Ashcroft and Racism: Breaking the Code
By Norman Solomon A surreal mixup disrupted CNN programming for a few moments
on Jan. 17 when the network switched to live coverage of Colin Powell. While
the retired general appeared on the screen, the audio was the voice of Sen.
Edward Kennedy at another Senate hearing -- as the senior senator from
Massachusetts railed against John Ashcroft's record of opposing civil rights.
Suddenly, a rattled CNN anchor was apologizing for the technical difficulty.
And viewers were left to ponder the unintended juxtaposition of media images.
We're told that the new administration has embraced the concept of diversity
based on merit, with a prime example being the choice of Powell as secretary
of state. But the most important domestic policy job is attorney general. And
the Ashcroft nomination has sparked a firestorm of resistance for many
reasons, including his racial history. Testifying, Ashcroft did not lack for
requisite sound bites: "I believe that racism is wrong... I deplore racism
and I always will." His wording was always careful. At one point he said, "I
condemn those things that are condemnable." Ashcroft is experienced at
speaking in code while exploiting racism for political gain. A few weeks ago,
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch recalled that Ashcroft "has built a career out of
opposing school desegregation in St. Louis." Twice, as governor of Missouri,
he vetoed bills that sought to give residents of the heavily black city of
St. Louis the same access to voter registration as the mostly white residents
of surrounding suburbs. During Ashcroft's confirmation hearing, Sen. Joseph
Biden of Delaware raised the issue of his interview with Southern Partisan
magazine. That publication is so favorable toward the days of slavery that it
has sold a T-shirt bearing a picture of Abraham Lincoln accompanied by the
Latin words of his assassin, "Sic Semper Tyrannis" -- "Thus Always to
Tyrants." Biden neglected to bring up the fact that Ashcroft went out of his
way to praise Southern Partisan during his 1998 interview -- when he said
that the magazine "helps set the record straight" and lauded it for
"defending Southern patriots" such as Jefferson Davis, the vehement advocate
of slavery who was president of the Confederacy. And Biden should have asked
why Ashcroft used the interview to tell the readers of the nation's leading
neo-Confederate magazine: "Traditionalists must do more. I've got to do more.
We've all got to stand up and speak in this respect, or else we'll be taught
that these people were giving their lives, subscribing their sacred fortunes
and their honor to some perverted agenda." After Biden's somewhat inept
questioning of Ashcroft on the subject of the Southern Partisan interview,
pro-Ashcroft spinners did their best. On the PBS "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer,"
syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer told viewers that Ashcroft was being
unfairly pilloried because of his "respect for Confederate heritage."
Fortunately, some pundits have confronted the implications of Ashcroft's warm
interview with Southern Partisan. Several columnists for mainstream daily
newspapers cut to the heart of the matter. In the New York Daily News,
Stanley Crouch noted that Southern Partisan introduced the interview by
touting Ashcroft as a "champion of states' rights and traditional Southern
values." Crouch pointed out: "Those are code words for white supremacist
ideas about the Civil War, segregation, genetics and so on. Code is now very
important, even to those in the boggiest wilds of the far right. They, too,
know that in politics it might be best to move under camouflage until you get
where you want and can begin opening serious fire against your enemies."
Right now, if John Ashcroft gets where he wants, he'll be moving into the
office of the attorney general of the United States. In the Boston Globe,
columnist Derrick Z. Jackson has been eloquent about what's at stake. "The
nation's top law enforcer cannot be someone who vacillates between civil
rights and Civil War fantasies," Jackson wrote. And he concluded: "When
Ashcroft says the traditionalists must do more, America should tremble. The
nomination is so perverted, it should follow the final path of his
Confederate heroes. It should be driven off in a scorched-earth campaign."
But John Ashcroft and his strongest allies -- on Capitol Hill and in the news
media -- are going all out for Senate approval of his nomination. They have
plans. And they're not just whistling Dixie.
