Forgive, yes. But Forget?
When Do we Let the Past Go?
2010-07-20
By Del Walters
Out
of respect I waited before writing this article. I waited until the memorials
were over, and funeral had occurred. It does not bode well to speak ill of the
dead even if they once belonged to the Klan.
It
has always been difficult for me to see the Senator as opposed to the Klansman.
Sadly when Robert Byrd, the late Senator from West Virginia died recently,
nothing had changed. Unfortunately, for me, dismissing the senior Senator was
not as easy as I would have liked.
Growing up in West Virginia our paths crossed continuously. He spoke at my high school and
college graduations. When I began my
career in television in Wheeling, West Virginia our paths crossed again. Then
coming to Washington in 1985 as an anchor/ investigative for the ABC affiliate,
future interaction was inevitable. This
is how the Washington Post described Byrd’s Klan membership.
“In the early 1940s, a politically
ambitious butcher from West Virginia named Bob Byrd recruited 150 of his
friends and associates to form a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. After Byrd had
collected the $10 joining fee and $3 charge for a robe and hood from every
applicant, the "Grand Dragon" for the mid-Atlantic states came down
to tiny Crab Orchard, W.Va., to officially organize the chapter”
The Washington Post
June
2005
Here’s the dilemma. When do we forget the past, and when should
be never forget.
Recently another high profile figure
wrestled with a painful past in the Washington area, only he offended the Jews.
Fred Malek, according to published reports, is a wealthy Republican power
broker. He headed Senator John McCain’s finance committee in 2008 and has
raised tens of millions for the party. He is a powerful supporter of Sarah
Palin. He also once worked in the Nixon White House, and was asked to single
out Jews Nixon believed shouldn’t be in government. Keep in mind, as far as Nixon was concerned,
the fact that these people were Jewish was reason enough to purge them from
government.
On July 26th, 1971 Malek sent
13 names to Nixon Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman to look over. He was asked for
the “demographic breakdown” of those involved. Malek wrote back to Haldeman
that the 13 fit the demographic criteria that were discussed. In other words, they were Jewish. They were
fired.
Malek has spent a lifetime apologizing
for his actions during the Nixon administration, and many of those quoted in
published reports say they believe he truly wants to put the past behind
him. Still, whenever controversy
emerged, the past comes back to haunt him.
Robert Byrd also spent a great deal of years
running from his past, and the article in the Post was entitled “A Senator’s
Shame”. He later described his Klan
membership as the “albatross around his neck.” Like Malek, he wanted the public
to let bygones be bygones.
Here’s
the problem that I have with Byrd’s former associations with the Klan. As an investigative reporter I spent twenty
years covering the racist organization. I have stood face to face with Grand
Dragons and burning crosses. I have listened to their racist rhetoric and been
the target of their death threats. The
thought of any member of the U.S. Senate once belonging to such a group is
unforgiveable.
When
the Malek incident first arose, I asked a Jewish friend of mine his
thoughts. He said, “Sometimes the past should be kept in the past.” Sometimes
he admitted, “it should not.” He
admitted Malek’s actions “troubled him.” That seems to be the legacy of both
men. Forgiveness is a two way street.
Their future’s depended upon our ability to forgive and forget their
pasts. Loosely translated, they have left their problems in our laps. They also
waited to get caught to confess their sins.
That
seems to be the problem nowadays with a lot of politicians and public figures.
They don’t seem to be able to take responsibility for their own pasts before
getting caught. Call it narcissism or whatever, but they seem to think it’s
okay to run for public office even though you once singled our Jews for Nixon
or blacks for the Klan. That sense of self love ads new meaning to the phrase,
“Vote for me and I’ll set you free!”
When I was covering Marion Barry in the late
eighties an elderly black woman asked me when I would “get off his back?” I
told her I would truly believe he was repentant when he quit using drugs and
turned in the dealers who terrorized our city’s streets. The same is true for
Robert Byrd. Contrition not only involves distancing oneself from their past deeds
but doing one step further and fixing the damage. The last time I checked
Robert Byrd didn’t lead the charge for racial unity, or the anti apartheid
fight to get Nelson Mandela released from prison. He didn’t lead the charge to investigate U.S.
misdeeds in Africa or Haiti, or for that matter, the horrible response in
Katrina.
The legacy of
the KKK in the U.S. is a sad legacy of illegal lynching’s and hatred. To coin a phrase from the political right,
they were “domestic terrorists” long before the word was invented. Every Klansman bears responsibility for a
person who dangled from the other end of a rope, or fled a lynch mob in the
night. Every Klansman bears responsibility for little school girls taunted as
they sought to integrate schools, and black baseball player who paved the way
for others on the field of dreams. Every Klansman is responsible for the
atmosphere that told racist cops it was okay to beat defenseless blacks, or
guardsman who set their dogs on innocent black civil rights protestors. That is
the legacy of the Klan. Robert Byrd,
rest in peace, is part of that legacy.
Jews
have a saying about the holocaust. They
say, “Never forget!” Try as I may. When it comes to Robert Byrd, I’m not alone
in saying, I can’t.
