To be young and socialist

Surprising but true: A few of my very best friends are touchy-feely, "can't-we-all-just-get-along" classic American liberals.

That's because I choose friends not based on politics, but character. Tolerance, kindness and a healthy sense of humor trump party affiliation almost every time.

Anyway, my liberal friends sometimes suggest I don't give their side of the American political aisle enough ink. Well, friends, be careful what you ask for, because something dangerous brews among liberals today and it needs to be called out -- not just by guys like me, but also by honest liberals, like my friends.

It's the tolerance of black racism and hate speech in America today.

The latest manifestation following in the footsteps of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright comes from Bertha Lewis, the chief executive officer of ACORN.

She spoke on March 25 before the Young Democratic Socialists conference, in which students everywhere were invited "to meet comrades from around the country, trade stories, share experiences, and build the solidarity necessary to be resilient in the face of the overwhelming forces opposed to a true socialist agenda in America."

Some of Lewis' more inflammatory statements received some minor national coverage. She called the Tea Party movement a "bowel movement" (classy) and she predicted an America headed toward violence that will "dwarf the internments during World War II" and "Jim Crow" segregation. (Wait, what?)

But the full extent of her speech went unreported. Here's some of what she said:

"First of all, let me just say that any group that says 'I'm young, I'm democratic, and I'm a socialist' is all right with me.

"The reason that you have to build your organization, and make it as big and as powerful as you can, is because you need to get into real battles. ...

"Immigration is the next big battle. Immigration, immigration, immigration. And the reason this is so important is, you know, here's the secret: (whispering) We're getting ready to be a majority, minority country. Shhhh. We'll be like South Africa. More black people than white people. Don't tell anybody.

"You get yourselves together, get strong, get big, and get in this battle. Get in this battle! Because again it's all about money. How this country works. Who we have in this country. And the fact that a fear of a black planet that's being played out in the United States today. The future of our country is people of color. And how that's going to change our psyche and our economics, this is why folks are grabbing so hard to change the economic paradigm, because we gettin' ready to have a majority country of people of color. And the fear of a black planet is real.

"My challenge to black folks, and to people of color and civil rights folks, are this: the face of immigration needs to be a lot blacker than it is. Because once they can frame the immigration debate as about Latinos, crossing some mythical border, when in fact we have second- and third-generation black folks in this country who come from immigrant families. But they're not standing up and marching with their Latino brothers and sisters, and saying 'I am an immigrant, too.' ...

"So Young Democratic Socialists, join this immigration war. Black people, young black people that have been put in the vast vat of 'African Americans,' join. Don't march alongside, don't march in back, be right out front!

"Because that will be the battle for our democracy. That will be the battle for the kind of government that we have. That will be an economic battle of epic proportions. Immigration, self-sufficiency, and the people united."

Forget for a moment the race-based revisionist thinking in regard to who is an immigrant. (We're all immigrants, or sons and daughters of immigrants, depending upon how far you want to go back.) The key question is why isn't this kind of straight-up racial speech marginalized for the nonsense that it is? How does this rant not make the nightly news and the national wires? How does this kind of race-baiting not get condemned by leading Democrats? Why doesn't the president lecture Lewis about the civility of speech, as he is so wont to do with those whose ideas he opposes?

Where's Bill Clinton raising the red flag on how speech can incite violence, as he did last week on the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing? Where are those hand-wringing media pundits who were so focused on Sarah Palin using the word "reload" at the Searchlight Tea Party rally -- not in the context of picking up a gun, but in reinventing the conservative movement and voting in November?

When Bertha Lewis encourages people, based only on the color of their skin, to "get yourselves together, get strong, get big, and get into this battle," is this not rhetoric worth condemning?

I guarantee you that had Palin said it, reversing the colors, the national debate would be filled with calls for Homeland Security to investigate. And a Democrat president or two or three would publicly mull the limits of free speech.

But Bertha Lewis gets a pass?

She's no powerless nut job. She's the chief executive officer of ACORN, a once-major vendor of the U.S. government, a political ally of mainstream Democrats in Nevada and every state and the head of an organization that's been a longtime friend of the current president of the United States.

Alarm, if not outrage, is more than appropriate.

Sherman Frederick (sfrederick@ reviewjournal.com) is publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and president of Stephens Media.