Roy Exum
At some point Sunday afternoon Senator Bob Corker was on a peaceful, quiet walk on Stringer’s Ridge – I’m betting to tune out the swirl surrounding Donald Trump’s victory for president – when his interlude was interrupted by what has been cited as “a profanity-based tirade.” A complete stranger accosted the Senator and went bonkers, as the Brits said. A biology professor who is believed to have immigrated to the U.S. from England about a dozen years ago and now teaches at Sewanee, David George Haskell, recognized Corker and pounced in what the same Brits call “exceeding bad form.”
The last thing Corker wanted was to be subjected to some college professor’s rant but Haskell really got cranked and is now soaking the episode for all it's worth. From various news accounts, there are two sides to the story and here’s what the Senator’s staff offers as the official version:
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“While hiking alone Sunday afternoon on Stringer’s Ridge, Senator Corker was aggressively approached by Professor Haskell, who was hiking with three other individuals,” a spokesman said. “Professor Haskell began shouting at Senator Corker in a profanity-laced tirade while pointing a finger in his face and told the senator that he was embarrassed to live in a state where the citizens voted to overwhelmingly elect Donald Trump.
“Senator Corker calmly suggested to the professor that he did not have to live in Tennessee if he did not wish to do so.”
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But Haskell offers a different version. Accompanied by Katherine Lehman, a former music instructor at Sewanee; Cesar Leal, an assistant music professor at Sewanee; and Troy Johnson, a social worker in Chattanooga, Haskell doesn’t explain why he felt compelled to confront a total stranger in such an outlandish way. This excerpt from his blog “Ramble: Intransitive verb, 1. Wander freely. 2. Write or talk incoherently”:
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“Who should come walking the other way down the trail over the weekend but our very own GOP senator, Bob Corker? I greeted him then told him how deeply ashamed I was to be from a state where our senator will not denounce Trump for boasting of sexual assault. Corker has been silent on this matter and on the racism and hate that the T-monster has spewed into our country these last months. I told him that as a Tennessean I was deeply ashamed of his silence.
Corker’s response? “If you don’t like it, then you should leave the state.”
He then turned the conversation to attack me: “its people like you who won’t accept the results of the election who are deeply dividing this country.”
“What have you ever done to contribute to this state?” Well, I did not say that I disputed the election, merely that I was ashamed of my senator. And my contributions? Modest, for sure, but irrelevant to the question: “Why have you not, Senator Corker, denounced Trumps’ boasts of sexual assault?” Or any other of Trump’s outrages?
He responded only with attacks on my character and complaints about the uncivil way that I was disrupting his restful Sunday walk “in nature.” Then he repeated his charge to me: “If you don’t like it, leave.”
No, Senator, if you don’t like your constituents using their First Amendment rights to express their deep dismay and disgust at your failure to take a stand against odious statements, then maybe you’re the one who needs to book the U-Haul van. Pack your bags and leave Washington. Take your silence in the face of Trump’s vile words back to your Chattanooga mansion and ponder why a group of hikers — immigrants, women, LGBTQ, and Latinos — would be so distraught to see your smirking countenance sauntering through the woods.
Yes, we are ashamed of you. No, we are not leaving.
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According to the Knoxville News-Sentinel, the professor said he was “shaken up” after the encounter and had trouble sleeping afterwards. And the profanity? “My profanity was no match for that of Mr. Trump and I showed no aggression. Anger, for sure, but I stood at a respectable distance and listened to Corker. First Amendment speech is not aggression, it’s a right. Grabbing women, punishing them for abortions, egging on rallies for violence: now that’s aggression.”
Haskell has written a couple of books about the environment, “The Song of Trees” and “The Forest Unseen.” In 2013, he wrote a guest op-ed piece in the New York Times that stated, “The facts of biology plainly falsify the oft-repeated notion that homosexuality is unnatural.”
Corker, who heads the Foreign Relations Committee, has repeatedly said how inappropriate some of Trump’s comments have been and, on at least two occasions, called on him to publicly apologize. According to some sources, Trump entertained the idea of Corker as his vice president but the senator removed his name from consideration. He said he felt others were better-suited.
In my way of thinking David George Haskell is now the one that needs to apologize. There is a right way to do things and the Sewanee professor, after he listens to a few more trees, will conclude he is clearly in the wrong.
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