When we were children, our parents taught us that “Sticks and stones will break my bones. But words will never hurt me.” It turns out that’s only about half true. The full truth is that, quite frankly, sometimes words can hurt a whole lot more than sticks and stones…and sometimes are just the first wave before the sticks and stones follow.
Whether it’s Donald Trump describing an angry mob of white supremacists carrying tiki torches through Charlottesville, Va. as “very fine people” or directing far-right insurrectionists to “stand by” while they attack our capitol trying to overthrow an election, words like these commit violence against our very democracy. They hurt us as a people and that damage is amplified when Sen. Tommy Tuberville goes on national television and defends white nationalists as patriots and, yes, when Congressman Eli Crane refers to Black Americans as “colored people” on the House floor.
Look, I’m a son of the South. My grandparents were sharecroppers in rural South Carolina, so this kind of language is nothing new to me. Many in our community know this kind of well. I’ve been called “colored” myself and worse, especially by the anonymous thugs online. But, then and now, those words sound like something from another generation, when people thought Black folks were second class citizens and treated them as such. And I’m not naive. I know that the scent of Jim Crow, and even slavery, still lingers like perfume in the minds of some and, while we hate to believe it, it’s clear that, since Donald Trump revealed the GOP’s “colorblindness” as the charade we knew it was, that hate has only gotten worse.
But to spew this kind of filth on the House floor, the people’s chamber, that’s a new low. Then again, these are the same folks who want to ban books and pretend the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery, whitewashing our nation’s history of all context and making it more likely that history, not learned from, will repeat itself. Luckily, former Congressional Black Caucus chair Congresswoman Joyce Beatty was there to raise her hand on accountability, followed up by current CBC chairman Congressman Steven Horsford.
I wonder what happens when they’re not around; when Crane and Tuberville are away from the C-SPAN cameras and no one’s there to remind them that it’s 2023—not 1963. The prevalence of white supremacist propaganda is at an all-time high, according to Anti-Defamation League, and the Department of Homeland Security continues to sound the alarm on white supremacy as the top domestic terror threat in America. It’s hard to imagine those things aren’t related.
Words matter, and while we see House resolutions and official letters designed to rebuke comments from some members, I would hope that same enthusiasm would be applied here with strong bipartisan support. Of course, they haven’t regardless of how insulting, demeaning and outright dangerous their words are.
At the very least Congressman Crane’s and Senator Tuberville’s words are racist and, while I try not to judge anyone, if they think those racist words and actions are acceptable, they need to think again. In fact, precious few GOP leaders have denounced this foolishness and, while I’m not surprised, I am profoundly disappointed. Words matter, and so do elections. Because folks like Congressman Crane and Sen. Tuberville and their allies are representing us. And we can’t let their verbal violence pass.
I am reminded of the poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller:
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me