Via The Cincinnati Beacon
Photo courtesy of here.
John McCain came to Cincinnati this week to court the black vote at the national NAACP convention. McCain has a miserable record with the NAACP, receiving multiple grades of "F" from the organization in prior years. Meanwhile, the McCain campaign has just named Hamilton County prosecutor Joe Deters as its local chair, a move which has already caused Ohio Democratic State Chair Chris Redfern to issue a denunciation.
Deters' longstanding relationship with Jim Schifrin, author of the notorious and racist rag-sheet The Whistleblower, isn't likely to win Deters or McCain any friends at the NAACP. For example, Schifrin calls Cincinnati's first directly elected African American mayor Mark Mallory a "gay darkie," and he calls Cincinnati Public Schools' superintendent Rosa Blackwell "mammy."
McCain's appearance in Cincinnati, shopping for Black votes, finds him steeped in controversy through the company kept by his local representative.
Back in February, McCain distanced himself from comments made by local radio personality Willie Cunningham. Cunningham kept referring to "Barack Hussein Obama," which made national headlines. He later stated he was encouraged "to throw some red meat to the crowd... To get the crowd on their feet and get them happy." Guess who made that suggestion? Joe Deters.
The day before McCain addressed the NAACP convention, Joe Deters reportedly lunched with the author of the notorious Whistleblower. According to Schifrin, the two traded racist jokes about Obama:
All of which was discussed at lunch yesterday when Hamilton County Prosecutor "JayWalking Joe" Deters met for lunch with Charles Foster Kane at a packed LaRosa’s in Newport . Besides McCain’s visit and the latest political gossip, other topics our Beloved Whistleblower Publisher discussed with McCain’s newly appointed Southwest Ohio Chairman included all the important items in the news, as well as batting around ideas for upcoming Whistleblower jokes and coverage. Best of all, Deters and Kane were eating like the natives at an Ebonics free restaurant where, unlike at eateries in downtown Cincinnati this week, the giving of gratuities for restaurant service was still being practiced. The best joke at lunch was: Obama lost a lot of points with colored people at his speech Monday night when he promised them all jobs.
Even worse, Schifrin included a joke about Barack Obama being assassinated.
As reported yesterday in The Beacon, we sent Deters letters asking him about this relationship, which he ignored.
Today, we caught up with Deters on Fountain Square at the McCain rally, and tried to ask him about this. He refused to deny the meeting, the relationship, or to denounce the racist content.
When we asked him about his relationship with race-baiting Jim Schifrin, he said that was his "personal life." When we tried to show him how Schifrin writes about their relationship, he said he had "no comment." When asked if he would repudiate the racist language of his friend, he said, "Get that camera out of my face." Then two goons started working interference, cutting our interview short.
Among other questions, why is a County prosecutor surrounded by apparent body guards?
Near the beginning of McCain's speech, he had this to say:
A few years before the NAACP was founded, President Theodore Roosevelt's invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage and an insult in many quarters. America today is a world away from the cruel and prideful bigotry of that time. There's no better evidence of this than the nomination of an African-American to be the presidential nominee of his party.
Based on Joe Deters's conduct, cruel and prideful bigotry appears to be alive and well in McCain's own campaign staff.
This story was created in collaboration with Justin Jeffre.