Tag: hate crimes bill

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Politics Politics Feature

NAACP Praises Cohen for Hate Crime Stand at Sunday Love-Fest

CREDIT: jb

In stark contrast to his reception at an angry ministerial
meeting hosted by Rev. LaSimba Gray in August, 9th District
congressman Steve Cohen heard himself lauded and endorsed Sunday by members and
leaders of the local NAACP for his support of federal Hate Crimes legislation.

Gray, who had opposed Cohen’s election in 2006 and had
tried unsuccessfully to organize support for a consensus black candidate in last
year’s large congressional field, has insisted that the bill inhibits black
preachers from inveighing against homosexuality and has spurred opposition to it
among black clerics. Denying the allegations, Cohen has responded by calling
Gray’s use of the Hate Crimes issues merely a device to support Nikki Tinker, a
declared opponent of Cohen’s reelection in 2008.

Sunday’s meeting was as supportive for the congressman as
Gray’s ambush meeting in August had been negative. Cohen and the NAACP members
enjoyed something of a love-fest, in fact, with longtime NAACP eminence Maxine
Smith, who directed the local organization for years, making a point of praising
“my congressman” and current NAACP executive director Johnnie Turner and chapter
president Dr. Warner Dickerson adding their kudos.

Of the Hate Cries bill and Cohen’s sponsorship, Dickerson
offered this: “I want to say up front that the national NAACP not only endorses
this bill but supports it as a source of strength.”

Noting that the bill was also supported by such
organizations as the ACLU, NEA, Congressional Black Caucus, and the PUSH/Rainbow
Coalition, Dickerson said of Cohen, “We thank him for his support of the bill
and all that he has supported there and prior to going there, when he was in the
state legislature and also locally. He supports the issues and the things we
believe in as the NAACP. “

In her introduction, Johnnie Turner said rhetorically, “Is
there anybody here that doesn’t know Steve Cohen?”

Gray ‘…hurt Memphis and hurt race relations.’

In his own remarks, Cohen followed up on that theme,
telling the group, “When I was on the county commission I had a lot more in
common with Vasco Smith and Jesse Turner and Minerva Johnican and Walter Bailey
and worked with them and voted with them….Those were the people I worked with.
They were my allies and my friends” He added similar remarks about current state
Representative Larry Turner and state representative and state senator Kathryn
Bowers, both of whom were on hand.

“Y’all are the reason I got in trouble, wanting to join
that club,” he joked, recalling a mini-controversy over his professed desire,
after being elected, to join the Congressional Black Caucus. Cohen then noted
that he had addressed the Caucus during the previous week on subjects like his
apology-for-slavery legislation, which he said now had good prospects for
passage.

Cohen noted recent coverage of the local Hate Crimes
controversy on National Public Radio and said Gray, who was heard from on the
broadcast opposing the bill and expressing reservations about white
representation of the 9th District, “sounded pretty bad” and hard
“hurt Memphis and hurt race relations.”

The congressman said the Hate Crimes bill was “as American
as apple pie, motherhood, and the NAACP” and contended that, besides adding
protection for gays and people with disabilities to existing legislation, the
bill also strengthened federal jurisdiction and funding for crimes against
blacks. “Some 54 percent of hate crimes are committed against African Americans,
and only 16 percent against gays,” he said.

‘Strange Bedfellows’

As before when he has discussed the issue, Cohen insisted
that conservative clergymen were permitted both by the bill itself and by the
First Amendment to say whatever they chose about homosexuality. “No preacher’s
ever been arrested for preaching anything ever.” He said opinions to the
contrary were being urged by right-wing clerics who are “trying to get American
preachers to leave the Democratic Party on social issues.”

He then quipped, “Politics can make strange bedfellow, but
you shouldn’t wake up and have to go to the Health Department.”

At the close of Cohen’s remarks, he got more kudos from
Jesse Turner Jr., who recalled lobbying the then congressional candidate in
early 2006 for some 30 issues favored by the national NAACP. “He was for 28 of
them, and by the time we finished talking, he was for 29,” said Turner. “I want
this audience to know that he was on board even before he got elected.”

Last week, Cohen earned a similar fillip from an evaluation
from the Congressional Black Caucus Monitor, a national group that gives
performance grades to congressional members in predominantly black districts.
After giving Cohen’s 9th District predecessor, former Rep. Harold
Ford Jr., a “dishonorable mention,” the Monitor’s report said, “it’s worth
noting that his white successor, Rep. Steve Cohen, represents Ford’s former
constituents more ethically, ably, and accurately than Ford ever did, and
consequently scores higher on the CBC Report Card.”

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

An America Safe for All

Memphis is sweltering this time of year, but some preachers insist on cranking up the heat even more. They’re getting hot under the collar over the Matthew Shepard Act, a bill that will soon come to a vote in the U.S. Senate.

This legislation extends federal hate crimes to cover individuals attacked because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. These ministers contend that this bill, if passed, will prevent them from preaching against homosexuality.

Well, I’ve got news: Preachers can freely preach prejudice under this legislation. Their First Amendment rights are fully protected. As an African-American woman, I think these preachers should support human rights for all people. However, I tolerate their right to be wrong. What I don’t support is the untruth they are spreading.

The Matthew Shepard Act explicitly states: “Nothing in this act … shall be construed to prohibit any expressive conduct protected from legal prohibition by, or any activities protected by the free speech or free exercise clauses of, the first amendment to the constitution.”

Some of our ministers here in Memphis have lashed out at this proposed law, though it is intended to protect all people who are victims of brutal hate crimes. In addition to attacking the legislation, they also have attacked Representative Steve Cohen for his support of this bill when it passed in the House of Representatives in May.

These ministers want you to believe that the black community is separate from the gay community. But you and I know that there are plenty of black brothers and sisters who are gay. It is shocking when African Americans sit silently when violence is practiced against anyone because of their identity.

Nakia Ladelle Baker, a transgender woman, was found beaten to death in early January in a Nashville parking lot. A stranger stabbed Sakia Gunn, a 15-year-old African American, to death after she told him she was a lesbian. These are examples of the hundreds of anti-gay hate crimes happening throughout our country. And no matter what my fellow Memphis ministers say, the bottom line is this: We must do everything in our power to prevent hate and violence.

Some preachers want the right to shout about immorality and who is going to heaven and who is not. But Jesus said, “Come to me all you who are heavy-laden and I will give you rest.” “All” means all. Sadly, hearts, and sometimes bodies, are still being broken in the name of religion.

Today, all Americans are still not protected from hate-fueled violence. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender lives are at stake. Some folks do not care. Even worse, some folks condone such attacks. The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act is a way to give law enforcement all the resources possible to prosecute these horrific crimes.

I remember some years ago, I feared for my life at a gay-rights rally as white men drove up and down the street, yelling obscenities and physical threats, with shotguns hanging out of vehicle windows. I thought I was going to die that night. These were not idle threats. More recently, I attended a gay pride gathering here in Memphis where people hurled obscenities at us, but the large police presence may have kept any guns hidden away.

Amidst this anti-gay rhetoric in Memphis, I do see signs of hope and progress. Having been born and raised in South Memphis before the civil rights movement, I know what change is.

Since I came back home 12 years ago, I am seeing even more change. The welcoming United Church of Christ congregation, where I am a minister, is growing. There is a thriving Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center, and two celebrations each year recognize the presence and contributions of gay Memphians.

I call on my brothers and sisters in Memphis to continue to fight for an America that is safe for all people, regardless of their race, sexual orientation, or any other classification. I ask everyone to speak the truth — the truth for all people, not just for a few. And to stand for the America of which we all dream — a country where we can all be who we are without the fear of violence.

Reverend La Paula Turner is the associate pastor of Holy Trinity Community Church in Memphis.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

What Does Tinker Think?

Next year’s Democratic primary apparently will see a return match of Steve Cohen vs. Nikki Tinker for the right to represent the 9th District (an area which dovetails, more or less, with Memphis) in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The 2008 version of that race will be different in several particulars, to be sure. A plus for Tinker is the fact that she is unlikely to be, as she was last year, one of a dozen or so African-American candidates, most of them reasonably credentialed to serve in Congress, all of them competing for the same presumed voter base. To Cohen’s benefit is the fact that he will be running as the incumbent with a record of achievement — and certainly of effort — that his constituents can judge him on. Give the congressman this: He stays busy, amazingly so for a first-termer. Merely attempting to keep up with what he’s keeping up with and then reporting it puts any media outlet in risk of accusations of partiality. What are we to do? Tell him to take more vacations?

We have generally favored Cohen’s positions — and certainly his style — since we started observing him years ago as a state legislator. But the fact remains that we, like most local observers, were decidedly impressed by several figures in last year’s congressional race and would have been content if any of half a dozen of them had been elected.

Frankly, we never quite put Nikki Tinker in that category, though we certainly understood her appeal to many people — enough of them, along with formidable sources of financial support, to make her runner-up to Cohen in last year’s primary. Our basic problem with Tinker was that she declined, early or late, to stake out positions on the major issues. The sentimental story she kept telling about her grandmother was all well and good, but her prospective constituents deserved to know more about her views on the major issues of war and peace and governmental policy. For better and for worse, we know where Cohen stands on things.

Unhappily, Tinker has shown no more inclination than she did last year to convey her thoughts on the issues. Specifically, when her views about the currently (and, we think, unnecessarily) controversial Hate Crimes Bill (see Politics, p. 14) have been sought, she has not only been uncommunicative, she has been unreachable, leaving it to a spokesperson in far-off Washington to say that she is concentrating on “voters,” not issues. Whatever that means. The implication was that to discuss the things that matter most to her would-be constituents would somehow be a disservice to them.

The fact is, we think the current attack on Cohen’s vote for the Hate Crimes Bill — identical to the positions taken by his predecessor, Harold Ford Jr., and by every member of the Congressional Black Caucus in the current session — is a sham argument orchestrated by ad hoc partisans of Tinker for whom Cohen’s race is the real issue.

For her own credibility, we think it is incumbent that Tinker herself address for the record the Hate Crimes Bill — and other issues of the day, for that matter. That’s how she’ll win our respect.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Mayoral Shuffling

Memphis mayoral candidates continued to campaign, as is their wont, over the weekend:

Incumbent mayor Willie Herenton, who is eschewing formal debates with his opponents, spoke briefly to a rally at a Frayser mall Saturday but mainly spent his time there autographing campaign T-shirts and demonstrating his prowess at the “Cupid Shuffle” as a sound system blared out some music.

Opponent Carol Chumney held a well-attended opening at her Poplar Avenue headquarters on Sunday, once again chiding Herenton for being willing to spar with Joe Frazier while ducking debate, but she seemed to broaden her attack to include rival Herman Morris as well as Herenton: “My opponents love to walk you through their humble beginnings, but their actions both in political office and as executives demonstrate that they have long forgotten where they came from.”

Morris held at least one major fund-raiser over the weekend, while John Willingham presided over a headquarters open house that spread over Sunday and Monday.

Present at Mt. Olive C.M.E. Church for an all-candidates forum Sunday were Chumney, Morris, and Willingham, but not Herenton. A wide representation of other mayoral candidates also attended, including Laura Davis Aaron — who cited as two reasons for running the fact that “Mayor Herenton reads my mail” and that she needs a job — and Dewayne A. Jones Sr., who shouted so loudly as to temporarily short out his microphone.

• With Congress in recess, 9th District congressman Steve Cohen is much in evidence locally. Among other things, Cohen presided (along with Tennessee senator Lamar Alexander) over a ceremony formally changing the name of the Federal Building to the Clifford Davis/Odell Horton Federal Building, in honor of the late U.S. district judge Odell Horton.

Cohen also proposed to President Bush that he appoint former deputy attorney general James Comey to succeed the disgraced and now resigned Alberto Gonzales as U.S. attorney general. (Comey, along with the bedridden John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, had resisted as unconstitutional a Bush wiretapping plan aggressively pushed by Gonzales, then White House counsel.)

Cohen addressed a Chamber of Commerce-sponsored banquet as the first of its Frontline Politics speakers this year and took part in a panel on crime sponsored by the Public Issues Forum. The congressman’s remarks at the Frontline dinner at the Ridgeway Center Hilton struck a new note, in that Cohen, a longtime critic of the Iraq war, acknowledged for the first time that residual U.S. troops might need to remain in the war-torn country for some time to come.

Cohen also scheduled a meeting, tentatively set for Tuesday of this week, with members of the Memphis Black Ministerial Association, one of whose leaders, the Rev. LaSimba Gray, has led an assault on Cohen’s support for a congressional Hate Crimes Bill.

There are several anomalies associated with the ministers’ protest — among them, that Cohen’s predecessor, former congressman Harold Ford Jr., had consistently supported such legislation without drawing criticism from the association.

Pointing out further inconsistencies this week was an association member, the Rev. Ralph White, who originally expressed solidarity with the protest but later satisfied himself it was based on misconceptions. Said White: “I’ve read the bill, and I’m satisfied that it does not restrain a minister from expressing opposition to homosexual conduct or anything else that might be offensive to his conscience or Christian doctrine. The language of the bill specifically guarantees such freedom of speech.”

Turning the attack back on its maker, White said, “What LaSimba Gray has to answer to is whether he is consciously trying to aid the congressional campaign of Nikki Tinker. Nobody seems to be wondering what her attitude toward the Hate Crimes Bill is.”

Actually, many people have so wondered, but a Washington, D.C., spokesman for the elusive Tinker, a 2006 Cohen opponent who has already filed to run a reprise of last year’s congressional race, has publicly said she will, at least temporarily, distance herself from discussion of such issues — as she did at an equivalent period of last year’s race. White, who also sought the 9th District seat last year, is holding open his options for another run of his own.

• Senator Alexander, just back from an extended fact-finding trip to Iraq in tandem with Tennessee Senate colleague Bob Corker, seems, like Cohen, to have moderated his stand on Iraq somewhat. Alexander continues to push for a bipartisan resolution, co-authorized with Colorado Democrat Ken Salazar, based on the findings of the Iraq Study Group and calling for an end to U.S. combat operations.

But the senator indicated in Memphis last week that he had been impressed by progress made by the ongoing U.S. troop “surge” in Anbar Province and other points and, pending a scheduled report to Congress next month by General David Petraeus, was keeping an open mind on continued troop commitments in Iraq.

• A casualty of County Commission voting Monday was Susan Adler Thorp, a former Commercial Appeal columnist and consultant who had been serving as public relations adviser to Juvenile Court judge Curtis Person but whose position ended up being unfunded. Somewhat later, a commission majority would authorize equivalent sums for a new “outreach” position, yet to be filled.

• The 2007 recipient of the Tigrett Award, funded by FedEx founder Fred Smith in honor of the late John Tigrett, will be former U.S. senator Howard Baker, it was announced last week. The award will be presented by the West Tennessee Healthcare Foundation at a gala later this year.

• Next week: a systematic look at this year’s City Council races.

Him Again

Richard Fields was back on the attack, battling his foes by means of publicly circulated letters.

To be sure, one of the epistles was written not by Fields but by Lambert McDaniel, an imprisoned ex-club owner, to Gwen Smith, the point person in Mayor Willie Herenton‘s accusations concerning a lurid blackmail plot against him orchestrated by lawyer Fields and other alleged “snakes.” In the letter, McDaniel, who was incarcerated on a drug charge, refers to Smith by pet names and advises her to stay in touch with “the Mexicans” — presumably drug connections.
What relevance the letter has to Herenton’s charges against Fields — who, according to the mayor, urged Smith to seduce and entrap the mayor — is uncertain. Clearly, it does milady’s reputation, already sullied, no good. But, by association, it wouldn’t seem to entitle Fields — or Nick Clark, his acknowledged confederate in the purported topless-club investigation — to any merit badges, either.

Fields is a textbook illustration of the adjective “unabashed,” however. Confirming reports that the lawyer’s own poison pen had been unsheathed for yet another epistolary crusade, Shelby County commissioner Sidney Chism denounced Fields in the commission’s public session Monday, during a debate on whether to assign Head Start children to the non-profit Porter-Leath Children’s Center.

In one of Fields’ widely circulated broadsides, Chism, a child-care provider himself, was taken to task for his initial opposition to the Porter-Leath arrangement and was told, among other things, he should be “ashamed” of himself.

Chism’s response was scornful. Citing a variety of allegations against Fields that have been insistently put forth by blogger Thaddeus Matthews, Chism challenged Fields’ bona fides, saying that, if all that was said about Fields was true, “he shouldn’t be anywhere around children, anyhow.”

Whatever the accuracy of the charges and counter-charges swirling about Fields, there was little doubt about one thing: With an election happening, the odds were better than even that there will be, in some guise or another, a Richard Fields ballot this year, as there was in each of the last two local election cycles. If so, would this be good or bad for Fields’ endorsees? This, too, remains to be seen.