‘I Am Not a White Supremacist’

As the impeachment trial of President Clinton continues to boil, accusations of racism have tarred some members of Congress. Times editorial cartoonist Michael Ramirez was drawn into the controversy when it was reported that he had spoken a few years ago to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a Southern group said to have strong ties to racist figures. Here Ramirez explains.

Someone called me a white supremacist the other day. As an editorial cartoonist, I am accustomed to being called names, although this was a new one. After all, politics is a very emotionally charged subject. It is a subject that people feel strongly about. It is a subject that I feel strongly about . . . almost as strongly about as my opposition to racism.

The caller was referring to an article in The Times Jan. 26 that mentioned a speech that I gave five years ago, when I worked in Memphis, to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a group associated with extremist views. What the article didn’t mention was that the speech I gave was on the dangers of racism in America.

Here’s an excerpt from that speech:

“Unfortunately, there is a cancer consuming our nation. We try to hide it. We try to forget it, but nonetheless it remains. That cancer is racism. To ignore it is to perpetuate it. To embrace it is to be infected by it. To overreact to it is to feed it. We must rise above it.”

I talked about my grandfather, a mestizo, and his immigration to the United States. About how his grandson, the result of a union a Latino man and a Japanese woman, would achieve great success in this land of opportunity. I spoke on the vitality of America originating from its multicultural heterogeneity:

“The beauty of our nation is its diversity. Generations of cultures intermixed in a wonderful recipe that creates a confection of fantastical tastes, sounds and smells that can only be described in one word: America.”

I mentioned Cesar Chavez and quoted Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King Jr.:

“Over 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson had a dream. He wrote of it in the Declaration of Independence: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.’ King and Chavez had similar dreams--dreams of equality, that one day all men will be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin.”

Speaking is just an extension of my job as an editorialist. It is another forum to inform the public, illuminate the issues and become a catalyst for thought. Because I have spoken to a group does not mean that I, in any way, endorse that group’s beliefs. I have spoken to hundreds of groups. None has ever offered an appearance of racist beliefs. In the past, I have casually accepted almost all requests to speak--from schools to civic groups to political groups.

Some would say that by speaking to groups, there is a certain complicity to raising their profile and a danger of legitimizing them. That is a good point.

Free speech is the power to influence and sometimes you have to venture into the depths of evil to deliver the souls from the wicked. As it turns out, that was a message that the Council of Conservative Citizens needed to hear. If I influenced one person, it was worth it.

My job as an editorial cartoonist is to attack the issues and compel readers to arms against the complacent, the evildoers, the champions of the status quo and the assorted predators of society. It is based on issues not personalities. It is not about Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals. It is about delineating between what is right and wrong.

We as a nation should be proud of our cultural roots. It is what makes this country strong. The tenets of bigotry, prejudice and racism are predicated on ignorance, absurdity and generalization. Being a conservative does not make you a racist. Being a liberal does not make you a communist. Being Mexican does not automatically make you an illegal immigrant. Being a minority does not automatically make you a Democrat or a liberal. Some of us are conservative.

To the person who called me a white supremacist, let me just say that I am not a white supremacist. I am not a racist. I am not even white.