Once upon a time....

[DeSwiss]

.....Nashville had two newspapers. The Banner (conservative-racist) and the Tennessean (liberal, for the south anyway). The Banner, like most evening papers around the country, succumbed to the TV evening news broadcasts and the internet. Then the Tennessean was sold to Gannett, and that was the end of the local newspaper. After over 25 years, in 2005 I cancelled my subscription. But like everything within the universe of the law of averages, occassionally they still get it right and act like a local paper. Here's an instance:

From: The Tennessean

http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061105/COLUMNIST0107/611050356">Don't Let 'Raw Racism' Block Our View Here
By DWIGHT LEWIS

I was sitting at my desk last Wednesday afternoon when I received an e-mail from a retired Vanderbilt University history professor who obviously was "ticked off.''

"Dwight, I mailed you an e-mail about the 'blonde' Republican ad in the Tennessee senatorial campaign. That ad has completely changed a sober integrationist like myself who has worked for over 40 years for good race relations!

"The ad floored me, although I should have expected it knowing the history of race in America as I do and how the Republican Party has used it in elections in recent years. Although it is 2006, old racism still raises its ugly head.

"Unfortunately, what we must lament in society is that the so-called 'good people' contribute to the continuation of evil by saying little or nothing. In short, racism is still not a serious matter to most whites! And that is the long and short of it!''

By now, all of us know the television ad Jimmie Franklin was referring to in his e-mail. It was an ad featuring a blonde "party girl'' cooing that she met "Harold at a Playboy party.'' The ad was sponsored by the Republican National Committee to benefit Tennessee Republican senatorial candidate Bob Corker in his contest against the Democratic senatorial candidate Harold Ford Jr., a U.S. congressman from the state's 9th District.

The ad, which ran for several days late last month, has been called by various media organizations across the nation one of the most sleazy and nasty to run this year. The Corker campaign said they asked that the ad be pulled but had no control over it.

Still, in an editorial last Friday, The New York Times said: "In the anti-Ford ad, viewers transfixed by the blonde's vixenish sign-off may miss the commercial's only truly enlightening statement, tacked on in quick-talk: 'The Republican National Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising.' ''

It's nothing new, Franklin reminded me.

"We have seen it used time and again in Republican politics to woe whites who still have not adjusted to the idea of real racial equality in this country,'' Franklin, who lives in Nashville, wrote to me. "So, it is not hard to comprehend why Corker and his sinful and no-good friends have played on raw — and I mean raw — racism of the worst kind in their ads.

"… I believe that Corker and his crew have set back race relations for at least a full decade!''

Anybody who saw the "party girl'' ad should be ticked off. As Jimmie Franklin said, it is "raw racism" of the worst kind.

But let's look beyond race for a minute in this contest between Corker and Ford. Sure, if Ford wins, he will make history by becoming the first African-American elected to the U.S. Senate from Tennessee and the first African-American from the South since the Reconstruction period of 1865 to around 1877.

Great, but this election should boil down to which candidate will do the best job as senator for all Tennesseans as well as other Americans.

Just this past Friday, I received a press release e-mailed to me from the Washington-based Children's Defense Fund saying that over 9 million children in the United States — one out of every nine — have no health insurance.

Many of these uninsured children, the CDF said, are from hard-working, industrious families who, despite their best efforts, cannot afford the soaring costs of health care in the United States.

How do we change that fact? Well, I've already gone to the polls to make my voice heard as to how we bring about that change. If you haven't already voted in this important election, I hope you will be sure to go cast your ballot on Tuesday.

No Tennessean, regardless of race or ethnic background, can afford to sit around any longer and not make our voices heard. If we do, the situation will only get worse, not only with our children but with other issues, as well. •