Lawmaker’s racist rant isn’t new – and neither is the best answer
The controversial comments of Republican Rep. David Stringer reveal him to be a person who is utterly clueless about the strength this nation derives from its diversity.
This much is painfully obvious. The smackdown Stringer got from columnists, fellow lawmakers and members of his own party is powerful evidence that what he said is no longer acceptable in polite company.
The condemnation included calls for the newly re-elected lawmaker to resign from the Arizona Legislature.
Stringer, of Prescott, was recorded saying: “African-Americans and other racial groups don’t … blend in,” because, unlike immigrants of European descent, they “always look different.”
Apparently “blending in” is a goal for Stringer, who clearly doesn’t understand the value of different ideas, experience and knowledge when tackling the complex problems we all face.
This is not the first time Stringer expressed such sentiments.
In June, he called immigration an “existential threat” to the United States because “there aren’t enough white kids to go around.”
There were calls for him to resign then, too. Instead, his voters returned him to the State Capitol Legislative District 1.
In Stringer’s world view, those who do not look like the majority population are suspect — no matter how many generations ago their ancestors may have arrived here. No matter how many contributions they make to our culture, economy and the communities where they live.
To those who think like Stringer, people who don’t fit this narrow, artificial definition of how an American “looks” will always remain the “other.” to represent This is not a new way of thinking.
❚ We began this country with white, male slaveholders defining their “property” as three-fifths of a person. Slavery. We still haven’t acknowledged the full horror of enslaving human beings or the lingering consequences.
❚ The legacy of racism echoes in the treatment of the Native Americans to whom this land belonged long before the Europeans arrived to stake a claim.
❚ It is a legacy enshrined in laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act, and actions like the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
❚ It is an attitude reflected in the mass deportations of Mexicans in the 1950s. And Arizona’s draconian 2010 immigration law SB 1070, which cast a shadow on all Latinos and led to racial profiling — all under the guise of law enforcement.
❚ It lives on in the white supremacist groups still recruiting in America today.
❚ And the young black men who are still dying at the hands of police, including the November police killing of a black security guard who was attempting to detain a shooting suspect in Chicago.
It happens is when some Americans are automatically deemed to be the “other” based on how they look.
That’s why idiotic rants — like Stringer’s — cannot go unchallenged.
So it is gratifying that so many spoke out against him.
But words like Stringers reflect a way of thinking — and that’s what really has to change.
The ideas he expressed have to be answered with better ones.
So say it again in the face of ignorance like Stringer’s: Being an American is not a question of race, color or national origin.
We are unified by our respect for human rights and dignity — and our commitment to the ideals of liberty expressed in the Constitution.
Don’t forget that those white, male property owners who wrote the Constitution began it with the goal of forming “a more perfect union.”
They were literate enough to know that “perfect” is an absolute term. But they added “more.” It represents an ideal — and some Americans have been rising to the challenge ever since. Civil rights. Women’s rights. LGBT rights. We’ve been expanding liberty. Politicians like Stringer show us how much more distance we have to travel to reach equality.