More GOP Diversity Outreach Fail
Bob Carleton, an Ohio Republican politician is not at all sorry for this incredibly racist email, because he says it was funny:
Subject: Spelling Bee Champ
My name be Eboneesha Hernandez, a African-Hispanic-American Girl who jus got a award for bein the bess speler in class. I gots a 47% on the spelin text and 38 points for being black, 10 points for not bringin drugs to class, 10 points for not bringin guns to class, and 15 points for not getting pregnut during the cemester. It be hard to beat a score of 120%.
White dude sit nex to me is McGee from Jaxon Mizipy. He got a 94% on the text but no extra points on acount of he have the same skin color as the opressirs of 150 years ago. Granny ax me to thank all dimocrafts and liberuls for suportin afermative axion. You be showin da way to true eqwallity.
I be gittin in medical skool nex an mabe I be yo doctor since Barrac takn over da healfcare in dis contry.
The Republican post-mortem of 2013 feels like it was released 1,000 years ago.
Wow. Just, wow.
I know, right?
Words fail me.
Speechless
Sadly. Not surprised
Wonder if David Anderson or Dr. Ben Carson(?)
Or Mr. Alan West of Florida have seen this…..and if so, their thoughts?
This is Bob Carleton’s greatest fear
http://i.imgur.com/2mHXnzj.jpg
No one wants to face up to it, but Republicans are by and large Not Nice People, however much they might observe the canons of etiquette in person-to-person interactions.
Frank is right. There is a mean-spirited, angry despair at the heart of American Republicanism. There are a few outliers, but it is a feature of Republicanism – not a bug.
From this Independent’s view there is plenty of mean-spiritedness on the other side of the fence. The press report, on which this post is loosely based, was about a 71-year-old GOP councilman who got hold of a fake email that has been floating around the Internet ether for half a decade and forwarded it. Dumb? Absolutely. Racist? Not sure. Indictment of all GOPers? Not hardly.
Try painting with the right brush.
@FS “…there is plenty of mean-spiritedness on the other side of the fence.”
Really? Making fun of this dumb guy is mean? It can somehow be equated with the GOP’s well deserved reputation for reverse Robin-Hoodism, for being the party that takes from the poor and gives to the rich???
Here’s one for you….
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/13/opinion/krugman-enemies-of-the-poor.html
ACA – Mean for denying health care to people who qualify for low cost care
Unemployment Insurance – Mean for cutting people when high unemployment
Education financing – Mean for hindering public education of the poor
Medicaid – Mean for trying to gut the program
Food stamps – Mean for trying to cut food stamps to hungry poor kids
Earned income tax credit – Mean for trying to roll that back
I challenge you to name anything quite like those that the Progressives have been up to.
Both sides mean?? Give me a break…
I’ll pass. Hard to have reasoned debate with someone in a blind, narcicistic rage, defending an illusory moral high ground. No offense, but you remind me of the Chipster.
Indictment of all GOPers? Not hardly.
I’d pass too. Beyond this one case, there are objective facts. While you might be able to make the argument that there are some mean spirited people on the left – you can’t deny that philosophical heart of modern Republicanism since Nixon is mean spirited by design.
The notion that the two parties are equally mean spirited is pure hogwash on its face.
Never said equally Mean spirited. I’ll admit that the effect of post-nixon Republicanism can be viewed as mean spirited. Heck, wasn’t that the whole reason for the “compassionate conservative” movement. Still, while one house may be more brittle, they are both made of glass. As one who sits on the fence in between, I’d prefer that all would drop the rock.
It’s a free country. I frankly don’t get the in-between ( a pox on both houses) position. When one side says 1+1=2 and the other says 1+1=4, the correct answer is not 3.
We have one party that has been stridently and belligerently wrong on issue after issue and yet they continue to be treated as legitimate counterweight to the people who have been right on those issues.
Exactly what does someone have to do to be described as racist? Wear a white hood? Take part in a lynching? Seems like that’s where some people want to set the bar – which makes sense if you want to get away with sending emails like this. To pretend that email was just a dumb thing done by an old man is what’s insulting. Sending the email was dumb and racist. It isn’t an either/or scenario.
republicans are meaner, true. and this guy is clearly an idiot. but it’s astounding how so may liberals cannot see their own meanness and cannot even imagine another point of view that isn’t somehow immoral to them. liberals complain that republicans approach their politics like religion, that they’re too moralistic to think objectively. far-left liberals are almost as moralistic on the other side. it’s their way or the highway.
far-left liberals are almost as moralistic on the other side.
If that means that zero-tolerance for racism makes you uncomfortable, than that’s OK. Tolerating other people’s bigotry is not a pathway for that bigotry to go away.
cassandra: depends on what you think bigotry is. sometimes liberals seem to think any political system that considers the welfare state an iffy way to solve race/poverty problems is by its nature racist. maybe it’s a matter of thinking the welfare state has helped to perpetuate the cycle of poverty and unfairness and that another way is worth considering.
sometimes liberals seem to think any political system that considers the welfare state an iffy way to solve race/poverty problems is by its nature racist.
That would be quite wrong, but it certainly is not the subject of the racist email circulated by this GOP City Councilman.
All too often the people with the bigotry issues try to absolve themselves by pretending that the folks standing against that bigotry are political extremists who are Just Not Like The Rest Of Us.
“In Delaware, the largest growth of population is Indian Americans, moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.”
There are lots of crusty, old politicians out there who don’t know the difference between being funny and being a f*#%ing racist.
Oh lord. Where would we be without false equivalencies?
Oh lord. When all else fails, call your opponent a racist and then quietly ship your kids off to private school so they don’t have to mingle with the . . . “less fortunate.” Where would we be without the subtle, insidious racism that pervades this country from top to bottom, far right to far left?
I’m not sure what you are replying to, but I’m fairly sure it doesn’t matter. I’ve heard the BS-y “pox on both houses” sentiment from a lot of Republicans who just can’t stand to criticize the GOP without also trying to ding the Democrats for something.
I get the feeling you are in that category. An honest to goodness “thinking man’s” Republican.
“As one who sits on the fence in between, I’d prefer that all would drop the rock.”
Bullshit. You just tossed one.
Guilty as charged, Geezer! Gettin’ a little fired up by all the hypocrisy and self-righteousness. Your lucky you’re in a protected class, or I’d toss one your way.