There have been a lot of loose words
and disgusting, prejudiced remarks from Donald Trump since he hit the
campaign trail and eventually captured the presidency in the 2016
election. During the campaign, it seems that every day Trump and his
backers made news by spewing volatile, hateful comments whether he
was using them to disparage President Obama, Hillary Clinton,
immigrants, or women.
However, as we know, Trump never
apologizes. His gigantic ego makes him see personal regret as a sign
of weakness.
Now, Trump is busy choosing his cabinet
and filling other important government positions. An uneasy nation
wonders just how he will begin his term in office and keep his
promise of “draining the political swamp.” Or, was that hardcore
vow merely a metaphor used for the purpose of garnering votes?
Given Trump's aggressive nature and
questionable leadership qualities, many believe he will merely dip
into the murky waters of D.C. and replace major players with even
more disgusting, mucky tenants who fit his own selfish agenda.
Example In Point -- Jeff Sessions
Trump recently announced that he would
nominate Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions to be Attorney General,
succeeding Loretta Lynch. Almost immediately this decision resulted
in public concern as the press reminded the nation of some horrendous
words once spoken by Sessions – words that cast him in a very
disturbing light.
The Story of One Important Case
The case involved a young black man, Michael Donald, who had been kidnapped and brutally murdered by two members of the Ku Klux Klan in 1981.
The murder has been referred to as the last recorded lynching in the United States because his two attackers, Henry Hays and James “Tiger” Knowles, hanged his body from a tree in the pattern of mob lynchings.
Hays and Knowles had been angry because
of the declaration of a mistrial in a judgment in Birmingham
involving an African American charged with the murder of a white
policeman. They, along with other members of Unit 900 of the United
Klans of America, complained that having African-American members on
the jury was the reason it had not convicted the defendant.
The same night the mistrial was
declared, Klan members burned a three-foot cross on the Mobile County
Courthouse lawn. Then after a meeting, Hays (age 26), and Knowles
(age 17), armed with a gun and rope, drove around Mobile looking for
a black person to attack.
At random, they spotted 19-year-old
Michael Donald walking home after buying a pack of
cigarettes. (Donald's mother later said smoking was his
only vice. She did not like his smoking, but he felt that since he
was enrolled in trade school, he was adult enough to smoke.)
The two kidnapped Donald, drove out to
another county and a secluded area in the woods, attacked him and
beat him with a tree limb. Then, they wrapped a rope around his neck,
and pulled on it to strangle him, before slitting his throat and
hanging him from a tree in a mixed neighborhood in Mobile, on Herndon
Street across from a house owned by Klan leader and Henry's father,
Bennie Jack Hays.
(Gita
M. Smith. "Alabama case shows how father's sins were visited on
son; Whites execution for killing black didn't end inherited racism.”
Atlanta Journal-Constitution.)
The case became a landmark. After the
men were convicted, Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center
brought a federal civil suit on behalf of Beulah Mae Donald, the
victim’s mother, connecting the murder to the Klan as an
organization. In 1987 the jury returned a $7 million wrongful-death
judgment, bankrupting the local chapter.
(Daniel
M. Goldoct. “In the Bad Old Days, Not So Very
Long Ago.” The New York Times. October 12,
2016.)
Words That Haunt Sessions Still
This is what happened one day in the
1980s as Jeff Sessions, then the U.S. attorney in Mobile Alabama, was
talking over this unspeakable case ...
As Sessions learned that some members
of the Klan had smoked marijuana on the evening of the slaying, he
said aloud that he thought the KKK was: "OK until I found out
they smoked pot."
Sessions insists he was joking. Reports
say he did apologize for it. But the damage was done.
Thomas Figures, an assistant US
Attorney who worked under Sessions in Mobile, testified that he was
present when Sessions made the remark and said he did not regard it
as a joke.
Figures also testified that on one
occasion, when the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division
sent the office instructions to investigate a case that Sessions had
tried to close, Figures and Sessions "had a very spirited
discussion regarding how the Hodge case should then be handled; in
the course of that argument, Mr. Sessions threw the file on a table,
and remarked, 'I wish I could decline on all of them,'" by which
Figures said Sessions meant civil rights cases generally.
Figures, who was African-American and
passed away last year, also told committee members that Sessions had
called him "boy" on several occasions and once cautioned
him to "be careful what you say to white folks" after
Figures had spoken harshly to a secretary who was white.
The comment, and others like it, cost
Sessions a federal judgeship in 1986 and have been repeated time and
again in summary form in newspaper and magazine articles over the
years.
(Scott Glover.
“Colleague, transcripts offer closer look at old allegations of
racism against Sen. Jeff Sessions.” CNN. November 18, 2016.)
Other Utterances and Misspeaks
Another federal prosecutor, J. Gerald
Hebert, testified that Sessions had called the ACLU and NAACP
"un-American" and "communist-inspired." According
to Hebert, Sessions said the two groups "forced civil rights
down the throats of people."
Hebert, a veteran civil rights
prosecutor, told the committee he had "very mixed feelings"
about testifying about the conversations that he said had taken place
over a matter of years. He said he and Sessions would engage in
"spirited debate" about civil rights and that he sometimes
wondered if Sessions was baiting him with controversial statements.
Sessions, he said, "has a tendency sometimes to just say
something, and I believe these comments were along that vein."
Asked by a committee member whether he
considered Sessions a racist, Hebert responded: "No, I do not."
(Scott Glover.
“Colleague, transcripts offer closer look at old allegations of
racism against Sen. Jeff Sessions.” CNN. November 18, 2016.)
In
response to a question from Joe Biden on whether he had called the
NAACP and other civil rights organizations "un-American",
Sessions replied "I'm often loose with my tongue. I may have
said something about the NAACP being un-American or Communist, but I
meant no harm by it."
(Sheldon Goldman.
Picking Federal Judges. 1999.)
In
1984, the then U.S. attorney Sessions prosecuted three civil rights
workers who were registering black people to vote in Alabama for
purportedly committing voter fraud. Sessions charged Albert Turner,
his wife Evelyn Turner, and their fellow activist Spencer Hogue with
29 counts of fraud under the Voting Rights Act – with the group
facing a sentence of over 100 years if they were convicted. All three
were found not guilty.
Yet,
the so-called “Marion Three” never received a sincere apology
from Sessions. Instead, Sessions said he remained convinced that he
did the right thing, but admitted he “failed to make the case.”
And,
Bakari T. Sellers of The Guardian reports that some believe
the senator’s existing hostility toward African Americans is proof
that he has not learned anything from that experience.
(Bakari T. Sellers.
“Jeff Sessions as attorney general: a terrifying prospect for black
Americans.” The Guardian. November 10, 2016.)
The
Guardian’s
Sarah Wildman wrote in 2009, other testimony about Sessions from
witnesses, including a Justice Department employee who said Sessions
had called a white civil rights lawyer a “disgrace to his race”
for taking on voting rights suits, resulted in Sessions becoming only
the second rejected federal bench nominee in half a century.
Sellers
and others also report report these Sessions' beliefs and actions:
- Sessions believes the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is an “intrusive piece of legislation.”
- He has opposed efforts to remove the Confederate flag from state property.
- He has voted against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.
- He called for a constitutional amendment to stop granting automatic citizenship to people born in the US.
- He agreed with President-elect Trump’s ban on Muslims migrating to the US.
- He opposes same-sex marriage, and when Trump was quoted about grabbing women by their vaginas, Sessions called it a “stretch” to characterize that as “sexual assault.”
(“Civil rights groups
denounce Sessions as Attorney General. Cable News Network Wire.
November 18, 2016.)
In
conclusion, Jeff Sessions has positive qualities and accomplishments
that seem to make him qualified for the job of Attorney General. Yet,
how can he represent equality in office when he has such a history of
actual and alleged prejudice? It seems to me the combination of
Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions spells trouble for any hopes of unity
in America. "Locker room" sexist remarks and jokes about lynchings hover above the new White House.
Do
words count? I believe they do. And, I also believe spiteful
utterances are windows to the soul of a bigoted person. I'm sure
Sessions regrets many of the things he has said that offend others.
We all do. However, he is living the life of a public servant and
seeking the position of head of the United States Justice Department,
a position that would put him in control of U.S. Attorneys and all
other counsel employed on behalf of the United States.
The
attorney general wields great power and influence. The mission
of the office is to supervise and direct the administration and
operation of the Department of Justice, including the Federal Bureau
of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Bureau of Prisons, Office of
Justice Programs, and the U.S. Attorneys and U.S. Marshals Service,
which are all within the Department of Justice.
Jeff Sessions, your record
on civil rights is tarnished by your past. Now, it has come into
question once more. Josh Gerstein of Politico reports that Trump's
decision to nominate Sessions as attorney general may trigger an
exodus of officials from the Justic Department's Anti-discrimination
Unit.
Gerstein's article states
that former officials said, “Longtime lawyers in the unit that
enforces voting rights laws, conducts investigations into alleged
police abuses and prosecutes hate crimes were already on edge about
what Trump’s victory would mean for their mission, but the
selection of Sessions pushed those fears to another level, former
officials said.
"If there was a level
above DEFCON One, it would be that," said Sam Bagenstos, who was
the civil rights division’s No. 2 official from 2009 to 2011. "Jeff
Sessions has a unique and uniquely troubled history with the civil
rights division. ... From the perspective of the work of the
enforcement of civil rights, I think the Sessions pick is a
particularly troublesome one — more than anyone else you can think
of.”
(Josh Gerstein. "Sessions pick as AG could spark exodus from civil rights division." Politico. November 18, 2016.)
“Words - so innocent and
powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for
good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to
combine them.”
–Nathaniel Hawthorne
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