The Paradox of Tolerance

I was saddened this week to watch Mayor William C. Laforet of Mahwah, NJ continue to invoke the good name of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the work of Simon Wiesenthal at the 3rd Annual 9/11 Commemoration: HONORING HEROES FOR TOLERANCE Ceremony at Yankee Stadium.

In reviewing the lives of other honorees, it appears most have demonstrated acts of tolerance and inclusiveness throughout their careers and continue to display those qualities today.
However, in reviewing our Mayor’s actions over the past few years, I don’t see a man of integrity or tolerance. I see a school yard bully who regularly struggles with the truth, creates widespread divisiveness and who refuses to defend the town he calls home.

Our Mayor cannot declare that he is “standing up for the civil rights of human beings” simply by stating such. Protecting one’s civil rights includes ensuring an individual’s rights of thought, speech and press.
The abhorrent words and actions by Bill Laforet toward Edward Sinclair only a few short years ago, were in violation of Mr. Sinclair’s own civil rights and are the basis of a federal lawsuit. Those repugnant and unfounded accusations against Mr. Sinclair and the mayor's willingness to publicly attack Ed – even after those allegations were proven to be wrong - was a low point for this town and may even have been responsible, as some have suggested, for his untimely death. The mayor attacked Mr. Sinclair and attempted to besmear his reputation simply because a good and decent man had the audacity to stand up and run against him. Instead of taking responsibility for his own obvious error in judgement, he publicly doubled down on those accusations and continued to push a false narrative.

Bill Laforet claims to have accepted this award "on behalf of the good people of our community” and quotes Dr. King by saying: “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of controversy". Unfortunately, Bill shows little regard to what those words actually mean. Elie Wiesel once wrote, “To remain silent in moments of injustice and in times of moral contest is not equivalent to neutrality, but of complicit approval”. When Corey Booker and Josh Gottheimer published an opinion on anti-Semitism in the Fall of 2017, they specifically targeted Mahwah High School. Instead of speaking up in defense of our schools and our inclusive, tolerant and diverse community, our mayor inexplicably remained silent. Instead of simply stating that the good people of Mahwah – or of any community – should not be labeled by the actions of a few, Mr. Laforet granted the Senator and the Congressman his own personal “complicit approval”.

Leaders lead by action Mr. Mayor; they don’t simply parrot the words of great icons, past and present. While our mayor enjoyed the “comfort and convenience” of a luxury suite at past this weekend's ceremony at Yankee Stadium, he should have remembered his personal efforts to silence the free speech of Mahwah residents on social media whose voices should be heard; he should remember how he chose “to remain silent” when our town was being publicly attacked; and finally, he should remember the blatant and personal disregard for a good man’s civil rights, when he falsely called his character into question, attempted to strip him of a lifetime of service and then refused to acknowledge his mistake in spite of documented evidence to the contrary.

Dr. King and Simon Wiesenthal will be remembered for a lifetime of work, fighting injustice and intolerance in the face of overwhelming odds. Bill Laforet however, will long be remembered in this town for helping write a dark, yet brief chapter in Mahwah’s great history. A chapter when our Mayor chose silence over action, obfuscation over transparency and wrong over right.