Lott never specifies which "problems" he's referring to. Given, however, that the Dixiecrat party that Strong Thurmond represented during his presidential run adopted a platform which read, in part "We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race, " it's a reasonable conclusion that whatever "problems" he means are somehow related to the still-slow, but growing, integration of society. 

[...] In 1998 and 1999, Lott was criticized after disclosures that he had been a speaker at meetings of the Council of Conservative Citizens, an organization formed to succeed the segregationist white Citizens' Councils of the 1960s. In a 1992 speech in Greenwood, Miss., Lott told CCC members: "The people in this room stand for the right principles and the right philosophy. Let's take it in the right direction, and our children will be the beneficiaries." [...]

It's troubling that, with his background of speaking to the Council of Conservative Citizens and making comments indicating that he agrees with their goals (which, to a great extent, are to re-segregate the races), the citizens of Mississippi see fit to return him to the Senate on a regular basis and that the Senate Republicans seem to consider him an honourable leader for their party. 

Republicans in the Senate need to step forward and make it known that they do not respect such beliefs and that they do not support a man who would make such comments.  In giving his tribute to Sen. Thurmond, it is unlikely that Lott did not give serious consideration to the words that he would say, or the message that he would convey.  It is hard to imagine that he did not also have an idea as to the fact that his comments would cause a stir.  What then, does he hope to gain by making them?  Is he trying to play to the segment of the country that still believes that blacks and other minorities should not have a place of equality within society?  There's something sad in the idea that racism is still such a problem in this nation that there's even a "hate vote" to go after.