Jimmy Carter and the Race Issue

Pursuant to a comment conversation I had here recently regarding Jimmy Carter’s charges of racism against anti-Obama protesters, Hans von Spakovsky writing at National Review Online just noted some of that very thing in Carter’s past.

As Laughlin McDonald, director of the ACLU’s Voting Project, relates in his book A Voting Rights Odyssey: Black Enfranchisement in Georgia, Carter’s board tried to stop the construction of a new “Elementary Negro School” in 1956. Local white citizens had complained that the school would be “too close” to a white school. As a result, “the children, both colored and white, would have to travel the same streets and roads in order to reach their respective schools.” The prospect of black and white children commingling on the streets on their way to school was apparently so horrible to Carter that he requested that the state school board stop construction of the black school until a new site could be found. The state board turned down Carter’s request because of “the staggering cost.” Carter and the rest of the Sumter County School Board then reassured parents at a meeting on October 5, 1956, that the board “would do everything in its power to minimize simultaneous traffic between white and colored students in route to and from school.”

I can’t imagine the Carter today being the same man as back then, but one wonders if because of past sins, he sees it everywhere, even where it isn’t.

And also via the tip from Instapundit, a reminder of what some have done a bit more recently due to Carter’s one-sided support of actual racists, not to mention terrorists.

ATLANTA, Jan. 11 — Fourteen of the city’s business and civic leaders resigned from the Carter Center’s advisory board on Thursday to protest former President Jimmy Carter’s recent criticisms of Israel and American Jewish political power.

Their joint letter of resignation denounced Mr. Carter’s best-selling book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” for its criticisms of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. The letter also took issue with comments Mr. Carter has made suggesting that Israel’s supporters in the United States are using their power to stifle debate on the issue.

“It seems you have turned to a world of advocacy, even malicious advocacy,” the letter said. “We can no longer endorse your strident and uncompromising position. This is not the Carter Center or the Jimmy Carter we came to respect and support.”

The 14 who resigned were members of the center’s board of councilors, a group of more than 200 local leaders who act as ambassadors and fund-raisers for the center but do not determine its policy or direct its operations.

Among the letter signers were Michael Coles, the chief executive of the Caribou Coffee Company; William B. Schwartz Jr., the ambassador to the Bahamas during Mr. Carter’s presidency; Liane Levetan, a former chief executive of DeKalb County, Ga.; and S. Stephen Selig III, who served as national finance chairman for the Carter-Mondale Presidential Committee.

Perhaps the recent op-ed by Elliot Abrams, debunking a similarly recent op-ed by Carter and pointing out Carter’s blindness in his advocacy for Hamas, actually is worth a look, regardless of your opinion of Abrams.  A more considered and thoughtful response may be in order.

Even the liberal Frank Rich manages to figure it out (though he does place the blame on other "usual suspects").

The White House was right not to second Carter’s motion and cue another “national conversation about race.” No matter how many teachable moments we have, some people won’t be taught. (Though how satisfying it would have been for Obama to dismiss Wilson, like the boorish Kanye West, as a “jackass.”) But there is a national conversation we must have right now — the one about what, in addition to race, is driving this anger and what can be done about it. We are kidding ourselves if we think it’s only about bigotry, or health care, or even Obama. The growing minority that feels disenfranchised by Washington can’t be so easily ghettoized and dismissed.

(Emphasis mine.)  Rich seems to forget (rather too quickly) that a growing majority of Americans are not in favor of ObamaCare(tm) at this point.  Nevertheless, if racism energizes just a fringe of the protesters, then a President going on about it on national TV is either overreaction or covert slander.  If, however, racism is being blamed for a significant portion of the anger, then be honest about it and come out and say it, and take the political fallout for your overt slander.

And again, the irony of Jimmy Carter complaining about any perceived racism here while lending the full weight of his influence in the Middle East almost entirely to those who spew actual racist rhetoric is astounding.

Filed under: Democrats • Politics • Race Issues

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