my Dear John letter

I'm sick with a head cold, so I can't do much and I rather wonder if I'm making any sense at all. I doubt it will help, but I felt I had to speak up. And it does fit on one page, which was one of my goals.

12 October 2008

Rep. John Lewis
U. S. House of Representatives
343 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

BY FAX TO (202) 225-0351 and (404) 331-0947

I have read that you are publicly blaming Sen. John McCain and the McCain-Palin campaign for the anger recently witnessed at some of the Republican rallies. I don’t believe that you could be more wrong.

I am one of the millions of voters who are fearful and angry in these weeks leading up to the election. I can only speak for myself, of course, but I believe my opinion may be widely shared. If I could pin the beginnings of my anger on a single moment, it was when Barack Obama spoke of his own grandmother as a “typical white person.” As if there is any such thing as “typical white.”

In that same speech - his famous “race speech” in Philadelphia - Obama used the word “black” 39 times and the word “white,” 30 times. Unused to hearing or even thinking of people in terms of their skin color, I was shocked… and deeply offended.

And then we heard from Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, extremely disgusting racist comments. Where were you then, Congressman? Where were you when we were hearing, for the first time in decades, angry black racist remarks against whites? And where were you when Obama surreptitiously remarked about white working class folks clinging to guns and religion out of frustration? We sat here and heard ourselves misrepresented - on the basis of race and class - as somehow “bitter.” I’ve never before felt judged on such terms, and certainly not by a presidential candidate! It has been absolutely infuriating.

If you want to not only condemn, but also to understand the anger you’re seeing now, there is much more to it than race, but race is a part of it. Many Americans feel cheated. I believed in Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream; I believed that people “of color” wanted me to judge them by the “content of their character.” And so I have, for all these four decades. And I raised my children to do the same. Turns out, however, that it wasn’t reciprocal. We are apparently –to this day– judged as white, perhaps even “typical white.” We just didn’t know it until now.

I am very angry about this and feel that my trust and good will has been betrayed, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with Sen. McCain or Gov. Palin. It was your candidate, Sen. Obama, who reopened this country’s racial wounds when it would have been best to let them heal. And you, Sir, have only made things worse, much worse, with your extreme and unfounded accusations. You owe America an apology.

Anne Lieberman

UPDATE: According to CNN

"Clarifying" his remarks later Saturday, Lewis said his statement "was a reminder to all Americans that toxic language can lead to destructive behavior."

The good Congressman should have thought of that before he made his own "toxic" remarks.

Comments

[sbruce45]

Beautiful!!