Holding the line on destructive racial and religious politics in Memphis
(Updated 1 p.m.)
Ugly, ugly, ugly though it is — this story about race, religion, and politics offers some redemption.
There is a primary election today for Democratic nomination in Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District, a Memphis district (formerly represented by Harold Ford, Jr.) a majority of whose voters are black but that is represented by Steve Cohen, a white Jewish man who has represented the district since 2007 and who served 24 years in the state Senate before that, and has a long history of community service and accomplishment.
He is opposed in the primary by Nikki Tinker, an African American woman who is a labor lawyer for an airline.
Tinker has appealed directly to the African American community to support her candidacy.
Nothing wrong with that.
But she ran a television ad that falsely suggests her opponent is sympathetic to white supremacists. She was slow to condemn the blatantly anti-semitic flier (shown here) that was circulated in behalf of her candidacy. And more recently she ran an ad (posted on YouTube and then removed) described by the Nashville Post political blog thus:
In the ad, a child’s voice is heard praying while the narrator, clearly meant to be a black woman but not Tinker, wonders who “the real Steve Cohen is anyway” while questioning one of Cohen votes on school prayer while in the state Senate.
While he’s is OUR churches clapping his hands and tapping his feet, he was the only Senator who thought OUR kids shouldn’t be allowed to pray in school.
The good news in all this is that, across racial lines, there has been an impressive response from leaders in community who have stood up strong and been outspoken against these tactics.
So, we will see what happens today at the polls.
Updated: Politico has video of the second Tinker ad, and reports that Barack Obama has issued the following statement:
“These incendiary and personal attacks have no place in our politics, and will do nothing to help the good people of Tennessee. It’s time to turn the page on a politics driven by negativity and division so that we can come together to lift up our communities and our country.”
(4 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)
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Eddie Roth writes about education and social justice. He recently joined the Post-Dispatch editorial page after six years as an editorial writer with the Dayton Daily News. But he is not new to St. Louis. Eddie grew up in Webster Groves and south St. Louis County. He's a lawyer who for many years practiced with a downtown firm. He and his wife, Jeanne, and their three daughters, Emily, Julia and Alice, lived in the Shaw Neighborhood, where he was active in neighborhood affairs, and now have made it their home again. He also served a term on the St. Louis Police Board. When it comes to community organizing, he endorses Quentin Crisp's advice: Rather than keeping up with the Joneses, it's better to pull them down to your level. 
That’s just too precious! Are people in Tennessee really that air-headed? Do you have to submit to some form of calibrated oxygen deprivation therapy if you want to live there? Sheesh.