The Colorado Republican chairman showed up to chide the state’s ex-Democratic governor for his “racist and bigoted remarks.”
The ex-Democratic governor told the Colorado Republican chairman, “Don’t give me all this political-correctness BS.”
Only he didn’t use the initials.
Ex-Gov. Dick Lamm’s lament that Latinos and African-Americans don’t have the “Jewish or Japanese love of learning and upward mobility” has ignited a wildfire of criticism in the past week. Nowhere have the flames raged higher than they did at Friday night’s meeting of the Republican Lincoln Supper Club.
A heated, profane exchange between two important Colorado politicians got so hot, the program director who invited Lamm scolded Republican state chairman Bob Martinez.
“The governor came here to present his position on illegal immigration, as he and Tom Tancredo have put out a policy …” Bobbie Childs told Martinez. “He was not to be attacked. I’m embarrassed, Bob, by your behavior. … I am embarrassed for the Lincoln Club. I’m embarrassed as the program chairman. And I am embarrassed as a Republican.”
Martinez was neither embarrassed nor sorry for calling Lamm a race-baiting demagogue to his face. Because Lamm got a hearty round of applause for his reference to PC BS, he didn’t bother to apologize for cursing.
The whole episode showed just how quickly the illegal-immigration debate can devolve into prejudice and anger.
It also showed the danger of stereotyping, which is what many people say Lamm has done by implying that the cultures of blacks and Hispanic immigrants are not as good as those of Jews and Asians.
Aren’t Democrats supposed to defend minorities?
Didn’t right-wing Republicans coin the term “political correctness”?
Martinez and Lamm broke the molds Friday night.
The battle started earlier with Lamm’s “two-wand” metaphor, outlined in a book published in January and reiterated last week at a Vail symposium.
Lamm has two magic wands, one that ends white America’s racism and one that gives America’s “ghettos and barrios Jewish or Japanese love of learning and … upward mobility.” If forced to choose, Lamm suggests it would be better to imbue blacks and Latinos with Jewish or Japanese culture than to end white racism. That, Martinez said, is what set him off.
“It’s very easy to go from saying ‘illegal immigrant’ to ‘Hispanic,”‘ he pointed out after confronting Lamm. “It’s a fine line. It bleeds very quickly. I’ve even heard some of our own (Republican) legislators do that, and I’ve had to correct them on it. … Don’t throw everybody in together and stereotype them, because that’s racism and bigotry.”
No, it isn’t, Lamm countered in an interview after his supper-club appearance.
“I’m saying we have a terrible problem with horrible minority underachievement,” Lamm said. “Racism and discrimination exist, but they’re an inadequate explanation” for the gaps between minority groups.
Lamm says black and Latino cultures have “different ideas of mobility and education and of delayed gratification.”
Those kinds of words speak for themselves, U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar said. Salazar, a Democrat, wasn’t at the Lincoln Supper Club. But in his Denver office Friday afternoon, Salazar talked about what he called Lamm’s “racially divisive remarks” in Vail.
Lamm’s conclusion, Salazar said, is “that somehow blacks and Hispanics have a culture that keeps them from succeeding.”
“When Gov. Lamm takes this paintbrush and brushes me with the characterization, I resent that characterization,” said Salazar, whose family is 12th-generation American but who grew up in a household that spoke only Spanish. “When you make the kind of statement that Dick Lamm made about African-Americans and the Hispanic community, it belittles people.”
Lamm, meanwhile, says he only wants a dialogue on an important, if uncomfortable, subject.
The Friday-night fight showed just how hard that can be. It is especially difficult if, each time you start the discussion, you begin with the premise that some ethnic groups do it all right and some do it all wrong.
That’s what Lamm did.
“You get three kids, all from poverty backgrounds,” he told the supper-club audience. “This’ll be a Russian Jewish kid. This’ll be a Hispanic kid. And this’ll be an Asian kid. All are immigrants, and all come from poor backgrounds. Hey, folks, I can tell you who’s going to drop out of school. Fifty percent of Hispanic kids drop out of school. The Jewish kid and the Asian kid will do brilliant.”
Glib generalizations don’t bring anything positive to race relations or the immigration debate, Salazar said. They were, however, exactly what brought Martinez to the Lincoln Supper Club on Friday night.
“This is not a dialogue,” the Republican chairman said. “This is inciting fear and suspicion and distrust.”
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.
