“You’ve come a Long Way Baby….NOT" by Ira Schwartz

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

To those of you unfamiliar with the above passage it is perhaps one of the most import sections in our constitution. It was so important our Founders listed it first, above all others in the Bill of Rights. It is the First Amendment which gives all Americans the right of FREE SPEECH. The First Amendment gives you the protection to say anything you want as long as it doesn’t incite imminent danger.

There are exceptions to this amendment. A few of them are “obscenity”, “Commercial Speech”, which applies to false advertising and “Fighting Words” which are words or phrases that are likely to induce the listener to get in a fight. That last one is pretty broad based and has caused the Supreme Court a few headaches over the years.

But I’m not writing this article to give you a brief amateur lesson in Constitutional Law but to give you a basis for understanding this….The First Amendment protects our right to be idiots plain and simple and past history has born that statement as a “truism” more times than I can count. So why was I surprised by what happened at the Longworth House office building in Washington, D.C. on March 20th? To remind those of you who may have forgotten Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) was spat upon by protestors, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a hero of the civil rights movement, was called a “nigger” and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a "faggot." Pretty disgusting stuff to say the least. I decided to write out the complete “N” word because simply saying or writing the “N word” when reporting is sanitizing a disgusting event almost to the point of acceptability.

But getting back to my original question, “Why was I surprised.” Because I thought we had grown up some from those horrible days of nastiness preceding the Civil Rights Movement. I though most of us had learned that all are created equal and should be treated as such. I guess I just believed that incidents like what happened in Washington were just isolated idiots who were looking for their 15 seconds of fame. Not really wanting to see that a deeper and more disturbing problem still exists in this country festering just below the surface.

Ray Taliaferro, a syndicated black shock jock on San Francisco’s KGO radio was enraged by the happenings in Washington. And tucked away in his angry rhetoric was a simple question. And I’m paraphrasing here, “You bet I am enraged by this. But the bigger question is why aren’t you?” And he’s right; all of us should be angry and offended by this ugly display.

But this sad drama has now gone one step further, Andrew Breitbart, publisher and author, has called into question the whole incident. In a quote from an interview with the Washington Independent Breitbart said...

“It’s time for the allegedly pristine character of Rep. John Lewis to put up or shut up. Therefore, I am offering $10,000 of my own money to provide hard evidence that the N- word was hurled at him not 15 times, as his colleague reported, but just once. Surely one of those two cameras wielded by members of his entourage will prove his point.

And surely if those cameras did not capture such abhorrence, then someone from the mainstream media — those who printed and broadcast his assertions without any reasonable questioning or investigation — must themselves surely have it on camera. Of course we already know they don’t. If they did, you’d have seen it by now.”

So this circus continues as Republicans and Democrats hurl insults at one another and as usual blaming each other. But this is all camouflage used to hide the more serious problem; racism. And whether it’s against Blacks, Muslims, Hispanics, Jews or little green men it is still a festering undercurrent in America. When we elected a black president many people felt we were ushering in a new era in race relations. Most hope this would help America finally get past those ugly prejudices that have haunted this country since its inception. But Taliaferro’s angry cry, “You bet I am enraged by this. But the bigger question is why aren’t you?” still echoes in my head and I wonder how many of us out there can honestly say, “Yes I am enraged.” and have the guts to do something about it.

© 2010 by Ira Schwartz. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Embers By Ira Schwartz

On January 20th, 2009, the 44th President of The United States was sworn into office on the lawn of the Capital building in Washington D.C. It was a proud day for most Americans, a day when the strongest democracy in the world elected its first African American president into office. For most of us this was a day long in coming. For most of us we hoped that the fires of racial hatred would finally be suppressed even if it was for a little while. Well that “little while” lasted a bit over eight months.

On Tuesday, September 15th, former President Jimmy Carter told NBC News “I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man.” With that one statement the dying embers that had been smoldering just beneath the surface of this country for so long had been brought back to life. Reaction was immediate.

Mike Steele, Chairman of the RNC who is African American, responded:

"President Carter is flat out wrong. This isn't about race. It is about policy.” He continued, “Injecting race into the debate over critical issues facing American families doesn't create jobs, reform our health care system or reduce the growing deficit. It only divides Americans rather than uniting us to find solutions to challenges facing our nation. Characterizing Americans' disapproval of President Obama's policies as being based on race is an outrage and a troubling sign.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told FOX News that it is "very destructive for America to suggest that we can't criticize a president without it being a racial act."

And as much as it pains me to say this, Newt is right. We have come a long way from those days in the sixties where smiling police turned fire hoses on black demonstrators. Where African Americans were forced to sit in the back of the bus or drink from a “Black Only” water fountain. Even though we’ve come a long way in dealing with racial prejudice, this incident also shows us we still have a long way to go. And to think that an African American President could get through his term in office without the ignorant rant of racism rearing its ugly head was a bit naïve on our part.

On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, on that hot August day back in 1963 Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to crowd composed of both African American and white listeners. In it he said, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

Most of us are still waiting for that day to happen. Most of us realize that day is much closer now than it was back in the 60’s or 70’s. So far the 44th President of the United States has handled these outbursts with dignity and intelligence. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters, “The president does not believe that criticism comes based on the color of his skin.” End of story from his point of view, time to move on. But where do we move on to from here?

So far the fires of racial hatred are small, slightly more than embers but it wouldn’t take much to cause those embers to flare up and incinerate all the progress that has been accomplished in the last 45 years. Just look at the Los Angeles riots in 1992 that started over the Rodney King affair as an example. That’s why all of us need to be alert to racism where ever it rears its ugly head. Like a cancer in our society it needs to be eradicated before it has a chance to grow. We’re supposed to be better than this; if not we sure as hell should be.

©2009 by Ira Schwartz