In his final State of the Union address, President Obama issued a call for the American people to restore civility to our political dialogue and to speak out against those who are shredding the fabric of decency that’s needed to bind our nation together.
We are many — in race, color, creed and religion — but, regrettably, too many of those holding or seeking public office persist in sowing the seeds of distrust and discrimination. The president’s call for rhetorical restraint is not an issue of political correctness. For black people and others of color, it is a matter of life and death.
Our dollars declare that “from many we are one,” but our history has not matched our motto.
I write as a black woman who has lived in two very different Americas — one of profound prejudice and the other of extraordinary progress. I can attest to the power of words to shape attitudes and actions. I know how language can be used to hurt or heal; to denigrate or motivate.
It’s important to understand that racism is a borderless virus. It is not just found below the Mason-Dixon line. Bigotry is everywhere, and it wears many disguises that can pass as innocent mistakes or clever code words to those eager to discriminate.
Maine’s governor, Paul LePage, recently blamed the state’s heroin epidemic on those who bear names such as “Dee Money, Smoothie, Shifty,” who impregnate white girls before they leave the state. His message? These outsiders bring drugs in and leave behind mixed-race babies. Double trouble for Mainers.
White political leaders who hold or are seeking office continue to portray black men as menacing, sexual threats to white women whose honor they are duty-bound to protect.
This hateful and deceitful narrative always fails to include chapters of how many white men, including President Thomas Jefferson, crawled into the beds of their slaves and produced so many children who look very much like me. This form of white-on-black crime is never acknowledged or prosecuted.
Tragically, the racist myths persist. People of color — unarmed blacks youths gunned down by police; Mexican immigrants labeled as rapists; Syrian refugees, presumptive terrorists — are the victims of ignorance, intolerance and injustice.
LePage claims his comments were a mere slip of the tongue, not a window into his heart. He insists that he doesn’t know the color or ethnicity of the drug dealers and rationalized that he intended no racist insults in referring to them impregnating “white” women because, after all, Maine is more than 90 percent white. What was he to say? Now that he has apparently decided to refuse to appear before the state Legislature to deliver the governor’s annual message, he apparently has nothing more to say on this or other matters.
Perhaps it was all an innocent mistake, but those on the receiving end always know the difference between a stumble and a kick. Moreover, it’s not the first time that the governor has stepped into a racial swamp that drags him deeper into incredulity as he struggles to explain how his words have raced ahead of his thoughts.
Sadly, LePage’s sentiments are not new or unique. They range from Maine to California; from Georgia to Oregon. Similar views have surfaced once again in many European countries, including France. Fortunately, the extreme views of Jean-Marie Le Pen have not yet found favor with a majority of the French people who still believe in “liberty, equality, fraternity.”
In this regard, we should join in the call for unity, not division and declare, “Nous, sommes tous Americans.”
Janet Langhart Cohen is an author, playwright and co-founder of the nonprofit Race and Reconciliation in America. She is wife of former Secretary of Defense and Bangor native William S. Cohen.