Race is at the Heart of the Gonzalez Scandal
A Black Agenda
Radio commentary by Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
"The leadership of the Democratic Party is determined not
to frame any conflict with Republicans in racial terms."
Make no mistake. The controversy over the firing of eight
U.S. Attorneys by the Bush administration is a race issue. It's often difficult
to recognize this essential truth, because the leadership of the Democratic
Party is determined not to frame any conflict with Republicans in racial terms.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic honcho Harry Reed actively
suppress the racial aspects of the scandal, fearing the subject of race is a
turnoff for white voters. The American corporate media also pretend that race
is a sideshow - unless it involves the race or ethnicity of a major player in
the story.
Thus, we hear a great deal about the fact that Attorney
General Alberto Gonzalez, the long-time Bush crony who is at the eye of the
storm, is also the highest ranking Hispanic federal official in the nation.
Corporate media pundits speculate as to how this will fly with Latino voters,
but most often neglect to mention that Gonzalez was acting as hatchet man for
ongoing Republican efforts to disenfranchise Black and Latino voters. More than
any other tactic, systemic suppression of the Black and Latino vote is central
to preserving a Republican majority in state and national politics.
U.S.
Attorneys are key to this subversion of voting rights. Under Republican
administrations, they are expected to mount spurious investigations of voter
registration and get-out-the-vote campaigns in Black and Latino precincts.
Failure to do so - a refusal to pursue bogus cases with enthusiasm, energy, and
the full weight of the federal government - can be fatal to a Republican U.S.
Attorney's career, despite the fact that the GOP has turned up no credible
evidence of significant voter fraud in minority communities.
"Systemic
suppression of the Black and Latino vote is central to preserving a Republican
majority in state and national politics."
A number of the eight fired Republican U.S. Attorneys
failed to demonstrate sufficient enthusiasm for Black and Latino voter
suppression. They refused to violate their oaths of office, and their ethical
obligations as lawyers, by engaging in the Republican conspiracy to violate the
voting rights of fellow citizens. Alberto Gonzalez and his bosses claim that's
cause for dismissal - when, in a just world, the mere existence of such a
pattern and practice of voter suppression within the executive branch of the
federal government should be cause for wholesale impeachments and indictments
of the conspirators. But Democratic leadership prefers to speak of Gonzalez and
other Republicans lying to Congress - in other words, to frame the issue in
race-neutral terms. That's why their kind of Democrats are the most
undependable allies; they are as determined as the perpetrators of crimes
against Blacks and Latinos, to hide the real nature of the conspiracy.
In New Mexico, U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, a Latino and a Republican, was marked
for termination because he wasn't aggressive enough in criminalizing Democratic
efforts to register voters in mostly Hispanic and Black precincts. In Arkansas,
a U.S. Attorney on Gonzalez's hit list was replaced by a political operative
whose claim to fame was his contribution to suppressing the Black vote in Florida. However, these
and other facts of racial motivations in the scandal are assigned a low profile
by Democratic leaders, even as they pretend to mount a full-court press against
the Republicans. What scares Nancy Pelosi and Harry Ried far more than
Republican criminality, is the prospect of becoming
known as the party of
Blacks and Latinos.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
To listen to or download this audio commentary, click on the mic at right.
BAR Executive Editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford (@) BlackAgendaReport.com.
The late John H. Bracey, Jr. argued that Black Studies should be wedded to African liberation, not to the corporate-bureaucratic structure of the university.
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This week’s featured author is Brian Jones. Jones is Director of The New York Public Library’s Center for Educators and Schools. His book is The Tuskegee Student Uprising: A History.
This week’s featured scholar is Moya Bailey. Bailey is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University. Her article is “The Ethics of Pace.”
