LAST WEEK, a congresswoman from Georgia struck a police officer who put a hand on her as she tried to walk through a security checkpoint at the U.S. Capitol without stopping, despite repeated requests that she follow the official's commands. The officer's actions would seem to be not only excusable, but unquestionable, were it not for the one fact that the congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney, is black. While McKinney apologized for the incident on Thursday, her apology only came after she accused the officer of racial profiling. In fact, her race is irrelevant to the incident and the fact that accusations of racial profiling were so quickly used to defend the woman reveals a disturbing continuation of racial tension in this country.
As a result of her physical attack on a police officer, McKinney now finds herself in legal trouble, possibly facing criminal charges. Her defense, initially, was that she was the victim of racial profiling. To be sure, the problem of racial profiling is not a small issue. It does happen and it is unacceptable. However, the problem with racial profiling is that minorities who have done nothing wrong are needlessly harassed. McKinney does not fall into this category. She walked through a checkpoint without identification. If the guard had not stopped her, he would not have been doing his job.
McKinney apologized for the incident on Thursday, but only after it was clear that her own party would not support her. The apology was clearly an attempt to avoid prosecution and cannot be considered sincere. McKinney's political situation also casts doubt on her sincerity. She is up for re-election this year in her Atlanta district, which is mostly African-American. Since congressional elections are mostly won on the basis of name recognition, entering the national spotlight is helpful to McKinney's campaign efforts. As an added bonus, portraying herself as a victim of racial profiling may allow her to claim solidarity with her constituents, many of whom have been the victims of real racial discrimination. McKinney only apologized after having reaped the political benefits of her ludicrous claims.
McKinney is no stranger to making baseless accusations in order to gain notoriety. In the past, she has accused President Bush of allowing the Sept. 11 attacks to happen as part of a war-profiteering scam. She has also said that black Republicans "have to pass a litmus test in which all black blood is extracted." In addition to showing that she does not know what a litmus test is, her far-left remarks reveal that she is not only a racist, but certifiably crazy.
Regardless of the merits of her case, the real issue at hand is how quickly McKinney looked to her race as justification for her actions. While it pains me to agree with him, Tom DeLay was right when he called this woman a racist. But McKinney is neither a victim nor a villain; she is merely a symptom of a socio-economic division that makes it difficult to see past racial differences. The debate over this incident shows once again that America consists of separate cultures that have yet to learn to tolerate each other. As a country, we still have much work to do.
It is an unfortunate fact that race is a focal point for political contention in this country. While discussion about race is clearly important, a distinction must be made between real and imagined (or in this case fabricated) discrimination if any real progress is to be made. Racists like McKinney only entrench racial divides and make the goal of a color-blind society even more illusory.
In the meantime, McKinney must know that neither she nor any other member of Congress is above the law. She refused to obey a legal police order and struck a police officer. There is no reason why she should not be charged just as any other U.S. citizen would be, and she should certainly not be allowed to avoid prosecution through a meaningless apology. McKinney, adding to the long list of irrational comments she has made in her time in Congress, has called the incident "much ado over a hairdo," referring to her admittedly ridiculous hairstyle, but that's simply not true. It is an absolutely necessary investigation into a criminal act -- something a congresswoman ought to understand.
Daniel Colbert's column appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at dcolbert@cavalierdaily.com.
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