‘Fringe element’ could easily upend America’s racial progress

By Hank Johnson

When I invoked the Ku Klux Klan in my remarks supporting a resolution to rebuke Congressman Joe Wilson for his outburst during the president’s health care address, I expected it to ignite a national debate. And it did.

I’ve taken a lot of flak for saying that Wilson’s comments winked at a racist element within the ranks of those who most bitterly condemn the Obama administration.

I’ve also been criticized for observing that there is a dangerous, racially motivated fringe within the ranks of those who oppose the administration’s policies. I stand by both statements.

This isn’t the race card. It’s a reality check. Anyone who mans the phones in a congressional office, surfs YouTube or watches cable news cannot help but understand that American politics is not above or beyond race. Wilson understands this, too.

Before I am accused yet again of implying that all who oppose the administration’s policies harbor secret bigotry, let me be clear: the “fringe element” to which I referred is just that: a fringe element.

It is beyond obvious that the overwhelming majority of people who protest the president’s efforts do so in the spirit of good-faith dissent and genuine concern for the future of the United States. I applaud them.

It would be ludicrous to imply that all or most such dissent is motivated by racism.

But it is equally ludicrous to ignore the alarming increase in extremism, hate speech, threatening behavior and outright racism that has accompanied the decline of reason and civility that tainted this summer’s debates.

Folks: look around! This dangerous dynamic is out there. It is real. And if we refuse to confront it directly, it will fester, grow and come back to haunt us in ways we haven’t seen in decades.

That is, ultimately, what my comments were meant to convey. The United States has shown a capacity for progress and self-improvement virtually unprecedented in human history. But let us not believe that the bad old days are so far behind us that racially driven violence could not once again rend our social fabric.

Wilson is a canny politician. His outburst was a carefully calculated appeal to a particular constituency who question the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s presidency. The symbolism of his act, which violated the rules of the House and attacked the dignity of the president’s office, emboldened and validated those who believe that President Obama, despite having been lawfully elected, is an illegitimate occupant of the White House.

Within that group, there are yet fewer — but still enough to be cause for concern — individuals whose politics are motivated by resentment that the president of the United States is a black man.

I will not back down from that assertion, for it is self-evident. Wilson knows it, too, and he knew it when he tried to shout down the president of the United States within the halls of the United States Congress.

Politics designed to appeal to this thread is extraordinarily dangerous. The risk of violence is real. It must be confronted. The history of this country is forever tainted by the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow. We must never forget it. And we must never dismiss that legacy as ancient history. Even ancient history has a way of repeating itself.

That is what I said, and what I continue to say. No apologies here.

Rep. Hank Johnson, a Democrat, represents Georgia’s 4th Congressional District.