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[Pages H1395-H1396]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
BIGOTRY AND POLICY WILL NOT BE TOLERATED
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Texas (Mr. Green) for 5 minutes.
Mr. GREEN of Texas. Madam Speaker, and still I rise. I rise today,
Madam Speaker, to take a stand for liberty and justice for all against
bigotry and hatred.
I rise to call to our attention, Madam Speaker, that the refusal to
resign because of blatant bigotry is a symptom, the refusal to resign
when it is obvious, intuitively obvious to the most casual observer,
that there is the bigotry. The refusal to resign when there is clear
and convincing evidence of bigotry, when there is guilt beyond all
doubt, when there is a smoking gun, the refusal to resign under these
circumstances is a symptom.
The problem is at the Presidential level. It is the refusal to take
on a President who has exhibited bigotry in policy. When we allow
bigotry in policy to proceed with immunity, we allow persons to believe
that they, too, can emulate that which comes from the highest office in
the land.
Madam Speaker, this level of bigotry in policy cannot be tolerated.
You have, in Virginia, a Klansman and blackface next to each other in a
yearbook. It has been acknowledged as that of the Governor.
With that acknowledgment and with that additional indication that it
was done on a previous occasion, blackface, there is enough evidence
not only to ask that the Governor resign, but to demand that he do so.
But I understand why this level of bigotry is going to be tolerated
to a certain extent, because we don't want to take on the President. If
we allow the President to exist with his bigotry, how can we demand
with any degree of credibility that the Governor resign?
We have to start at the top. This level of bigotry is trickling down
to this extent that people are going to refuse to acknowledge their
bigotry. They will lie and deny. They will do all that they can to stay
in office.
We have to take a stand, and I stand today to say that we cannot
allow this incident to go unchecked. Because what will we do next when
there is a Nazi standing in a photograph and there is a noose in a
photograph, there are swastikas?
This is going to continue. It doesn't end with Virginia. This is but
one symptom, and we have to do what we have always done.
It has been our policy when this level of bigotry surfaces, when it
shows its ugly head, we take it on. There is a means by which we can
deal with bigotry in policy, but if we allow political expediency--the
belief that we ought to defeat a bigoted President--to trump the moral
imperative to remove him from office, the moral imperative to impeach
bigotry emanating in policy from the Presidency, we have a moral
imperative to do so, and we can do so.
There is a committee that can convene to deal with bigotry emanating
from the Presidency creating the symptoms that we see in others who
refuse to leave office after their bigotry has been revealed. There is
a committee that we can convene. That committee is called the Congress
of the United States.
Any one Member of Congress can call to the attention of this august
body that such thing has happened; and when it is called to this body's
attention, we can take a vote, we can go on record.
Are we going to allow bigotry to emanate from the Presidency or will
we go on record? I say we go on record.
I am one Member of Congress who, after 400 years of bigotry and
hatred and slavery and all of these other ugly features and evidence of
harm to society--forgive me for getting so wrapped up in it, but I have
to say it. After all of this, for 400 years, it is time for Congress to
take this vote.
We have had 400 years to deal with it, and we haven't. What better
way to deal with bigotry in this country than to say to the world: We
will extricate a President from office for his bigotry?
There will be a vote on impeachment, regardless of what the Mueller
commission says.
Bigotry in policy will not be tolerated.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from
engaging in personalities toward the President.
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