Thanks for the cite. It’s unfortunate that Wicks and Wiley are both dead. Do you know if they ever made any public statements about Biden’s claim or Sessions’ response? Has anyone asked Jon Archer about this (or is he dead too?)?
From Bricker’s link:
He’s advocated for the confederate flag flying on government property pretty much continuously since then (when the issue has come up), and he hasn’t disavowed the previously racist things he’s said. Sure, he could be a lot worse, but I see a lot to criticize.
What’s so wrong with criticizing him for the things he’s actually said and done?
YES he has. When Biden accused him of saying the n-word, his response was “Senator, I did not. That is an absolute false statement.”
His being against affirmative action isn’t the only reason the NAACP scored him a 7. They’re basing that on his disdain for our Civil Rights laws, and racist remarks.
http://www.naacp.org/latest/naacp-statement-appointment-jeff-sessions-attorney-general/
nm
Sorry, I meant disavowal in the “repudiate and apologize” sense, not in just the “denial” sense. So yes, he’s denied that specific accusation, but failed to deny others (or made excuses for them, like that it was a joke). I don’t know if he said that specific thing. He’s admitted to saying other specific things included in the accusations (or declined to deny them). A real, serious repudiation and apology would be something like the following:
“In the past, I’ve said many racially insensitive things, including advocating for a symbol that many Americans reasonably see as a symbol of white supremacism. At the time I thought that these were not racist things to say and do, and that racially insensitive jokes were okay and no big deal, but I was wrong, and I deeply apologize. Going forward I resolve to oppose symbols of bigotry like the confederate flag, which only became prominent again in recent history as a symbol of opposition to civil rights, and to call out insensitive and racist jokes and other statements by others around me. Again, I have said racist things, I’m very sorry for it, and I apologize and want to make things better, any way I can.”
Such a thing is very rare in politics, of course, but whenever such an apology and repudiation of past mistakes occurs, it’s worth noting and praising. And it’s worth noting and criticizing when it fails to happen.
Jeff Sessions certainly didn’t want black people voting in Alabama. Does that make him a racist? I would say so!
In the Democratic primary of September 1984, FBI agents hid behind the bushes of the Perry County post office, waiting for Turner and fellow activist Spencer Hogue to mail 500 absentee ballots on behalf of elderly black voters. When Turner and Hogue left, the feds seized the envelopes from the mail slots. Twenty elderly black voters from Perry County were bused three hours to Mobile, where they were interrogated by law enforcement officials and forced to testify before a grand jury. Ninety-two-year-old Willie Bright was so frightened of “the law” that he wouldn’t even admit he’d voted.
In January 1985, Sessions, the 39-year-old US Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, charged Turner; his wife, Evelyn; and Hogue with 29 counts of mail fraud, altering absentee ballots, and conspiracy to vote more than once. They faced over 100 years of incarceration on criminal charges and felony statutes under the VRA—provisions of the law that had scarcely been used to prosecute the white officials who had disenfranchised blacks for so many years. The Turners and Hogue became known as the Marion Three. (This story is best told in Lani Guinier’s book Lift Every Voice.)
The trial was held in Selma, of all places. The jury of seven blacks and five whites deliberated for less than three hours before returning a not guilty verdict on all counts.
Article @
Wouldn’t it be simpler just to make note of all the times Mr Sessions has bravely and forthrightly stood for racial justice? How he has used the power of his various offices to further that cause? Given a career spanning decades, there must be quite a few!
Well, then, just bring them, that should put paid to these scurrilous accusations! Surprised no one thought of it.
I’m already hearing crickets.
Obviously if he is a racist that ought to disqualify him from being Attorney General, but I think that’s still setting the bar too low. Anyone who thinks that the Confederate flag should be flying over the statehouse, whether they hold any racial animus or not, is at the least taking the racism that exists in our society far too lightly. That’s an extremely unfortunate trait for an Attorney General to have, especially given the ongoing issues with law enforcement in this country which he’s going to have to either address or willfully ignore.
Conservatives keep telling me I have “liberal though leaders”. I still have no idea who they are. There’s apparently some guy named Saul Alinsky I supposedly follow slavishly even though I’d never heard of him before I was told that I follow him slavishly, and then there’s George Soros who apparently bought a bunch of voting machines? Or once owned a company who made voting machines? Or a friend of his once owned a company that made voting machines? Anyway, he’s apparently rich and powerful and is controlling me in some way that’s so Machiavellian I’m completely unaware of it. Maybe it’s Jon Stewart? He’s gone quiet lately so maybe he’s off doing Illuminati/Bilderberg Group stuff.
I dunno. We liberals really need to get our news from a few centralized sources like the conservatives do. I mean, the way talking points turn up on Foxnews or Breitbart and then suddenly all the right-wing talking heads and politicians are repeating them verbatim within a week? Sheer genius. That’d be such a timesaver compared to thinking for myself.
Well I join you in repudiating these hypothetical people.
I am aware.
I am also aware that your faux-highmindedness over the fact that the use of “boy” can be innocuous is an attempt to poison the well against discussion of uses of “boy” which are not, in much the same way you’ve done with accusations of racism overall.
Ah, the “You lost, get over it” approach. That one’s quite popular these days in certain circles.
If it was just the one accusation, and nothing else, than I might be “done” too. But there’s a bunch of accusations, many of which he either doesn’t bother to deny or admits but makes excuses for, plus the ongoing defense of the confederate flag, and other things. Add all that up, and I start to suspect he speaks and acts with regards to race in ways that are pretty typical for white Alabama gentlemen of his age (which is to say, someone intent on deluding themselves about the South, slavery, the Confederacy, Jim Crow, and race in general, even while having friends and close associates who are black and treating many black people with respect). It’d be surprising to me if his attitudes were substantially different but he’s hidden them (and it would reflect equally poorly on him if so), and I see no reason to suspect that this is the case.
Which of the accusations has Sessions not bothered to deny, or has made excuses for?
Regards,
Shodan
Don’t worry about it. If you’re not one, you probably aren’t supposed to know who they are. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
At least since “elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won” it’s probably a standard and expected response. I suspect that the next time a Democrat wins the Presidency we’ll see the opposite circles crowing about it.
He’s a white guy born and raised in Alabama since 1946. It is completely unbelievable to me that he never used the n-word in his life so I do not consider it debunked. However, I this isn’t really about whether or not he used a particular word.
Many people have made claims that they witnessed Jeff Sessions saying and doing racist things. Jeff Session’s statements to the contrary essentially add no new new information. Someone who didn’t say racist statement X would say, “I never said X. That is absolutely false,” but someone who did say X would also say, “I never said X. That is absolutely false.” We learn precisely zero from Sessions speaking to this point so we are left with the statements of many people who claim to have witnessed bad behavior from Jeff Sessions. These many statements are consistent with each other and believable so I conclude that Jeff Sessions has said some racist stuff.
The accusation from the Washington Post was:
Do you regard the claim that his former colleagues testified that he used the word as debunked?
And as an aside, if indeed you’re correct, then have you disqualified from Cabinet posts each and every white guy born and raised in Alabama since 1946 (or presumably earlier?)
That seems like a rather sweeping rule. And it seems like judging someone based on where they were born – isn’t that the kind of thing liberal seek to prohibit by law?
Wicks, at least, made public statements about Sessions (although there may be sour grapes on both sides there).
I think Wicks is still alive, although I have not found any recent interviews with him. Jon Archer died in 1982.
I do not believe the Washington Post article is accurate.
I never said anything about disqualification for a cabinet post. There is pretty strong evidence that Jeff Sessions said racist things in the past. It is certainly possible for him to perform the duties of Attorney General in spite of this. That’s his case to make.
A fourteen year old white kid in Selma Alabama in 1960 used the n-word as a matter of course. It wasn’t taboo and was just how people talked in that time and place.
I have no position on whether or not Sessions is qualified to be Attorney General, and it doesn’t matter what I think anyways, but claims that he has never said or done anything racist are unbelievable based on the time and place that he grew up and the sworn testimony of witnesses.
No, it merely requires Sessions acknowledging that growing up white in Alabama in the 1940s and 50s carried with it certain privileges denied to others in that state. If the guy stood up and said, “hey, I grew up in a certain environment, and as a child I thought that was a-okay, but now I’m an adult and realize it’s not okay,” then I don’t think any but the most extreme would seek to disqualify him. Heck, even George “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” Wallace redeemed himself with Alabama’s black voters and black leaders by the 1980s.
However, I’ve seen no evidence that Sessions has any real grasp on WHY the confederate flag is seen as so divisive, or WHY black Americans don’t think they’ve gotten a fair shake. As near as I can tell, he’s still stuck in the attitudes of 1950s Alabama, and that should be disqualifying.