Introduction
On December 5, 2002 the seemingly racially discriminatory remarks of Trent Lott
(R
- Mississippi), the former Senate Majority Leader for the 108
th
Congress, brought the
historical politics of race and partisanship to the fore. At a 100
th
birthday celebration for
Strom Thurmond, a Southern Republican known for his “former” segregationist political
views and distin
ctive stance on race during his run for the presidency in 1948 on the
Dixiecrat ticket, Lott made a short address that would be etched in time. As Washington
Post staff writer, Kevin Merida, noted, “forty-five little words, Trent Lott to Strom
Thurmond, Dec. 5 [sic], [are] now forbidden:
‘I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we
voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our
lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either’
(Merida 2002).”
Lott’s remarks created a whirlwind in media and politics. These “forty-five little
words” marked a pitfall in his political career, as he later was asked by Republican Party
members and leaders to resign from his position as the Senate Majority Leader. Lott’s
remarks carried an implicitly dual meaning that resonated with many as a social “truth”
about the historical and contemporary impact of race on American politics and intergroup
relations: Race matters. Despite Lott’s claim that he did not intentionally make a
remark with the charge of a racial epithet, Lott’s “unintentional” remark, like a Freudian
slip, seemingly made his views about the present in a way that was entangled with the
emotion and racial hierarchy of times past.
The expression “Freudian slip” is an allusion to the research on psychoanalysis
and the linkage between conscious and unconscious thoughts conducted by psychologist,
Sigmund Freud. More specifically, the Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary
defines a Freudian slip as “a slip of the tongue that is motivated by and reveals some
unconscious aspect of the mind.” The racially tinged remarks that Lott made helped to
redefine the meaning of a verbal “slip:” The remarks were delivered with what Lott
claimed to be unintentional racial meaning. Yet, they carried racial overtones that were
open for interpretation as racially offensive remarks with an unconscious emotional
impact. As such, I see that Lott’s incident with racially offensive expression calls for a
newly coined expression, “Lottian slips.” Others who commit “Lottian slips” in the future
may face similar political suicides. However, on the other hand, surely, this incident
brought the saliency of race in politics and political discourse, especially as political
Convention