Dignity vs. Hate: Lessons in Leadership from Rep. Bennie Thompson
o be, or not to be: that is the question.” It’s one of Shakespeare’s most memorable lines, and it arrives in Act 3 of “Hamlet.” In the play, the Prince of Denmark continues: “Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them?”
Hamlet is contemplating suicide, but I propose this passage be applied to the question of leadership. To be or not to be, or even how to be.
The Republican Party has collectively chosen not to suffer the slings and arrows of former President Donald Trump’s ire and white supremacist base to take arms against the sea of troubles to end the hatred that is consuming our country.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, on the other hand, chairman of the Jan. 6 Select Committee, stands stoic, dignified and determined, a beacon of hope in the darkness.
In the recent prime-time opening of the hearings still underway, Thompson began:
“I was born, raised and still live in Bolton, Miss., a town with a population of 521, which is midway between Jackson and Vicksburg, Miss., and the Mississippi River. I’m from a part of the country where people justify the actions of slavery, the Ku Klux Klan and lynching. I’m reminded of that dark history as I hear voices today try and justify the actions of the insurrectionists on Jan. 6, 2021.”
Thompson went on with a history lesson of the oath nearly every U.S. government employee takes to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, which took root because of the Civil War. And while the committee goes on to prove that Trump and many of his cronies violated that sacred oath, risking our 246-year democracy, let’s examine one of their new targets.
Since they failed on Jan. 6, many fascists in Republican disguise are continuing their hate-fueled rhetoric this Pride Month to divide us further and – even more cynically – pulverize the LGBTQ+ community into oblivion.
Experts are warning that recent hate speech by far-right politicians and influencers targeting LGBTQ+ people is interpreted as a call to action by extremist groups. Sound familiar?
Last month, a fundamentalist Idaho pastor told his small Boise congregation that gay, lesbian and transgender people should be executed by the government. Another fundamentalist pastor in Texas gives similar sermons. These are members of the cloth?
Rep. Heather Scott, an Idaho Republican lawmaker, recently told an audience that drag queens and other LGBTQ+ supporters are waging a “war of perversion against our children.” And last week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would consider sending child protective services to investigate parents who take their kids to drag shows.
Reasonable people can debate whether a drag show is appropriate entertainment for young children, but I can tell you that they are far more wholesome than many R-rated movies I’ve seen parents take their children to, not to mention shooting ranges that allow children entry under parental supervision. Teaching a child how to shoot a gun is far more obscene than taking them to a show where men in high heels impersonate female stars. Let’s be real.
This isn’t just rhetoric. It has real consequences. Last Saturday, 31 members of the neo-Nazi group Patriot Front were arrested in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and charged with conspiracy to riot at a Pride event.
“We can see a direct relationship between the spectrum of anti-LGBT rhetoric from statehouses into these extremist groups,” Sophie Bjork-James recently said in an interview to The Associated Press. She is an assistant professor in anthropology at Vanderbilt University who researches the white nationalist movement, racism and hate crimes in the U.S.
Domestic extremist groups see conservatives as potential allies, Bjork-James went on to say, and they’ve found anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment is one of the easiest ways to “build a broader coalition among the radical right.”
The toxic brew our Florida governor, Mini Trump, is stirring is no different than the one Trump himself inspired that led to the Jan. 6 insurrection.
So, while we keep staring into that dark cauldron wondering if we’ll survive its poison, glance back up to the lessons being imparted by Thompson. His is a lesson is leadership – of how to be.
DeSantis is a lesson in what not to be – a champion of hate and demagoguery that will lead to more bloodshed.
Emily Cardenas is the executive editor of the Biscayne Times. She previously worked as a producer at WTXF in Philadelphia and at WSCV, WFOR and WPLG in Miami.