Indirectly referencing Clippers owner Donald Sterling and Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder said that hateful rants and intolerant public statements that have filled recent headlines are not the most pressing issue in the ongoing fight for equal opportunity.
Instead, in a commencement address Saturday, Holder challenged 850 graduates at Baltimores Morgan State University to fight against disciplinary, voting and other policies that quietly and gradually harm minorities.
This is the work that truly matters because policies that disenfranchise specific groups are more pernicious than hateful rants, Holder said, according to prepared remarks. Proposals that feed uncertainty, question the desire of a people to work, and relegate particular Americans to economic despair are more malignant than intolerant public statements, no matter how many eyebrows the outbursts might raise.
He cited the criminal courts as an example, referencing a federal study released last year that found black men and Native Americans endure prison sentences far longer than white men for similar crimes.
A criminal justice system that treats groups of people differently and punishes them unequally has a much more negative impact than misguided words that we can reject out of hand, he said.
The comments delivered Saturday on a school football field before seated graduates have been cast as Holder's most significant remarks on race since early in his tenure when he derided Americans as "cowards" who segregated themselves on weekends, including by going to the "race-protected cocoons" known as malls.
On Saturday, he again said discussion about civil rights should not be something avoided. Holder didnt mention Sterling or Bundy by name but instead cited jarring reminders of the discrimination, outbursts of bigotry and isolated, repugnant, racist views that have been in the news during the past few weeks and months.
The NBA has said Sterling was recorded telling a friend not to associate with black people. Bundy, a cattle rancher who has refused to recognize the federal governments authority, recently told a reporter that blacks were perhaps better off as slaves than as poor people reliant on government subsidies today. After criticism nationwide, both white men said they were not racist.
Holder said swift condemnation and apologies were not enough.
Because if we focus solely on these incidents on outlandish statements that capture national attention and spark outrage on Facebook and Twitter we are likely to miss the more hidden, and more troubling, reality behind the headlines," Holder said.
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Eric Holder to grads: Biggest civil rights issue not 'hateful rants'