McCabe: ‘The time for burying our heads in the sand is over’

OPINION

The scourge of racism in our state is one that too many people do not want to acknowledge. It has permeated many facets of our lives. Since 2016, partisan political discourse has devolved and has served as the vehicle to divide our communities, bringing out the worst in our society.

In Middlesex County, which I call home, two horrific incidents over the past several years have underscored this unacceptable trend. In 2017, a racist flyer was anonymously dropped just before an Edison school board election, featuring the faces of Chinese-American and Indian-American candidates and claiming that, “The Chinese and Indians are taking over our town.” 

In Old Bridge, a Black councilwoman received a vile email this month, calling her and other African Americans the most racist word possible and likening those who live in our cities to “monkeys” and “animals.”

This behavior is not limited to suburban communities like Edison and Old Bridge. In Hudson County, the Sikh Mayor of Hoboken was subjected to anonymous racist attacks before his last election. There has been a massive uptick in bias crimes against Asian Americans all across our state since the start of COVID-19. 

After every high-profile incident, the media moves on after one or two stories. Law enforcement officials say all the right things about looking into these matters and then seem to move on as well. Political leaders lull themselves into believing that these are one-off events that will resolve themselves in time. 

These are not isolated incidents. They are deeply imbedded in our society and yet after each one, we assume that the people perpetuating this toxicity are a few bad apples. But how many bad apples must be plucked before we have to look at the soil in which the tree is rooted?

As a party leader, I have pulled support from candidates who have engaged in racist and misogynistic behavior, even if that has cost my party an election. It is time for all of us – starting with white, suburban political leaders like me – to call this toxicity out and to end it. 

These are not issues that should only be addressed by women and men of color. Each of us is responsible for the well-being of our neighbor. Each of us is responsible for creating communities where diversity is celebrated. Each of us is responsible for fostering an ecosystem where racism and racists have no oxygen to thrive. And this starts with me. 

That is why I will be calling a meeting of local leaders in our county to address this issue and to take concrete steps to ensure that there is absolute zero tolerance of any racist behavior. It does not matter if you are the President of the United States or a local county committee person, you should be held accountable.  

The time for burying our heads in the sand is over. If the last four years of the Trump presidency have taught us anything, it is that a lack of confrontation leads to normalization of egregious behavior. A lot of us are privileged to live our daily lives without having to worry about being exposed to racist attacks and so we assume that if they do not happen to us, they do not happen at all. It is time to open our eyes and to take concrete action to excise this cancer from our body politic. If we do not lead the way in making our communities safer and more equitable for those who are subjected to the kind of behavior we never experience ourselves, we have no business being in leadership.

Kevin P. McCabe is the Middlesex County Democratic Chairman