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Tuesday, January 17, 2006

If N.O. Mayor Ray Nagin were white, he'd be a Klansman.

Substitute the word "white" for "chocolate" in the following statement Ray Nagin made yesterday in rememberance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day: "I don't care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day. This city will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be."

He later tried to spin it with the following "explanation": "How do you make chocolate? You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk, and it becomes a delicious drink. That is the chocolate I am talking about." Bullshit. In food terms, I prefer dark chocolate, and there's not a drop of milk in it. Maybe some sweeteners, but that's about it.

If he were Pat Robertson or some other prominent Caucasian figure, I can guarantee that there would be protests and calls for the guy to be pilloried, and I'd be right there with them calling for his resignation. However, what's fair is fair, and I think the same should happen to Ray Nagin. There is no excuse for being a racist, and even less of an excuse for a person who holds a position of public trust.

In other racially-divisive comments to mark MLK Day, Senator Hillary Clinton referred to the GOP-run House as a "plantation". The exact quote follows: "When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about," Clinton (D-N.Y.) told an audience at the Canaan Baptist Church of Christ during an event sponsored by the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network.

Yeah, we all know what you're talking about, Senator Clinton. We all know that you're trying to use very thinly-veiled language to call all of the Republicans in the House of Representatives a bunch of racists. We all know you said that because your stances are so weakly articulated and thought-out that all that remains are cheap ad hominem attacks. And we all know that you'll get a pass because you're a Clinton.

3 comments:

1138 said...

She simply used the same language the Republican Conservatives have used against Democrats time and time again.

Google Democratic Plantation and see who it is that likes to throw the word.

If the conservatives don't like to hear it, they shouldn't use it.

Mandelbrot's Chaos said...

I find that very odd given, historically, who was more likely to own plantations in the sense she meant it. They weren't Republicans. Furthermore, the only former Klansman in Congress isn't a Republican. It's former kleagle Senator Byrd of West Virginia, a man about whom I've ranted in the past and one of the few Democrats who have that distinction.

All that said, in political discourse, I believe it is wrong to use that word at all, as it is such a loaded word.

1138 said...

The conservatives shouldnt scream like babies when someone uses the same word udes the same way. My google example proves that.