Jeff
Sessions as attorney general: a terrifying prospect for black
Americans
Bakari T Sellers
Saturday 19 November
2016 16.53 GMT
A
man with a track record of hostility towards women, people of color
and the LGBT community is simply unfit to serve in the Department of
Justice
One of the more
famous tag lines from President-elect Trump on the campaign trail
was: “To my African-Americans: what do you have to lose?” If
Alabama senator Jeff Sessions becomes the next attorney general of
the United States, the answer is: everything.
There is no doubt
that Steve Bannon – the executive chairman of the far-right website
Breitbart News and newly minted senior adviser to the president-elect
– has no place in the White House. Nor does Lt Michael Flynn, an
Islamophobe with ties to Vladimir Putin who is Donald Trump’s
nominee to serve as national security adviser. And yet, the most
troubling appointment thus far has to be Alabama Senator Jefferson
Beauregard Sessions to serve as attorney general.
Sessions’ record
on race first came to light during his confirmation for a federal
judgeship in 1986. A prosecutor testified before Congress that
Sessions had said he thought the Ku Klux Klan was “OK until I found
out they smoked pot”. Sessions said he had been joking, but his
judgeship was rejected. Many alarming allegations were made during
the hearings, but the most disturbing involved the “Marion three”.
In 1984, the then US
attorney Sessions prosecuted three civil rights workers, who were
registering black people to vote in Alabama, for purportedly
committing voter fraud. Sessions charged Albert Turner, his wife
Evelyn Turner, and their fellow activist Spencer Hogue with 29 counts
of fraud under the Voting Rights Act – with the group facing a
sentence of over 100 years if they were convicted. All three were
found not guilty.
The Marion Three
never received a sincere apology from Sessions. And the senator’s
existing hostility toward African Americans is proof that he has not
learned anything from that experience.
There will be some
who will argue that we should not judge someone’s present
qualifications based on their past. Even if that’s the case,
Sessions’ current record on race and as a US senator is equally
terrifying.
Sessions believes
the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is an “intrusive piece of
legislation”. He has opposed efforts to remove the Confederate flag
from state property. He has voted against the reauthorization of the
Violence Against Women Act. He called for a constitutional amendment
to stop granting automatic citizenship to people born in the United
States. He agreed with President-elect Trump’s ban on Muslims
migrating to the United States. He opposes same-sex marriage, and
when Trump was quoted about grabbing women by their vaginas, Sessions
called it a “stretch” to characterize that as “sexual assault”.
These are all deeply
problematic views for anyone to hold – let alone the top law
enforcement officer of the United States.
The Department of
Justice’s mission is, among other things, to protect Americans from
discrimination regardless of race, color, creed or sexual
orientation. With Sessions, we have a well-documented history of
hostility toward minority communities and vocal opposition to the
laws that he would be sworn to protect and enforce should he be
confirmed. Someone who was too problematic for the US Senate to
confirm in 1986 should be too problematic for the Senate to confirm
in 2017.
During an era of
rampant voter suppression and strained police-community relations,
the Department of Justice is as important as it has ever been in the
lives of Americans – especially African Americans and Latino
Americans who bear the brunt of police violence and voter
suppression. An attorney general with a track record of hostility
towards women, communities of color and the LGBT community is simply
unfit to serve.
So to answer
President-elect Trump’s question: “What do African-Americans have
to lose?” With the appointment of Senator Jefferson Beauregard
Sessions to serve as the 84th attorney general of the United States,
the answer is easy: everything.
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