Goforth….and don’t multiply! We have enough racists already

June 16, 12:51 PMDC Ethical Issues ExaminerLaura Harrison McBride

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Upper East Tennesse's Clinch Mountain (Wiki commons)

Apparently, the “good Old South” is the gift that keeps on giving. News that a staffer for Sen. Diane Black (R-Gallatin) has sent out an email showing all the presidents of the U.S., with a racist image (in the extreme) for Mr. Obama comes hard on the heels of Rusty DePass’s scurrilous statement about Mrs. Obama. This was widely reported, including on a "hometown" Internet site, nashvilleistalking.

If this woman--Sherri Goforth--is dumb enough to think anything anyone puts up on the Internet anywhere at any time cannot go amiss, she’s too stupid to work for Sen. Black. And that’s for starters.

If she believes the sentiments in the collage she passed around, she’s too racist to serve in government in any capacity. Of course, with the armed forces granting “moral waivers” to skinheads, perhaps we should not be surprised.

Perhaps we should not be surprised at how far and wide the fallout from George and Dick’s Dangerous Adventure has spread. One might well ask if there are ANY Republicans south of the Mason-Dixon line who can go a week without lapsing into contempt for those they regard as different. I’ve mentioned this before in this column, but Dubya making fun of Tanya Faye Tucker pleading for leniency is enough to turn my stomach any time the image crosses my mind. That attitude--that it is fine to play the devil to or about anyone regarded as “less”--was part and parcel of Dubya’s bigoted, chauvinist, prideful regime. It stank then, and it stinks now.

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Tennessee is not known for its tolerance of African-Americans, of course…except maybe Upper East Tennessee, which was too poor and hardscrabble to support plantations. Therefore, there was no need for a lesser class of humanity, for non-citizens…for slaves. Indeed, having lived there for almost ten years, I can say that I saw rather less racism there than I would have believed before I arrived.  I soon found that Upper East Tennessee is different. Maybe it’s the Scots-Irish gene pool. Maybe it’s good sense. Maybe it’s historical poverty that filled the hollows around the Holston River with people more intent on survival than on bothering to be hostile to anyone else. Maybe because it’s so otherworldly beautiful, it doesn’t make sense to be hostile to anyone.

Make no mistake; there IS some racism in Upper East Tennessee, just as elsewhere in the state, or in any state. But the population there also takes enormous pride in being cordial and would never knowingly trot out racism in front of a Yankee, for fear of insulting a guest. Hypocritical? Yes, in a way. But least said, least regretted. It’s a lesson, until we all get over our innate fear of the “other”, that we might all take to heart. Or, to put it as they might in Upper East Tennessee, “If you all can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all!”

If the Republicans did no more than that, we’d all be ahead of the game. At the very least, and very personally, I wouldn’t feel compelled to assess the ethics of the situation (in this and the DePass debacle, there are no ethics) and I could go outside and plant the portulaca in the pots on my deck before the rains arrive.

At best, maybe we could get this nation to be a real world leader, for all people at all times. That’s a utopian ideal, perhaps, but better to shoot for that than continue with the separatist, ignorant, ill-conceived national identity Mr. Bush attempted to impose upon us through a magnitude of domestic surveillance and international aggression we are only now beginning to fully comprehend.