Where's the Outrage? IT WAS LESS THAN four months ago that Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott lost his job as majority leader, and deservedly so, after praising the segregationist presidential campaign of Strom Thurmond. Now another lawmaker, Republican Rep. Barbara Cubin of Wyoming, has out-Lotted Mr. Lott. Mrs. Cubin's remarks came not in a birthday tribute to a centenarian but on the floor of the House of Representatives, in the midst of a serious debate on a gun measure. No historical memory is needed to adequately appreciate their bald racism. And unlike in the case of Mr. Lott, Mrs. Cubin's remarks seem to have provoked barely a word of protest from her Republican colleagues. For fear that some may think they are taken out of context, we reprint the offending part here in its entirety: "My sons are 25 and 30. They are blond-haired and blue-eyed. One amendment today said we could not sell guns to anybody under drug treatment. So does that mean if you go into a black community, you cannot sell a gun to any black person, or does that mean because my -- "
At this point, Rep. Melvin Watt (D-N.C.) demanded that her words be stricken from the record as inappropriate. You might think that Mrs. Cubin then would have realized she had equated African Americans with drug addicts and apologized as profusely as possible. Instead, she told Mr. Watt, who is African American, that she wanted "to apologize to my colleague for his sensitivities." When Mr. Watt noted, correctly, that it was not a matter of whether his feelings were hurt but of "using words that are insulting to the entire African American race," Mrs. Cubin declined the opportunity to back down. "Mr. Chairman," she said, "I do not withdraw my words."
Mrs. Cubin said later that she was simply trying "to make the point that stereotyping is always wrong." If so, she chose an odd way to do so. The reference to her sons, she explained, was headed in the direction of asking if they should be kept from buying guns because they look like "the children at Columbine." But to argue analogously that the amendment would have kept dealers from selling guns in the black community is true only if you subscribe to a worldview in which "African American" equals "presumptive drug user." Yet more astonishing than Mrs. Cubin's obtuseness was that when the full House considered whether to have Mrs. Cubin's words "taken down" as offensive -- a move that would have stricken them from the record and kept her from speaking for the rest of the day -- it voted in her favor, 227 to 195. Not a single Republican lawmaker voted against the remarks. Afterward, not a word of criticism from House Republican leaders. Upon being asked for comment, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) yesterday ventured (through a spokesman) to say that the remarks "clearly left the wrong impression." He also described Mrs. Cubin as a "sensitive and at heart a very good person." Maybe so; but shrugging off the offensiveness of her statement is no more appropriate now than when Republican leaders tried the same tactic immediately after Mr. Lott made his remark.

It's still hard to say exactly where Mrs. Cubin was going with her remark, but it looks to me like an inartful way to argue against stereotyping. She was arguing, I think (maybe?), that drug addiction is an arbitrary and irrational basis for denying someone a right in the same way that race is an arbitrary and irrational basis for denying someone a right.I think. Maybe.

The reference to her sons, she explained, was headed in the direction of asking if they should be kept from buying guns because they look like "the children at Columbine." But to argue analogously that the amendment would have kept dealers from selling guns in the black community is true only if you subscribe to a worldview in which "African American" equals "presumptive drug user."