Anything Goes in Race and Politics!



Where Do We Go From Here?



President George H. W. Bush & Lee Atwater

After reading, When It Comes to Politics, Are We More Racist Than We Think? by Lylah M. Alphonse, Senior Editor at Yahoo, I wanted to know more that were behind these hateful feelings some parts of the nation felt.

I disagree with some of the President’s policies, too, no different than other previous presidents. But, I have never seen such bitterness and disrespect toward any of them until now. Jimmy Carter was never regarded as a good President but he was respected. I didn’t see the Klan chomp at the bit over JFK, but rationally thinking, I don’t think any of us have ever seen such a display of negativity toward this African-American. Despite being bi-racial, it is a fact that you are treated by your color. You can’t pass for white if you’re too black.

From the story, “The state with the highest racially charged search rate was West Virginia, where 41 percent of voters chose Keith Judd, a white man who is also a convicted felon currently in prison in Texas, over Obama just this May. Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina, Alabama, and New Jersey rounded out the top 10 most-racist areas, according to the search queries used.

The 10 states with the fewest racially charged searches were Utah, Hawaii, Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Washington DC, Minnesota, Oregon, Montana, and Wyoming.”

I wanted to go back to when many of the political fears began. No, I’m leaving the Civil War and Post-Construction, Jim Crow and Civil Rights eras out. I want to start when the nationwide media got involved during elections and the principals that will do whatever it takes to win, even if it means destroying the country.

On October 26, 1974, in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Willie Horton and two accomplices robbed Joseph Fournier, a 17-year-old gas station attendant, and then fatally stabbed him 19 times after he had cooperated by handing over all of the money in the cash register. His body was dumped in a trash can. Fournier died from blood loss. Horton was convicted of murder, sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, and incarcerated at the Northeastern Correctional Center in Massachusetts.

On June 6, 1986, he was released as part of a weekend furlough program but did not return. On April 3, 1987 in Oxon Hill, Maryland, Horton twice raped a local woman after pistol-whipping, knifing, binding, and gagging her fiancé. He then stole the car belonging to the man he had assaulted. He was later shot and captured by Corporal Paul J. Lopez of the Prince George's County Police Department after a pursuit. On October 20, Horton was sentenced in Maryland to two consecutive life terms plus 85 years. The sentencing judge, Vincent J. Femia, refused to return Horton to Massachusetts, saying, "I'm not prepared to take the chance that Mr. Horton might again be furloughed or otherwise released. This man should never draw a breath of free air again.

Democratic Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis was the governor of Massachusetts at the time of Horton's release, and while he did not start the furlough program, he had supported it as a method of criminal rehabilitation. The State inmate furlough program was actually signed into law by Republican Governor Francis W. Sargent in 1972. However, under Sargent, convicted first-degree murderers were not eligible for furlough. After the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that this right extended to first-degree murderers, the Massachusetts legislature quickly passed a bill prohibiting furloughs for such inmates. However, in 1976, Dukakis vetoed this bill arguing it would 'cut the heart out of efforts at inmate rehabilitation'.

Republicans picked up the Horton issue after Dukakis clinched the nomination. In June 1988, Republican candidate George H.W. Bush seized on the Horton case, bringing it up repeatedly in campaign speeches. Bush's campaign manager, Lee Atwater, predicted that "by the time this election is over, Willie Horton will be a household name." In April 1988, Lee Atwater asked aide Jim Pinkerton for negative research to defeat Dukakis.

Although commercials about Willie Horton were not run until the fall campaign, Bush first mentioned him at the Texas Republican convention on June 9, 1988. The following week at the Illinois Republican convention in Springfield, Bush began to press the argument against Dukakis by declaring that Dukakis had let Horton loose to 'terrorize innocent people' and continued support of the furlough program until the Massachusetts legislature changed the law.

The following are excerpts from the FrontLine Transcript directed by Stefan Forbes called Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story.

This makes for a great read into the personna of Lee Atwater. Karl Rove learned a lot from Lee Atwater. In fact, his techniques are very similar. Divide and conquer.

BUSH CAMPAIGN COMMERCIAL: As governor, Michael Dukakis vetoed mandatory sentences for drug dealers. He vetoed the death penalty. His revolving door prison policy gave weekend furloughs to first degree murderers not eligible for parole. While out, many committed other crimes, like kidnapping and rape, and many are still at large. Now Michael Dukakis says he wants to do for America what he's done for Massachusetts. America can't afford that risk.

CAMPAIGN COMMERCIAL: One was Willie Horton, who murdered a boy in a robbery, stabbing him 19 times. Despite a life sentence, Horton received 10 weekend passes from prison. Horton fled, kidnapped a young couple, stabbing the man and repeatedly raping his girlfriend.

LEE ATWATER: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I don't even think many people in South know what race Willie Horton is. I think that's totally irrelevant.

TOM TURNIPSEED, S.C. State Senator '74-'78: I don't believe that. I think he was used primarily because he was black. Like Lee said before he died, you don't call them nigger, nigger, nigger anymore like you did 30 years ago. You know, you got to be more subtle than that. It wasn't very subtle at all to me.

ROGER STONE: I went into the headquarters to see Atwater, at his request. He locked the office door, and he popped the famous Willie Horton spot onto a television. He said, ``I got a couple boys going to put a couple million dollars up for this independent.'' And I said, ``That's a huge mistake. You and George Bush will wear that to your grave. It's a racist ad. You're already wining this issue. It's working for you. You're stepping over a line. You're going to regret it.'' And he said, ``Y'all a pussy.''

ERIC ALTERMAN: Race is poison, but it's poison that works for their side. People vote their fears and not their hopes, and Lee understood that.

TUCKER ESKEW: Race is a powderkeg. It deserves to be, in many ways. And Lee got close to that powderkeg, and you know, setting off sparks nearby.

TOM TURNIPSEED, S.C. State Senator '74-78: Good ol' Strom, golly, 21 years old, has sex with the 15-year-old daughter of the maid there at his house and produces a child. And to come out and say, ``the blood will run before we integrate'' personifies what we're talking about, you know, the hypocrisy of racism.

TUCKER ESKEW, Senior Adviser McCain/Palin '08: Lee understood the power of image and how American symbols resonate with a lot of Southerners and a lot of people all over the country. And Democrats to this day scratch their head and can't believe that people vote against their own interests by supporting these Republicans, when in fact, the audacity and arrogance of that is proud patriotism transcends money.

ERIC ALTERMAN, Journalist, Professor: The Republican Party has turned into a stealth party that argues on behalf of the common man and gives all the benefits to the wealthiest one tenth of 1 percent. It argues on behalf of certain morality policies, engages in completely different private behavior. He used to describe those anti-abortion forces as the ``extra chromosome group'' and the ones who had a hand coming out of their head, or a third eye, you know. Those were the people who were most devoted people to his cause.

TUCKER ESKEW: The South has got the same thing America's got, a complicated history on race. There are reasons to hate things about the South and still love the region and its people. I'm not aware of any Democrat paying attention to what Lee really learned in his early races. They existed up in some elite layer of the clouds that had nothing to do with what moved people to feel. They slept while Lee out-maneuvered them.

Does it matter who these men are and what they did?  They are still a small group that managed to do well in their craft.  Their goal was to succeed at whatever the cost.  I learned that it is not the color of the skin that makes a person who he/she is.  It is the their character.  We don’t know what a person might have gone through to make them a certain way.  They are who they are.  Jerks encircle the globe and it doesn’t matter what color they are.  Still, we judge by sight and sometimes by voice.  If you sound a certain way, then you might not be like me.  We all have a long way to go to avoid judging someone by their skin color, religion, or beliefs.  It is easier to find something wrong with another to induce a type of “fear” that will exclude them from being a part of our way of life.  We overlook the fact that God created us all in His image and likeness and we deny looking for a common thread that is in all of us.  As Christians, we should be Christ-like, but we worry more about what our friends and society think of us more than our own Judgment Day.