- December 26, 2024
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Having lived in Lebanon for two years, I saw firsthand the tension between Christian communities and Muslim political forces in the Middle East.
So perhaps it was, in part, the memory of those years that made an email sent from failed County Commission candidate Mark Richter to Chairman George Hanns so dumbfounding. In the email, which I and others were copied on, Richter accuses FlaglerLive Editor Pierre Tristam, whose family background is Lebanese Christian, of being a potential Muslim terrorist from ISIS:
“Mr Chairman, I also find it unacceptable that this man Pierre (Pierre Fauad Haddad) is allowed to roam freely throughout our County Services Building. I have seen him behind the podium and in the back rooms of the Chamber. In this Heightened alert state that our Country is facing from Hamas and ISIS we cannot tolerate such behavior, No other Citizen is allowed to be roaming around the building and behind the podium , why is this man allowed this access. Please see attached Name Change report attached. Please Sir for the security of the people that work in the GSE building, Please have this stopped.”
Richter had included in his email a screenshot from an address-lookup service that lists Tristam with the common Lebanese last name of Haddad. (Tristam has already skewered Richter for this, and explained the reasons for the name change, in a column, here: flaglerlive.com/69989/tristam-name-pt/.)
Hamas and ISIS, of course, are both Muslim organizations. Accusing Tristam of being involved with either would be much like a foreigner accusing a Jewish or Catholic Canadian of being involved with the KKK simply because they’re from the same continent.
But the fact that Tristam’s family background is Christian and not Muslim is beside the point. It shouldn’t matter.
What matters is that a man who lost a County Commission race by less than 250 votes thinks someone should be barred from doing his job (“roaming around the building” to report news stories) because he’s an immigrant from an Arab country.
It gets worse.
Richter had sent his email to Hanns, County Commissioner Charles Ericksen, two reporters and Palm Coast Observer Publisher John Walsh, but also copied it to four fellow Republican activists: Republican Executive Committee Chairman David Sullivan, Ronald Reagan Republican Assembly of Flagler County head Bob Hamby and Reagan Republican members Bert Cordwell and Dennis McDonald.
Why did no one hit “reply all” and denounce this bigotry?
I couldn’t get the question out of my mind. So I called them.
Sullivan said he didn’t feel a need to reply because it was a “personal attack.” He said, “We’ll take care of our business within the Republican Party; I don’t want it spread all over the newspapers.”
McDonald, another failed County Commission candidate, didn’t denounce the email, either; he’d actually sent an email to Hanns and Ericksen about Tristam’s name change even before Richter had.
Neither Hamby nor Cordwell responded to multiple requests for comment.
So, in fact, Richter revealed quite a bit with his email, although none of it has anything to do with Tristam. It has everything to do with how easy it can be for someone to get away with blatant bigotry, even in 2014.
And it’s troubling. We’ve probably all been in a situation when someone steps over the line and tells a racist or sexist joke. We’ve all felt that uncomfortable feeling when we fear that if we remain silent, we will be complicit.
Can we change this? Can we resolve to speak up?
There’s a tangible consequence when people involved in the political sphere let bigotry pass and refuse to comment.
Unrebuked, the bigots get louder.
