What? Hey I resemble that remark.
In Houston there's an investigation going on regarding Republican District Attorney "Mr. Executioner" Chuck Rosenthal's contempt case. He's alleged to have destroyed thousands of e-mails, embarassing e-mails. According to Lisa Falkenberg of the Houston Chronicle in When is a Canadian not a Canadian?
It's one e-mail, only about 100 words, sent in 2003. But it had achieved near-urban legend status in some corners before being unearthed recently and leaked to a few members of the media.
The document — yet another gem from the Harris County District Attorney's Office's treasure trove of embarrassing and inappropriate correspondence — is being debated on local lawyer listservs, blogs and in secret meetings.
Earlier this week, it was announced that the mysterious missive may be a topic of questioning in Chuck Rosenthal's contempt hearing next week — even though it has nothing to do with the DA's deletion of thousands of subpoenaed e-mails.
Instead, the e-mail involves another unlikely topic — Canadians. And not the hockey-playing, Molson-gulping, health insurance-having kind, either.
No, Rosenthal's assistant deputy attorney Mike Trent was commenting on members of a jury who had returned an unexpectedly harsh verdict despite a good defense. Those jurors sympathetic to the defendant were "Canadians".
"He overcame a subversively good defense by Matt Hennessey that had some Canadians on the jury feeling sorry for the defendant and forced them to do the right thing."
That may seem to be an relatively innocuous and isolated reference (especially when Rosenthal seems to have used government computers illegally for fundraising) but... others argue it is not. I'm not inclined to link to offensive material but the Houston Chronicle and others have noted a pattern of racist and sexist e-mails. Political analyst: Rosenthal campaign e-mails by Jeremy Rogalski KHOU-TV who originally broke the story said...
Of all the things found on Chuck Rosenthal's county e-mail account, the pornography is the most salacious and a photograph that shows an African-American man, surrounded by fried chicken and half-eaten watermelon, is perhaps the most offensive.
In 2003 Rosenthal appeared before the US Supreme Court to argue Texas should retain its sodomy laws. He claims to have executed more people per capita than anyone else. Earlier he weathered a storm of controversy over his marital infidelity. Seems like he's the rooting tooting epitomy of a Texas Republican.
Do I smell an international incident here? The Toronto Star has an article by Brett Popplewell today: Is term 'Canadian' used as racist word?
Well?
UPDATE: Before we scroll off into the sunset I've learned that the term Canadian can indeed by used as a code word. First Nations people used Kanata, or Canada, to describe a village or settlement. The name was applied to the entire country eventually. But Canada, and Canadians have come to represent much more over the years. Instead of being "villagers" we took seriously our adopted son Marshall McLuhan and became "Global Villagers". At the time of slavery in the US "Canada" meant "Freedom" to those of African descent. To the immigrant Chinese the word for Canada was "Golden Mountain". Ironic, isn't it, that the racist minded choose to use a term they think no one would object to to denigrate others. Hey Black Americans welcome to Canada! Meet the woman who represents us as our Head of State, Her Majesty Governor General Michaelle Jean