I am writing in reaction to the Jan. 14 commentary by Stephen Copenhaver entitled “Luck, lies and the Media Lott-ery.”

In the column, the author claimed that Senator Lott was unfairly “chastised” for suggesting our country could have avoided, as Lott says, “certain problems” if the rest of the nation would have voted for segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond, as his “progressive” state of Mississippi did.

However, it is shortsighted to believe that Lott was asked to step down from his majority leader position merely due to one specific misunderstood remark. In fact, Lott has a long history of race hate in his congressional record.

For example, Washington Post writer Thomas Edsall reminded readers that in 1992, Senator Lott spoke before a remnant white-supremacist organization, the devoted successor to Mississippi’s notorious White Citizens Councils, which acted like a racial Gestapo in the 1950s.

Moreover, as a freshman congressman two decades ago, one of the first bills he introduced was to halt school desegregation. At a 1980 GOP rally, Lott expressed the same longings — if Thurmond had been elected 30 years before, he said, “we wouldn’t be in the mess we are today.” Furthermore, Lott successfully lobbied Ronald Reagan to uphold tax-free status for Bob Jones University (the private university that banned interracial dating) and numerous other private “segregation-friendly” academies forming in the South.

Sickeningly, as a youth, Lott was a Rebel cheerleader at Ole Miss, waving the Confederate flag at football games while federal troops were simultaneously on campus enforcing the court-ordered desegregation admission of James Meredith.

The fact is, Senator Lott outdid Thurmond himself when it came to being a racist, opposing the establishment of a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and the extension of the Voting Rights Act. Being so close to Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I feel that it is especially appropriate to consider some of the real reasons racist men like Lott do not deserve the privilege and honor of holding the Senate majority leader position.

Paul Goodman

Senior

Sociology