Dear Senator Graham:
Let me apologize for the unwarranted chiding you're currently taking in response to your statement...
I have 12 percent unemployment in South Carolina. My state is on its knees. I have 31 percent African American population in South Carolina.
...because we all know how disheartening it is to be surrounded by people who you used to "own," but now have to deal with as "voters" and "citizens" and "constituents".
Look, Linz, I totally get it...
...in my child's 2nd grade classroom, there are SEVEN miniature black people (where they white, I'd refer to them as "children") who take up desks near or around my own pinkish offspring.
WITH these little blacks in the classroom the teacher to student ration is about 20-1, BUT IF THEY DIDN'T EXIST suddenly the ratio would be -- POOF -- 13-1.
13-1 is FANTASTIC!
Imagine how much smarter my child would be (and how much less often she'd be likely during to pick her nose during all-school performances) if there were SEVEN less students burdening her education.
The lunch program would be better (seven less mouths to feed)... we could have a more robust arts program (fourteen less hands in need of paint brushes and clarinets and those little googly eyes that get affixed to pine cones to turn them wacky "I love you, Daddy" faces)... and my child would appear better at sports (after all, some of the small blacks are VERY good at soccer).
And its not just at school... these blacks are EVERYWHERE.
I was in line at the post office the other day and of the FIVE people in front of me, TWO were :actual" black and one was sort of a burnt-sienna (which for the purposes of your/my example I'm just going to CALL black because they definitely did NOT come over on the Santa Maria).
Now, my wait in line lasted... TWENTY WHOLE MINUTES... or FOUR MINUTES a person, but if we could return to the good-old days, before national resources had to be extended beyond only the group of the sun-burned-challenged, I would have only been required to wait EIGHT MINUTES.
Just imagine how much wonderful white-person stuff I could have done with my extra TWELVE minutes.
Black people on the road. Black people at the supermarket. There ARE MULTIPLE BLACK PEOPLE all living under the same roof RIGHT DOWN THE BLOCK FROM ME.
This may seem arch and over the top, but not when I consider the fact that you DIDN'T MENTION ONCE that these black people (and while we're at it POOR PEOPLE OF THE POSSIBLE, BUT UNLIKELY, NON BLACK VARIETY) didn't HAVE health care, but only seemed undone by the fact that keeping them healthy and alive was going to get in the way of paying for this years MS. MINT-JULIP PAGEANT.
Not. One. Word.
There seems to be no worry by you (or your party) that people need help, just that... well... this is a giant pain in the backside that white people states (like Rhode Island) don't have to deal with.
And the above makes me realize that YOU SO GET IT.
All our financial problems could just go... POOF... if there were 36.6 million less people to deal with.
Unemployment problem... gone. Health care crisis... averted.
Social Security. Infrastructure. Rap Music and the-pants-down-at-the-knees: no longer on the radar.
Best of all, without all these black people I'm pretty sure John McCain would now be President of The United States... which would mean we wouldn't even be HAVING this nasty health-care debate, leaving us more time to deal with the REAL PROBLEMS of America.
Like... who let all the BROWN PEOPLE into the counrtry?
****
Update, with a thought inspired by the below:
What I find hystarical is there's no way to justify the race part of Graham's statement.
He says he has lots of unemployed people (which is supposed to indicate poor/uninsured), THEN he mentions BLACK PEOPLE without any retribution whatsoever. There is nothing in the Health Care bill that takes RACE into account. The LOGICAL statement is...
I have 12 percent unemployment in South Carolina. My state is on its knees. I have X percent UNINSURED in South Carolina.
...but if you make THAT statement, you prove the Democrats point (about how many people need HELP. So, he just throws out African-Americans as a way of playing the BOOGEY MAN without ever having to acknowledge the problem.
BRILLIANT!