LePage forces us all to choose

Gov. Paul LePage’s racist comments earlier this week in Bridgton aren’t simply embarrassing. And they can’t be attributed to an innocent slip of the tongue.

They’re dangerous and insidious. They are the blood slander that has been used to justify the torture and murder of black men and boys since Reconstruction.

LePage used racially loaded language to describe drug traffickers – from away – who come to Maine to impregnate young, white girls.

His non-apology on Friday demonstrated that he’s unwilling to take a look at himself in any serious way, even after a national outcry over his remarks. The racism is so embedded in his thinking, it seems, that he can’t recognize it even when it’s pointed out.

screenshot-davidfarmer.bangordailynews.com 2016-01-09 13-42-40In the most extensive historical review I’ve been able to find, the Equal Justice Initiative compiled a comprehensive report, “Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror.” The New York Times wrote about it last year.

The report documents the brutal reign of terror, particularly in the South, between the Civil War and World War II. Among its findings, the report documents 3,959 lynchings in 12 southern states.

Through exhaustive research, the report looks into the circumstances around the murder and torture of black people and the reasons the mobs gave for their actions.

The researchers found that in nearly 25 percent of the cases, the lynchings were the result of a wildly distorted fear of interracial sex.

As the report notes, “In 1889, in Aberdeen, Mississippi, Keith Bowen allegedly tried to enter a room where three white women were sitting; though no further allegation was made against him, Mr. Bowen was lynched by the ‘entire (white) neighborhood’ for his ‘offense.'”

“General Lee, a black man, was lynched by a white mob in 1904 for merely knocking on the door of a white woman’s house in Reevesville, South Carolina,” the report tells us.

Other excuses used by the mobs to carry out their crimes included casual social transgressions and allegations of violent crime, often with little or no evidence, and specifically the rape of white women.

“Deep racial hostility in the South during this period focused suspicion on black people, whether evidence supported that suspicion or not, especially in the cases of violent crime against white victims.”

But these ideas aren’t confined to history. They show themselves in the violence of today.

As the online magazine Slate reported, Dylann Storm Roof, the man who killed nine people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., fell back on the same justification.

He reportedly told churchgoers: “You rape our women, and you’re taking over our country, you have to go.”

LePage made clear that his concern is protecting white Maine against the black invaders from away, even if he never used the word black.

As someone who grew up in the South, this language is all too familiar. The code words stoke fear that’s been exploited for hundreds of years to enforce segregation, to oppress black people and to win white votes.

It’s unmistakable. Perhaps some folks accustomed to homogeneous Maine can’t hear it or they choose not to, but it’s time that changed.

And, if you’re a supporter of the governor and you think he’s just “calling a spade a spade,” you either think yourself more clever than you really are and aren’t fooling anyone; or you need to look up what that means. And in this context, it has nothing to do with a shovel or playing cards. You’re about 100 years past innocence.

During his bizarro-world press conference on Friday, LePage urged the media, and by extension, everyone in the state to do something.

The implicit call was to do something about the drug dealing, violence and impregnating done at the hands of the unsaid black men from away.

I’ve yet to talk to any political leader or average voter who doesn’t understand the seriousness of the drug epidemic facing our state. LePage would have us believe that he’s the only protector of Maine’s purity. Bumpkus.

You can’t build this image and not expect people to do something. What exactly does LePage want people to do to defend themselves and, in this construction, their women? (A remarkably sexist, archaic notion.)

The call to action – to violence? – is implicit.

For the person who believes the racist notion that black men and boys are dangerous, are a threat to their daughters and their community, LePage and his hateful language are playing to their fears. He’s egging them on.

Many people I greatly respect say that LePage is so unhinged that we should ignore what he says and concentrate on things that really matter to voters: Jobs, the economy, investment. That these fights only make him stronger politically, especially with his base.

But you can’t look past this. You can’t grow the economy when the elected leader of the state would take us back to an antebellum time. And you can’t stand by and do nothing.

Words matter. They have the power to inspire and to incite, to lift people up and to stoke hate, fear and division.

LePage has chosen the latter. If there’s anything positive to take from all of this, LePage is forcing all of us to make our own choice. Where will you stand?

Read the summary of the Equal Justice Initiative’s report, “Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror.”

David Farmer

About David Farmer

David Farmer is a political and media consultant in Portland, where he lives with his wife and two children. He was senior adviser to Democrat Mike Michaud’s campaign for governor and a longtime journalist. You can reach him at dfarmer14@hotmail.com.