Originally published at: A Kentucky jailer up for reelection was secretly recorded using the N-word in racist, sexist phone call | Boing Boing
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"He talked about how he hated Chinese people. It was to the point we thought he was kidding, and we’re all kind of looking at each other," he remembered. “Then we find out he’s serious.”
That early “hint” just blew right past them?
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If you’re still a horrifying bigot after your granddaughter marries a Black man then it’s probably not a personality trait you are likely to outgrow.
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My Gram never ‘outgrew’ it; she just made special exceptions for us, her biracial grandkids.
(My brother & I were her favorites, out of 28 ‘grans and greats’ total.)
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I know I shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover but finding out the dude in the header is a racist, misogynistic asshole is an “as advertised on the tin” revelation.
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Don’t feel bad; dude totally looks like he should be in the dictionary next to the definition of “insufferable bigot.”
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That makes me wonder what kind of unicorn would be pictured next to the definition of “sufferable bigot.”
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Archie Bunker, at least according to people who were fans of the character. (I’ve still never watched an episode of All in the Family/Archie Bunker’s Place myself.)
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Not surprisingly, I never liked that show; but I totally dug the spin-off, the Jeffersons.
Probably because it was the first time I had ever seen successful Black people represented on tv.
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Good Dog and butter! Where they dig that repugnant scumbag up.
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We had a Mexican-American tech at work who married his supervisor’s daughter. The supervisor is White. I never saw nor heard of any problems between the two at work, perhaps since the tech was our division’s best tech and was consistently grabbed for special one-off projects all over the country, so, to that extent, a good son-in-law and reliable subordinate. Anyway, the tech one day told me of his family life, of his daughter who was quite often picked up on weekends by the grandparents – supervisor and his wife – for outings and gift-buying for the daughter. and of how the tech’s son was ignored by the grandparents. Anyone could figure out why that was… and some could never admit to being the major part of the why.
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It’s irritating how the fallout from offensive comments directed at groups rather than individuals is so one-sided. If it’s two individuals, one can apologize and the other can reject that apology in a very emphatic and personal manner if it’s insincere. If it’s an individual versus a group, their lame apology just hangs there, insulting everyone’s intelligence with no one to refute it in a way that the offender will necessarily hear about or feel the impact of.
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“He sincerely regrets descriptions and comments used,” said his insincere attorney, blaming Watkins’ comments on “a period of personal stress.”
That “period of personal stress” being, apparently, his entire fucking life? That argument (i.e. that the person just said a racist thing because they were in a bad place mentally) never holds much water, but it really falls apart when it’s part of a well documented pattern of displays of extreme racism that go back years…
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One look at his photo and I’m just shocked I tell ye, just shocked!
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Thank goodness this candidate’s disgusting racism and sexism have been publicly pointed out!
At the same time, it’s disheartening to see the reporter employ a bit of casual ageism while doing so.
From the linked article, and quoted in Carla’s post:
Former workers have accused the senior citizen of racism and created an atmosphere for a toxic and hostile work environment.
Other ways that he’s identified/described in the linked article are relevant and appropriate to the topic: e.g., as being White, as a jailer, as an elected official, as a candidate, and as an employer/boss.
His age is given at the beginning of the article, as with most news/reportage, and that’s all that’s needed to clarify that he’s not [some other local person who may happen to have the same name] (though, in this case, since he holds an elected position and is publicly known, IMO it’s not even necessary to state his age, but I assume that’s the newspaper’s policy across the board).
Going out of the way to refer to him as “the senior citizen” is IMO casual ageism that is unhelpful to the reportage at best, and insidiously injurious to others in the long run at worst.
It seems to me that we have finally reached the point where the existence of racism, including casual racism, is being broadly acknowledged by the general public. It took a lot of people pointing it out over and over to even get to this point. Ageism, including casual ageism, still goes under the radar and needs to be pointed out when spotted.
TL;DR: Calling out racism and sexism on the part of public figures, good! Casual ageism while doing so, not so good.
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To me it comes off as minimizing the bigotry, in a “he’s just a good old boy, old timer, senior moment” kind of way. Y’all don’t be too hard on the racist old bastard, he’s just like your paw paw
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In many cases it might/would be there for that reason, but in this case I think not, because the article is from Atlanta Black Star (which, oops, I called a newspaper, but is a digital magazine) which as far as I can tell is not much into minimizing bigotry.
Consequently, Atlanta Black Star was created to publish empowering narratives for all people of African descent and everyone who adheres to our culture.
(More at that link)
If you read the whole article (maybe you did), it doesn’t come off the way you suggest at all, IMO.
My sense is that in this case it was most likely an unthinking/unexamined bias on the part of the reporter that also slipped past their editor.
[Edited for sentence clarity]
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Ah, that’s different. I didn’t read the article and just assumed white bias from the newspaper.
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