A few blocks from the heart of downtown Memphis sits the National Civil Rights Museum, one of the city's treasures. Situated at the Lorraine Motel, site of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, the Museum offers visitors the opportunity to relive civil rights history, including the chance to watch Dr. King's historic "I Have a Dream" speech in its entirety.
Exiting the Museum this election season, Memphians are being reminded both of the progress that has been made and of how far remains to go to fulfill Dr. King's dream, as two candidates from Memphis – one black and one white – seek to prove that race is no longer a bar to winning elections, even in the South.
Tennessee's ninth congressional district, of which Memphis is the majority, has been represented in Congress by an African American since 1975. This fall, the incumbent, Rep. Harold Ford, Jr., is pursuing a seat in the U.S. Senate, leaving a slew of candidates – 20 in all – vying to replace him. Among them is state senator Steve Cohen, who stands out from the pack based simply on the fact that of the presumed frontrunners in next week's Democratic primary (from which the likely general election winner will come) Cohen is the only one who is white.
During the campaign, few rivals have questioned Cohen's qualifications or commitment to the constituents of the district. Instead, as recounted in this newspaper, several have explicitly or implicitly suggested that Cohen is unfit for the seat simply on the basis of his race. Often, such quips are prefaced with qualified praise like "Steve's a good guy, but…" The unspoken yet well understood "but" is that the ninth district, which is 60% African American, should not send a white representative to Congress, no matter how qualified. One candidate even sent an email to supporters laying out what he sees as the dire stakes, threatening that "For the first time in 30 years Memphis could be without African American representation."
Such efforts to make race a qualification (or disqualification) for office appeal to the basest instinct of American politics – the instinct to make important decisions based solely on race. Playing the race card in this way, these candidates seek to simplify an important and complex congressional race into, literally, a black and white choice.
Meanwhile, Rep. Ford, the man vacating the ninth district seat, is attempting to break a color line of his own as he seeks to become Tennessee's first African American Senator. In a state that is 80% white, there has been remarkably little talk about Ford's skin color as a potential disadvantage for him. There have certainly been no ominous "Tennessee might be without a white Senator" emails from Ford's opponents. Such tactics would be roundly – and rightfully – denounced, with the loudest denunciations coming from some of the same people pleading against electing Mr. Cohen on the basis of his skin color. And while it would be naïve to believe that the color of Ford's skin does not affect the way some individual voters think of him, it has been refreshing to see a campaign by an African American for statewide office in the ex-Confederacy that is not focused on race. Regardless of whether Ford wins in November, that is progress.
The candidacies of Rep. Ford and Mr. Cohen offer 21st-century illustrations of the centuries-old intersection of race and politics in America, an intersection whose continued relevance was affirmed by this month's reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act. The opposition to Cohen based on skin color rests on the assumption, despite Cohen's two-decade long record to the contrary, that a white person cannot effectively represent African American interests, and it comes even as Ford simultaneously seems to be disproving the converse assumption: that an African American cannot represent a majority white state.
Both Ford and Cohen – as well as several of Cohen's opponents – are distinguished and qualified candidates. Both have sought to rise above divisive racial politics by asking voters to judge them by their record rather than their race, or, stated more eloquently, by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. This is what they and the citizens they seek to represent deserve and exactly what Dr. King dreamt of more than forty years ago.
2 comments:
I enjoyed your article. The fact that Cohen is having more racial problems in a mostly black district than Ford is having in a mostly white state might be evidence that racism may be more prevelant in the black community than in the white. It is unfortunate that racism and blood so often distorts peoples perspectives.
When apartheid was policy in South Africa the anger of American blacks was so focused on the white oppression of black South Africans that they ignored far worse black on black oppression and murder in other parts of Africa. Today we see this enormous outrage in the Arab world on casualties caused by collataral damge of Israeli bombing in Lebanon, but little outrage at far more people dying, as well as being raped and tortured in Darfur and Iraq. The obvious answer is that the killings in Iraq and Darfur are are done by Moslems against other Moslems, whereas in Lebanon it is the Jews who are doing the bombing. The world will be a better place when ethnicity, blood, and tribalism stop interfering with our evaluation of right and wrong.
Well, I guess your article got me thinking a little expansively. Sorry for going off on a tangent. Be well!
I enjoyed your Dixie in the South column especially since I think the Cohen race was such an abberration of Southern politics. I would urge you to check out the dialogue on a State legislature race we had dominate Alabama politics for the last two months. An white openly gay AIDS activist in a runoff beat a highly successful black businesswoman in a majority African American district. However, this race went through many legal challenges because of late campaign contribution reports and how they were filed. The contest ended up being decided last week by a vote of the State Democratic Executive Committee.
Arguments were made by most strong African American leaders in the state that this was designed as a minority district. I think that they realized that they did not like the outcome and baggage of being openly gay and therefore protested under the guise of a trivial matter.
I think there are some briefings related to this matter on www.politics1.com .
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