WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- The often-repeated "if you're looking for a friend in Washington, buy a dog" has probably never had more applicability than in the wake of the flap over Sen. Trent Lott's, R-Miss., remarks in the Capitol praising retiring colleague Strom Thurmond of South Carolina.
It would have been the subject of idle chatter if the consequences weren't so serious. The truth is we're watching a political assassination and if we don't recognize it for what it is it will happen again.
It's becoming increasingly clear to many fair-minded Americans that a serious discussion about issues involving race cannot occur. For the past 40 years, a realization of the legacy of slavery and segregation are major reasons for this.
Increasingly these two are less and less the basis for our failure to be able to have a national dialogue on issues involving race and ethnicity. Instead, liberals and minority advocates have effectively created a racial speech apartheid zone in which they are free to speak publicly and freely about the topic and others, especially conservatives, are not unless they limit themselves to a narrow area: apologizing and supporting liberal policies that purportedly will redress racial grievances.
For themselves, these neo-Afrikaners are able to use and misuse words like equality, opportunity, justice, and fairness to pursue ends antithetical with each.
Sadly, in the process of enforcing these speech codes, the advocates for racial speech apartheid are on the verge of squashing any real ability to tackle many of the difficult issues facing our nation. On issue after issue they prevent substantive conversations from taking place.
On America being a meritocracy and a haven for markets, they allege these concepts are simply a code for preventing minorities from getting a leg up.
Questions about voter fraud and ballot integrity, fundamental to a democracy, are dismissed as attempted minority voter suppression. Neutral assessment tools to determine admissions for higher education are labeled Jim Crow-like barriers designed to prevent minority educational attainment.
Constitutional interpretation that reflects and reinforces the political and legislative determinations of the populace as enacted are attacked as antiquated, unfair and biased attempts to impose the bigotry of the past onto the lives of minorities today.
A problem with the acceptance of this impression on these and other sensitive issues is that it tends to have the effect of disadvantaging one political party, the GOP, while giving advantage to the Democrats.
What critics fairly deride as the use of the "race card" by the racial speech separatists is used to ostracize, discipline and attain political outcomes that couldn't be achieved in an open and fair discussion in which all views may be presented.
Even now the speech separatists claim without irony that it is the Republican Party that uses code words to pursue its political ends.
This brings us to Lott. If you were following the media coverage alone you might conclude that his remarks at Thurmond's centennial birthday celebration were the singular most important utterance of the hour.
The neo-Afrikaners went from one media venue to the next decrying Sen. Lott and presenting their list of demands before they would consider a grant of forgiveness.
Lott was told that as a way to make up for his comments was to embrace affirmative action -- practiced in its full blown form as skin color based assessments for admission or hiring.
His critics still demand he take the lead on pushing D.C. Statehood in the Senate, increasing the minimum wage, supporting the Democratic version of a prescription drug benefit.
These issues have nothing to do with race, save for D.C. statehood but only because the population of America's capital city is so heavily black.
Each of these issues involves substantive policy issues in which there are costs and benefits to be weighed and balanced.
Ideally they would be evaluated on their own merits and the policy would rise or fall as a result, but under the racial speech apartheid regime we can't have such an assessment.
The calculus is simple. To oppose the policies of the "speech Afrikaners" is to be bigoted. To support them is not.
Even the topic of Lott's comments is subject to this phenomenon. His critics say it is unacceptable to take his statements as part of a "lighthearted affair" even if he acknowledges them as "unacceptable and insensitive."
Why not? Could it be that the real source of enmity is not Lott's comments but the conservative philosophy he advocates.
When Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., indignantly demanded Lott's his resignation and purports to discover a distinction which magnifies in importance Lott's public comments while simultaneously downgrading the historically accepted and proven illegalities of former President Clinton, the signs of speech apartheid become clearer.
Like the police prefect in "Casablanca," Jesse Jackson and the Congressional Black Caucus are shocked, shocked to discover racism and bigotry in the U.S. Capitol. With alacrity they move to action to condemn and demand.
But when black Americans are told they can't have the right to attend the private or public schools of their choice because Bill Clinton vetoed a school choice demonstration program in Washington, D.C. where's the outrage?
When black men receive, on average, the lowest benefit from the federal Social Security program because they don't "live long enough" to get back what they've put in, who complains on their behalf?
For almost 30 years while the federal government's welfare program decimated black families by rewarding illegitimacy and punishing savings, was there
a ruckus raised by the Congressional Black Caucus or their liberal supporters in the media?
People of goodwill on both sides of these public policy questions have been prevented from having an open and straightforward discussion. As a result, policies that have a direct impact on blacks are left unaddressed because they aren't permitted in the racial speech zone. The silence by liberals and racial activists who have a free hand to take these issues up is deafening.
Merely because these issues have a direct impact on blacks just isn't a sufficient rationale to deal with them. The neo-Afrikaners would have us believe that Lott's comments at a birthday party heralded the end of black progress as we know it.
Consider the commonsense notion that deeds count more than words. While busy decrying the thoughtless and insensitive statements made by Lott, they fail to mention his recent actions.
Lott worked hard to get the Senate to pass the landmark welfare reform bill that Bill Clinton twice-vetoed before signing it to check his GOP opponent.
That bill liberated a generation of Americans, black and white, from the baleful affects of social engineering run amok.
Lott helped round up votes for school choice legislation so that the poorest families in D.C. could have the same opportunity at a good education as middle-class families in the suburbs do, an initiative Clinton also vetoed.
On the agenda for the next Congress is an initiative which would give blacks and the rest of America in the workforce the option of taking a portion of their Social Security and putting it in investment retirement accounts.
Each of these might arguably be said to enhance and aid black Americans. Certainly they wouldn't disadvantage them.
Unfortunately, the new speech apartheid dictates that these other actions not be brought up in context. More than 2000 years ago, the Bible records Jesus saying "By their fruits ye shall know them." That standard runs afoul of the speech zones now in effect.
But the issue goes beyond Lott. The speech separatists ultimately will prevent our country from even attaining the ends to which they claim to support.
How? By even preventing any acknowledgement of progress. When recent statistics demonstrate unprecedented achievement in the 90s for black America in terms of income, housing and employment, Lott and middle America deserves to share in the credit. Yet, to even mention the successes is unacceptable for it may potentially dampen the ability to seek out ever more expensive and untested new initiatives.
America genuinely wants to make up for its past. But to be clear, just because we were in error in the past as a nation is no reason to overlook similar error today.
Error which encourages segregated housing on college campuses or preferences based on skin color today aren't made better just because of atrocities like Jim Crow and segregation which occurred in the past.
Today's neo-Afrikaners would do well by joining O.J. Simpson in looking in the mirror each morning to find the culprits for the failure of our nation to make progress on these issues.
President Bush was right when he said "every day our nation was segregated was a day that America was unfaithful to our founding principles." It was a long and hard fought battle to right that wrong and although the task is largely complete, the efforts on the part of decent Americans continue. Although the speech separatists won't acknowledge it, in America today, equality before the law is overwhelmingly the consensus view.
Claiming that racists and bigots blocking access to the election booth is a major problem facing blacks ill serve blacks or America.
Purporting that racism and bigotry along explain the status of every black man and woman in slurs America. While the code prevents this discussion, the truth is that this country's record of being willing to respond to claims of injustice is simply unparalleled.
To this day the Civil War stands alone as the conflict that cost more American lives than any other we've ever been involved in. Our political leaders amended our Constitution and passed multiple laws to rectify the wrongs. America genuinely wants to make up for its past but the new speech zone stymies this effort today.
And unlike what you may have missed due to the successes of the neo-Afrikaners, the Republican Party also has played a strong role in responding to this injustice. Let's look at the history.
Abolition was a founding principle of the Republican Party. The first black Senator to serve a full six-year term was Blanche Bruce of Mississippi. Hiram Revels of Mississippi was the first black to serve in Congress.
Republican President Theodore Roosevelt was especially aggressive in appointing blacks to federal posts even over local objections. This practice among Republican presidents was one of the contributors to the move toward civil service reform.
While for nearly a hundred years from President Andrew Johnson in the 19th to President Lyndon Baines Johnson in the 20th, the Democrats worked to reconcile the Jacksonian coalition of political bosses of the north with segregationalists of the south, the GOP promoted and supported blacks.
After a series of state constitutional conventions and revised election codes, for nearly three decades no black won election to the U.S. Congress. When Oscar DePriest's broke through and was elected in 1928 to the House of Representatives from Illinois, it was as a Republican. It was his election that foreshadowed the electoral success of black representatives from urban and northern states that exists to this day.
Whereas Presidents Truman and Kennedy are credited with their progressive actions on matters of race, history records many of their actions as being more one of managing and balancing the causes of civil rights advocates with their main electoral coalition rather than exercising political courage.
It was Republican Vice President Nixon who met with Martin Luther King and his family even though later it would be liberal hero Robert F. Kennedy who authorized taping and surveillance of Dr. King. Even with its minority status in the United States Senate in 1964, 27 of the 32 Republican senators supported the civil rights bill.
On the other hand, well known Democrats, including some who are still heroes to American liberals like Sam Ervin, J. William Fulbright, and Albert Gore -- the father of the former vice-president -- joined 17 other Democrats in opposing the legislation.
It was Republican President Richard M. Nixon who issued the executive order mandating the quotas and timetables that cause so much consternation in America today.
There's more. Although the Congress was in Democratic hands for most of the past 40 years, it took a Republican Congress to honor Jackie Robinson and Rosa Parks as the heroes they are.
GOPer Colin Powell is the first African-American to serve as secretary of state and was the first to have been named chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Condoleeza Rice is the second black to serve as the president's national security adviser -- Powell having been the first.
These appointments by President Bush and many others throughout his administration demonstrate the aggressiveness of the Republican Party when it comes to grappling for black support. Politics is normally about patronage, yet the Bush administration has managed to find and place an unprecedented number of talented and competent blacks in his administration because he too is committed to equal opportunity.
In fits and starts the Republican Party has promoted equality and opportunity. While the Democrats claim to be the champion of blacks, they have a legacy that demands some answers. Unfortunately we might not be able to have this discussion if the Mau Mauing that passes for political discourse today is allowed to continue.
A party that actively supported slavery, segregation, and today its 21st century equivalents -- discrimination based on race in college admissions and employment ought to have to justify itself.
It is sad that opponents of the Republican party resort to ads and whispering campaigns which claim if Republicans win, blacks will lose the right to vote, will be rounded up and imprisoned, and that their churches will be burned to the ground.
It is sadder that many blacks believe this is in any way politically feasible.
It is sadder still that Democratic leaders and other neo-Afrikaners fail to publicly denounce these actions and in some instances actively join in the efforts to silence dissent.
Unfortunately the filibuster in disguise technique employed by Ted Kennedy to hold back talented men like Gerald Reynolds from taking a place at the Department of Education has gone completely unnoticed by those aching over Lott's remarks.
Republican Sen. John McCain offered up a public apology for slighting blacks by not taking a strong stand on the confederate flag during his 2000 run for president in 2000. But has Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings of South Carolina, ever apologized or even clearly explained the part he played while the Confederate battle flag was being hoisted over the state capitol building as a symbol of resistance to integration?
The Supreme Court is currently considering a challenge to a Virginia law banning the obnoxious practice of cross burning. Has former Klansman Robert Byrd, until recently the Democrat chosen by his party collegues to represent the Senate in the line of presidential succession, been asked his view on the issue?
None of this excuses Lott's behavior. It does put it in context. While many of Lott's fellow GOPers believe that his actions make the task of outreach harder, they don't believe that he is a bigot. But in an environment in which the rules strictly limit the options for responding or explaining, even his former supporters increasingly see his banishment from the political scene as the only viable option.
But if this succeeds, the speech apartheidists are likely to be emboldened. Whose political career will be sacrificed next?
Maybe it is not too late.
Perhaps the speech separatists have over-reached. Maybe preening and feigning moral outrage is being seen as what it is by the rest of the country. It is possible that fair-minded Americans will see that it just simply can't be substantiated that Trent Lott's actions are comparable to that of odious sheriff Bull Connor.
It might even dawn on everyone that it is no stretch to observe that if you were shot at with a water cannon or hindered from voting, attending schools, or buying a home in the neighborhood of your choice, if an elected public official was or is involved, he or she's a registered Democrat.
To pretend Lott's statements are the equivalent of these actions is a breathtaking lapse in perception. But if the neo-Afrikaners get their way, you won't be allowed to notice.
More and more Americans are concluding that the pre-existing speech zones are too restrictive.
Despite the substantial progress that's been made in America, discussions involving race continue in too many instances to merely be occasions to lambaste rather than to promote progress. Will middle America see that the outcry in this case is disproportionate to the crime? Will they also see in this a practice similar to what is happening in classrooms and workplaces all across the nation where teachers, managers and others in the workplace are intimidated and compelled to attend re-education and diversity programs because of their political or personal opinions?
As the Shakespearean drama over the Senator Lott's comments unfolds in front of the American people, hopefully it will be used as a chance to cast aside these speech artifices and move forward. Americans believe in justice and fair play and they're seeing very little of it now. Promoting demagoguery over reason for partisan gain shouldn't work. Character and political assassination shouldn't be overlooked or ignored.
2002 America is not what it was 50 years ago. It's not even what it was like 25 years ago. But the speech code separatists who press for more and more while refusing to acknowledge any progress don't realize that Mr. and Mrs. Black and White America are watching and don't be shocked, shocked if at the next election they end their tyranny.
-- Horace Cooper is a senior fellow with the Center for New Black Leadership
-- "Outside View" commentaries are written for UPI by outside writers who specialize in a variety of important global issues.
