vision2020
hate crimes legislation: worth a read
The long message reprinted below is a speech given by a legislator in the
Georgia House of Representatives about hate crimes and intolerance.
Yes, I think it is worth reading.
BL
>
> >>>Georgia Representative, Donald Ponder, made this speech from the well
> >>>of the Georgia House of Representatives.
> >>>Remarks on SB390, Hate Crimes Legislation by Representative Dan Ponder,
> >>>Thursday, March 16, 2000.
> >>>Thank you Mr. Speaker, Ladies and Gentlemen of the House. I am
> >>>probably the last person, the most unlikely person that you would expect to
> >>>be speaking from the well about Hate Crime Legislation. And I am going to
> >>>talk about it a little differently from a lot of the conversations that
> have
> >>>gone on thus far. I want to talk about it a little more personally, about
> >>>how I came to believe what I believe.
> >>>
> >>>About two weeks ago my family got together for my father's 70th
> >>>birthday. It was the first time since my oldest daughter was born 19 years
> >>>ago that only the children and spouses got together, no grandchildren. We
> >>>stayed up until 2o'clock in the morning talking about hate crime
> >>>legislation, this very bill. Even my family could not come to a resolution
> >>>about this bill, but we did agree that how you were raised and who we are
> >>>would likely influence how you would vote on this bill. So I want you to
> >>>know a little bit about me, and how I came to believe what I believe.
> >>>
> >>>I am a White Republican, who lives in the very Southwest corner of the
> >>>most ultraconservative part of this state. I grew up there. I have
> >>>agricultural roots.
> >>>
> >>>I grew up hunting and fishing. I had guns when I was a kid. On my 12th
> >>>birthday I was given that thing that so many southern boys receive, that
> >>>shotgun from my dad that somehow marked me as a man. I was raised in a
> >>>conservative Baptist church. I went to a large, mostly white Southern
> >>>university. I lived in and was the President of the largest, totally
> >>>white fraternity on that campus. I had 9 separate Great-Great-Great
> >>>Grandfathers that fought for the Confederacy. I don't have a single
> >>>ancestor on all of my family lines that lived north of theMason-Dixon line
> >>>going back to the Revolutionary War. And it is not something that I am
> >>>terribly proud of, but
> >>>it is just part of my heritage, that not one, but several of those lines
> >>>actually owned slaves.
> >>>
> >>>So you would guess just by listening to my background that I am going
> >>>to stand up here and talk against hate crime legislation. But you see,
> >>>that's the problem when you start stereotyping people by who they are and
> >>>where they came from, because I totally, totally support this bill.
> >>>I come from a privileged background, but hate has no discrimination
> >>>when it picks its victims. I have a Catholic brother-in-law. My sister
> could
> >>>not be married in their church, and his priest refused to marry them
> >>>because they were of different faiths. I have a Jewish brother-in-law. The
> >>>difference in that religion has caused part of my family to be estranged
> >>>from each other for over 25 years.
> >>>
> >>>I was President of the largest fraternity at Auburn University, which
> >>>won an award while I was there as the best chapter in the country. Out of
> >>>over 100 members, 6 of those are now openly gay. But the "lasting bond of
> >>>brotherhood" that we pledged ourselves to during those idealistic days
> >>>apparently doesn't apply if you should later come out and declare yourself
> >>>gay.
> >>>
> >>>Some of you know that my family had an exchange student from Kosovo
> >>>that lived with us for six months, during the entire time of the fighting
> >>>over there. When we last heard from her, her entire extended family of 26
> >>>members had not been heard from. Not one of them. They had all been killed
> >>>or disappeared because of religious and ethnic differences that we
> >>>cannot even begin to understand.
> >>>
> >>>My best friend in high school and college roommate's parents were raised in
> >>>Denmark during the war. His grandfather was killed serving in the
> >>>Resistance. For three years, that family survived because people left food
> >>>on their
> >>>doorstep during the middle of the night. They couldn't afford to openly
> give
> >>>them food because they would then be killed themselves.
> >>>
> >>>And to Representative McKinney, we are probably as different as two
> >>>people can be in this House based on our backgrounds. But I myself have
> also
> >>>known fear, because I am a white man that was mugged and robbed in Chicago
> >>>in a black neighborhood. And you are right. It is a terror that never goes
> >>>away. It doesn't end when the wounds heal or the dollars are replaced in
> >>>your
> >>>wallet. It is something that you live with the rest of your life.
> >>>
> >>>But I want to tell you the real reason that I am standing here
> >>>today. And this is personal, and in my five years in this House I have
> never
> >>>abused my time in the well, and I only have 2 days before I leave this
> >>>body, so I hope that you will just listen to this part for me.
> >>>
> >>>There was one woman in my life that made a huge difference and her name
> >>>was Mary Ward. She began working for my family before I was born. She was a
> >>>young black woman whose own grandmother raised my mother. Mary, or May-Mar
> >>>as I called her, came every morning before I was awake to cook breakfast so
> >>>it would be on the table. She cooked our lunch. She washed our clothes.
> >>>
> >>>But she was much more than that. She read books to me. When I was
> >>>playing Little League she would go out and catch ball with me. She was
> >>>never, ever afraid to discipline me or spank me. She expected the absolute
> >>>best out of me, perhaps, and I am sure, even more than she did her own
> >>>children. She would even travel with my family when we would go to our
> house
> >>>in Florida during the summer, just as her own grandmother had done.
> >>>
> >>>One day, when I was about 12 or 13 I was leaving for school. As I was
> >>>walking out the door she turned to kiss me good-bye. And for some reason, I
> >>>turned my head. She stopped me and she looked into my eyes with a look that
> >>>absolutely burns in my memory right now and she said, "You didn't kiss me
> >>>because I am black." At that instant, I knew that she was right. I denied
> >>>it.
> >>>
> >>>I made some lame excuse about it. But I was forced at that age to
> >>>confront a small dark part of myself. I don't even know where it came
> from.
> >>>This lady, who was devoting her whole life to me and my brother and sister,
> >>>who loved me unconditionally, who had changed my diapers and fed me, and
> >>>who was truly my second mother, that somehow she wasn't worthy of a
> >>>good-bye kiss simply because of the color of her skin.
> >>>
> >>>Hate is all around us. It takes shape and form in ways that are
> >>>somehow so small we don't even recognize them to begin with, until they
> >>>somehow become acceptable to us. It is up to us, as parents and leaders in
> >>>our communities, to take a stand and to say loudly and clearly that
> this is
> >>>just not acceptable.
> >>>
> >>>I have lived with the shame and memory of my betrayal of Mary Ward's
> >>>love for me. I pledged to myself then and I re-pledged to myself the day I
> >>>buried her that never, ever again would I look in the mirror and know
> that I
> >>>had kept silent, and let hate or prejudice or indifference negatively
> impact
> >>>a person's life; even if I didn't know them.
> >>>
> >>>Likewise, my wife and I promised to each other on the day that our oldest
> >>>daughter was born that we would raise our children to be tolerant. That we
> >>>would raise them to accept diversity and to celebrate it. In
> >>>our home, someone's difference would never be a reason for injustice.
> >>>
> >>>When we take a stand, it can slowly make a difference. When I was a
> >>>child, my father's plants had a lot of whites and a lot of blacks
> working in
> >>>them. We had separate water fountains. We had separate tables we ate at.
> >>>
> >>>Now my daughter is completing her first year at Agnes Scott College. She
> >>>informed me last week that she and her roommate, who happens to be black,
> >>>they were thrown together just randomly last year as first year students,
> >>>had decided they were going to room together again next year. I asked her
> >>>the reasons they had decided to live together again. She said, "Well, we
> >>>just get along so well together." She mentioned a couple of other reasons,
> >>>but do you know what was absent? Color. She just didn't think about it.
> >>>
> >>>You can make progress when you take a stand. Our exchange student, who
> >>>grew up in a country where your differences absolutely defined everything
> >>>about you, now lives in Dallas where a whole community of different races
> >>>has embraced her and is teaching her how to accept people who are different
> >>>from her and who love her.
> >>>
> >>>To those that would say that this bill is creating a special class of
> >>>citizen, I would say... Who would choose to be a class of citizen or who
> >>>would choose to be gay and risk the alienation of your own family and
> >>>friends and coworkers?
> >>>
> >>>Who would choose to be Jewish, so that they could endure the kind of
> >>>hatred over the years that led to the Holocaust and the near extinction of
> >>>the Jewish people on an entire continent?
> >>>
> >>>Who would choose to be black simply so that their places of worship
> >>>could be burned down or so that they could spend all their days at the back
> >>>of the line?
> >>>
> >>>We are who we are because God alone chose to make us that way. The burdens
> >>>that we bear and the problems that we are trying to correct with this
> >>>legislation are the result of man's inhumanity to man. That is hardly
> >>>trying to create a special class of people.
> >>>
> >>>To those that would say that we already have laws to take care of these
> >>>crimes, I would say watch the repeats of yesterday's debate on the
> >>>Lawmakers.
> >>>
> >>>We made passionate pleas on behalf of animal rights. We talked with
> >>>revulsion about cats being wired together with barbed wire. Surely, surely,
> >>>Matthew Sheppard's being beaten and hung up on a barbed wire fence and left
> >>>to die is no less revolting. Surely our fellow man deserves no less than
> our
> >>>pets.
> >>>
> >>>Hate crimes are different. When I was a teenager, on more than one water
> >>>tank, I painted "Sr's of '72". Surely no one in here is going to tell
> >>>me that the words that are painted on walls that say "Kill the Jews" or a
> >>>swastika or "Fags must die" or "Move the Niggers" are somehow the same as
> >>>"Sr's of '72".
> >>>
> >>>Even today, those very words make us feel uncomfortable and they should.
> >>>
> >>>Surely we are not going to equate a barroom brawl or a crime of passion
> >>>with a group that decides, with purpose, to get in a car and go beat up
> >>>blacks or gays or Jews without even knowing who they are.
> >>>
> >>> Hate crimes are about sending a message. The cross that was burned in a
> >>>black person's yard not so many years ago was a message to black people.
> >>>
> >>>The gay person that is bashed walking down the sidewalk in midtown is a
> >>>message to gay people. And the Jews that have endured thousands of years of
> >>>persecution were all being sent messages over and over again.
> >>>
> >>>I would say to you that now is our turn to send a message. I am not a
> >>>lawyer, I don't know how difficult it would be to prosecute this or even
> >>>care. I don't really care that anyone is ever prosecuted under this bill.
> >>>But, I do care that we take this moment in time, in history, to say that we
> >>>are going to send a message.
> >>>
> >>>The pope is now sending a message of reconciliation to Jews and people
> >>>throughout this world. Some of those crimes occurred 2,000 years ago.
> >>>
> >>>My wife and I have sent a message to our children that we are all God's
> >>>children and hate is unacceptable in our home.
> >>>
> >>>I believe we must send a message to people that are filled with hate in
> >>>this world, that Georgia has no room for hatred within its borders. It is a
> >>>message we can send to the people of this state, but it is also a message
> >>>you have to send to yourself.
> >>>
> >>>I ask you to look within yourself and do what you think is right. I
> >>>ask you to vote YES on this bill and NO to hate.
> >>>
> >>> Hon. Dan E. Ponder, Jr.
> >>>
> >>> FOOTNOTE: "A white, married, Republican from what he calls an
> >>>'ultraconservative' rural district, Ponder, 45, rose to speak moments
> after
> >>>the Georgia House voted 83-82 to SHELVE a proposal to make crimes carry
> >>>tougher penalties when they are motivated by hatred." Then, Rep. Ponder
> gave
> >>>the speech you just read above. Republicans and Democrats alike gave Ponder
> >>>two standing ovations, then outlawed all hate crimes by a vote of 116-49.
> >>>
> >>>Georgia Governor Roy Barnes signed the new law at a synagogue scarred by
> >>>swastika-painting vandals.
> >>>
> >>> ----------------------------------------------------------
> >>> If you would like to let Rep. Ponder know what you think about his
> >>>speech, you can e-mail him at: dponder@legis.state.ga.us
> >>> <mailto:dponder@legis.state.ga.us> or mail him at:
> >>> Hon. Dan E. Ponder, Jr. P.O. Box 106 Donalsonville, GA 31745
Back to TOC