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A (Sort of) Defense of Trent Lott
By L.A. Steel
It is well known that Senator Trent Lott suffers severely from "foot in mouth" disease. I request that because of this malady he might be granted a greater degree of leniency by the public with regard to his recent statements made at the Strom Thurmond birthday gathering. Senator Lott has said that he is sorry and that he will not make racist remarks ever again. He believes that he is a righteous man, raised on good southern Christian values, and that his political career has been supported by the good people of Mississippi. It is obvious that his view towards segregation is a popular one with his constituents. His attitude is characteristically regional, though not unlike the attitudes of most men and women who have strong racial and political beliefs. Unfortunately, racism has many practitioners and is not exclusive to southern states, white American senators and their constituents.
In New England many people hate Canadians. I am Canadian-American with a large amount of Mic Mac Indian. Knowing only my heritage, many people might immediately be led to think that I am in the construction trades, have a low tolerance for alcohol and speak with a French Canadian accent. This couldn’t be further from the truth, although I do like to whoop it up once in a while. My father’s great-grandmother was a full-blooded Indian. Few Americans are aware that many bars in the remote western United States will not serve Indians and blatantly admit it with signs written in the indigenous language of the areas so that tourists are not offended.
Americans really look down on everybody who isn’t American and distrust everyone who is an American. Segregation is as prevalent in America as apple pie—it just isn’t as overt as it was prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Today few will admit they are racist, although each culture and race still voluntarily segregates itself from others. People form social clubs, unions, political action groups, festivals and church functions to encourage ethnic pride and strengthen cultural identities.
Worldwide and national religious sects are the greatest promoters of bigotry, racism and extreme segregation. My grandmother, who passed away at 89, was a typical French Roman Catholic matriarch of her generation, who felt that only the Catholic Church was the right church and that anyone who wasn’t Catholic was a pagan and doomed to Hell. One of her long held fears was that she might be buried next to a Protestant. When one of her daughters married a Protestant she virtually disowned her for 40 years, and even upon her deathbed would not call her son-in-law by his first name. In northern Maine, Catholic churches and cemeteries dominate the physical and cultural landscape; other churches are very few and far between.
Every minority in every country cries racism—and rightfully so, because racism exists in all countries and cultures. Racial cleansing was the war cry in Serbia and Bosnia. Iraqis massacred the Kurds, Turks massacred Greeks and Armenians, Germans massacred Jews and Gypsies, Americans massacred Indians, Indians massacred American settlers. The great American expansion westward was accomplished by the genocide of the American Indians, and the entire southern economy until 1864 depended entirely on slavery.
Racism is part of the human genetic makeup and is a primal basic instinct, if we believe Darwin’s Origin of Species and his theory of natural selection. This does not make racism morally right. If Darwin’s theory is correct, then human evolution—made possible by racial and cultural integration over millions of years—has created a moral and spiritual human being. Men and women of all races have achieved a moral enlightenment that reveals to them the spiritual sameness of all people. I often think of my grandmother and wonder what prevented her from receiving that same enlightenment. I also wonder if racism is an incurable genetic disease that can eventually destroy its victim’s mind with a disabling hatred followed by paranoid delusions.
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