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Governor Schwarzenegger Remarks At NAACP Conference In California

Source: The Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger
Posted on: 26th October 2009

Governor of California delivered remarks at the 22nd Annual Convention of the California State Conference of the NAACP.

GOVERNOR:  Well, thank you very much, Alice Huffman, for this wonderful award. Thank you for the NAACP and for the wonderful privilege to get this award. I really appreciate and I definitely want to say thank you to all the wonderful speeches that I have heard and all the great compliments that all of you have made. I just want to go through the list again, from Alice Huffman through Gina Evans, Commissioner Timothy Simon, the Secretary Dale Bonner, Jerome Horton, Assemblyman Swanson and Mervyn Dymally and sweet Alice and all the others that came up here and spoke. So thank you very much for this great great compliment. Let’s give them a big hand for the great work that all of you are doing. (Applause)

Now, what an honor to join you here today and I want to begin singling out, of course, your president here who is sitting to the left of me, Alice Huffman. I mean, you know, I’m a very optimistic person and I count my blessings, and one of the blessings that I count every day is to have such a great friend as Alice Huffman by my side and to help me so much. (Applause)

She has been an extraordinary person, I tell you. She comes into my office many times and she’s very honest. She comes up to me and she tells me when I do something well, but she also tells me right straightforward when I do something that is not so well done. But I think that Alice Huffman actually was maybe a psychiatrist or psychologist in her before life, because she knows, you know. She has special tricks when she comes into the office. She will come in and she will say very joyfully, for instance, just a few months ago she came in and she says, “I am here to make your job easier.” I say, “Oh, really, this is great. I love that.” She says, “For instance, I have a good idea. You know that you are having an appointment open there on the Board of Equalization.” And I said, “Yes, I do.” She says, “Well, I have the answer for you. You don’t have to sweat about it anymore, you don’t have to worry about it. I take that burden off your chest.” And I said, “Wow, how are you going to do that?” She says, “Well, here, look at this card.” And there was written on it Jerome Horton.

And I said, “Jerome Horton?” And she said, “Oh, he’s fantastic. He’s unbelievable.” And I said, “I know. He was a legislator. I know he was part of budget negotiations and I know that he was very smart in math and he knows numbers really well and he’s very aggressive and he has great leadership qualities.” And she says, “You said it all. I don’t have to hype him anymore; you’re absolutely correct.” She says, “Think about that.” And I said, I’m going to think about it.”

Well, just two weeks ago we swore him into office. (Applause)

So just to give you an example, that’s the way she works. And she is coming in there with a list for the judges appointments and all of those things. And she really knows how to get to me. And she sits down in the tent which normally is a smoking a tent. Not that she pulls out a cigar or anything like that, but she sits down in the smoking tent and that’s where we get a lot of our work done.

So I just want to say our friendship has grown and evolved and she has made my administration a much better administration, and she has made my work much more fun. So let’s give her a big hand for the great great work that she is doing. (Applause)

And I just want to say thank you to all of you. Thank you for your invitation to join you here today and to celebrate this remarkable milestone, this remarkable accomplishment: 100 years of the NAACP. This is really extraordinary.

Now, the only thing is that I want to recommend to you that because we are in California, don’t say you’re 100 years old. Don’t. Just say 37 or something like that. That’s what we do in California. Everything is always much younger. Just a suggestion.

Now, what an achievement, I tell you. What an achievement what you have accomplished. This is the oldest, largest civil rights organization in the country. No group has done more for equality or achieved more in the fight for justice than your organization.

The NAACP has been on a mission for the last 100 years, and that is a mission that is about equality, about equal rights. The mission is about elimination of the racial hatred and the discrimination that’s going on in this country. What would be more noble to do? What is more noble and more necessary than that. This fight is extremely important and what would be more fundamental than to say yes to acceptance and to say yes to respect, to say yes to inclusion and to say yes to tolerance.

And I tell you, when we talk about tolerance, this is something that I have been involved in very heavily for the last 25 years because I’ve joined the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Tolerance. And the reason for that is because I come from a country with a history of prejudice. We all know what happened during the second world war, the Holocaust. Six and a half million Jews had to die because of hatred and because of prejudice. So I wanted to make sure that I used my celebrity power, and I joined the Simon Wiesenthal Center and go out and talk to the young kids, to the new generation, about this was the wrong way to go. There is another way to go, the right way, to be inclusive and to be tolerant and to go and accept people. So this is why I’ve been involved with this. And so I am happy that I’ve been fighting for that.

Then, of course, you all know my wife, the wonderful, the greatest woman in the world that I have married — (applause) — oh, yes, she is an amazing, amazing woman. And she, of course, comes from a family where they’ve always taught the kids and everyone and have fought for equal rights. Her mother, as you know, started Special Olympics, which was all about equal rights for people with mental disabilities that are intellectually challenged. And she started the organization of Special Olympics which is now in 174 countries all over the world to give people with mental disabilities and intellectual disabilities, to give them the right to compete in sports, the right to live and to work and to have health care and dental care and all of those kind of things. So she did a great job.

And her father who was working in the Kennedy Administration and Johnson Administration and started the Peace Corps and Job Corps, legal aid to the poor, VISTA, and the list goes on and on and on. So she comes from a family of that. So of course, with both of us together, it is very important for us to do the same thing with our kids and to teach our kids to make sure that they respect the core value of our family which is respect. Respect is what this is all about. We have taught our children that there is no such thing as a person who is more than or less than another. That is the bottom line. (Applause)

I want my children to always remember how lucky we are to live here in the United States of America. No matter what the race is or the religion or the ethnic background, no matter how you pronounce California — (laughter) — or how you look or how much your muscles may (inaudible) little bits, the United States is our home. It belongs to all of us and it is our responsibility to make it a better place and it is our responsibility to say hasta la vista to prejudice and hasta la vista to intolerance. (Applause)

Maria and I, we tell our children all the time that this is the United States of America which means not just that the states are united but that the people have to be united. The people have to be united and have the responsibility to stand together and to stand against hatred and to stand for justice. And that is what has been taught to our kids over the years and this is exactly what you have brought to us here today for your centennial celebration. That’s what you have been fighting for for the last 100 years.

For 100 years the NAACP has been on the frontline fighting for an America where anything is possible. And let me tell you, I am an expert when it comes to anything is possible because I came to this country with a bag of sweaty clothes and with $20 in my pocket. And I have seen with hard work and with effort that anything is possible — my bodybuilding career, my movie career, the political career and all of those things. Only in America. But now we have to fight to make sure that this land of opportunity provides opportunity for everybody, not just a few chosen ones but for everybody in America. (Applause)

And you, of course, have fought that battle with marches and with boycotts and courthouses and in state houses and schools and churches and at the ballot boxes across the nation. And, of course, the work that you have done for the last 100 years has paid off. I mean, look at what has happened. 100 years later here we are, Barak Obama is the President of the United States and the winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on top of that. (Applause)

Of course there are the jealous ones that say he didn’t deserve it, he didn’t do enough work and all this, which is a bunch of garbage because the fact of the matter is there is no one that has talked more about bringing people together and about peace than President Barak Obama and he deserves that. (Applause)

So much has been accomplished, obviously, and we also know that there is still so much more work that is ahead of us. And this is why in 2003 when I ran for governor I said I will not be the governor of the Republican party, of any party. I will the people’s governor. I want to represent all people in California, Democrats, Republicans, African Americans, Asians an everyone else. (Applause)

This is why again I said the same thing in 2006 when I ran again, and since then since I’ve become governor I’ve signed dozens and dozens of laws, many of them you have heard just here from the various different people on the stage here. And those are all laws that we have signed that have that aim in mind.

I want to take just a few minutes to mention some of the things. I’ve enacted laws that address housing discrimination and fair employment, to fight discrimination in our instructional materials in our schools. We want to make sure that we have equal education for all of our kids. And we have passed also legislation that promotes civil rights, focuses law enforcement on human trafficking and takes a stand against the genocide in the poor and makes it illegal to hang a noose to terrorize and threaten other people. And these are just some of the things that we have done, and we will continue working. This list goes on and on, of course.

We, of course, have also made terrific African-American appointments, as you have heard, to work in the governor’s office and also in the state’s judicial branches. And this will continue because I’m going to leave this office with a record number of African-Americans being on a judicial bench. This is my goal and I’m going to accomplish that goal, I promise you. (Applause)

And we should not forget that we also declared February 12th NAACP day in California here to celebrate the centennial of this great great organization. And I’m so proud of the work that we have done together and I’m humbled today for this tribute. I am really humbled for that. And I think I must be the first Republican to ever be awarded by the NAACP. So that’s historic. That’s an historic event here today, let me tell you. (Applause)

And I think that as partners we have accomplished a lot. Now, of course, it is very important that we don’t slow down. We shouldn’t rest on our laurels and should continue working very hard, especially working very hard towards economic development, green jobs, health care and especially something that you care about a lot which is education. I think that it is very important that we continue with our commitment and we are going to continue moving forward with all the power and all the muscles here. We’ve got to pump everyone up and make it an equal country for everybody. Absolutely. And our administration is ready for all of those challenges.

So the bottom line is we are united in our drive for justice and our belief in humanity and in our impatience for a better day for everybody. The dawn of the next 100 years is upon us and so I say let’s roll up our sleeves and let’s get to work.

Thank you very much. Thank all of you.

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