I don't care about what you are. I care about what you did.
(The silver lining to this is that I get to share that video.)
Walt Baker's marketing firm has been fired by The Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau. Yes, Mr Baker is the kind of business leader who got big contracts to make Nashville seem like a welcoming and hospitable place, while at the same time sending out racist emails as an inside political jab "... in the spirit of having some fun with some close friends."
It's not the first time that dehumanizing racist materials, used as a political bludgeon meant to erode power and cultivate hate, have brought Tennessee the national spotlight. The email that was forwarded from Republican State Sen. Diane Black's office was described by it's sender as a mistake. "I inadvertently hit the wrong button," the sender was quoted as saying. "I'm very sick about it, and it's one of those things I can't change or take back." How human it is to regret being caught being ourselves. I still can't stop asking the question I asked last June: who is on the right list?
But instead, let's focus on the bottom line that affects us all.
In 2008, Tennessee's tourism generated a $14.4 billion economic impact to the state's economy. More than 182,300 Tennesseans are now employed in the state's tourism industry.
Meditate not on the inner heart of these people, but on their actions. In economic times such as these, can Tennessee afford to cultivate a niche market of racism that hangs like a "whites only" sign above our tourism and hospitality industry?
Mr Baker: it's not what you are, it's what you did.
Thank you. Well-written and thoughtful. One thought to consider - Baker worked on the Opryland Hotel account and he's probably familiar with Judson Phillips and the Tea Party Convention. I think that Baker's libertarian instincts (anything goes) belie a problem with the kind of hospitality and tolerance that says, "Racists welcome, y'all come." The backlash against "political correctness" from folks on the right poses as "liberal" support of "freedom of speech". And the reason this is wrong, in my opinion, is because it creates a hostile environment to people of color and reinforces stereotypes that we've held for generations about race and class in the South.
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