Stoking the fires of hate

The McCain camp has gone beyond ugly, beyond filthy, in its desperation to defeat Barack Obama on November 4. Lifelong civil rights activist and longtime congressman John Lewis says they are "now sowing hatred" and that "Senator McCain and Governor Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all."

Just look at the constant barrage of the past week. TV news footage has repeatedly shown us McCain-Palin crowds fired up to a frightening point. Obama is painted as different, as foreign, as not one of "us" - and as the pal of terrorists. At the podium, his full name is pronounced with pointed emphasis on his middle name Hussein. (In this land now suffering from a widespread streak of prejudice against all Arabs and Muslims,13% of voters still believe Obama is a Muslim.) News watchers who listen carefully to the uproar of a fired-up rally can hear cries of "terrorist" and "kill him."

John Lewis knows well of what he speaks. As a Freedom Rider in 1961, he was beaten bloody by a racist mob. On March 7, 1965, he was at the front of about 600 non-violent marchers setting out from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital, Montgomery. They barely got as far Selma's Pettus Bridge, when state and local police attacked them with clubs and tear gas. Lewis still bears visible head scars from the beating he got that day.

It has been glorious progress that has brought us to the day when a black man is the front-running candidate for the presidency. But the cancer of racism and discrimination still runs deep in many places in America. Feeding the flames so that McCain and Palin can win is downright evil. As Lewis says, that fire could consume us all.