I choose, perhaps naively, to believe that the vast majority of White people, including Republicans, are good and decent people and not crazy, hateful, racist loons. Sadly over the past 6 years as we've seen and heard some of the most hateful nonsense coming from (mostly) conservative White people, that belief is becoming harder and harder for me to maintain. Case in point...
From MSN News...
[Mississippi] State Rep. Gene Alday, a Republican, told The Clarion-Ledger he was against increased funding for education, in particular funding to improve literacy. During his explanation, Alday said he comes "from a town where all the blacks are getting food stamps and what I call 'welfare crazy checks.' They don't work."
Now I could go into a long spiel about how politicians get "crazy welfare checks" and do no work, said welfare being the 6 figure salaries they get for sitting on their lazy asses dreaming up new and exciting ways of getting re-elected and defrauding the public, but that would be a diary entry in itself.
As expected, Alday is now claiming that his comments were taken out of context, which is simply Republican code for, "did I say that out loud?"
"I'm not a bad person, and that makes me look like an evil person," Alday said Monday. "I didn't do anything wrong. The guy made me look like a fool."
The guy in question is
Mississippi Clarion-Ledger reporter Jerry Mitchell, whom Alday blames for misquoting him. Because, after all, he gets along with everybody, even those lazy Black people on welfare.
...Alday said the reporter failed to write about the numerous times Alday has helped people of all races in his community, whether that meant giving them rides to the doctor or providing credit on merchandise at the store run by his family.
"Yes, it's true that most of the blacks in my hometown are on welfare," Alday said. "But they're good people. I don't have anything against anybody. I'm a straight-up guy. In my little town they had little civil rights walks and I was with them. I'm with everybody."
Alday's response is typical of the racist who gets caught being racist in public. Give some token anecdote about how open and enlightened they are (usually on the order of "some of my best friends...etc., etc., etc."), blame everyone else for making them look bad, then finally call everyone else racist for exposing their racism. That last part is left to the Mississippi State GOP Chairman Joe Nosef.
"(Alday's) statements certainly do not reflect the views of the Mississippi Republican Party, its leadership or membership and are absolutely unacceptable," Nosef said. "I sure wish (Democratic Party Chairman Rickey Cole) was just as eager to speak out when one of his own Democrat officials has said something. Recently, Bennie Thompson said the governor was only against Obamacare because a black man created it, and Chairman Cole refused to comment directly. Hypocrisy is part of politics, but Rickey is better than that."
Nosef was referring to comments made by State Congressman Bennie Tompson about Mississippi governor Phil Bryant. Classic deflection/projection response. Rickey Cole's response...
"I emailed Joe Nosef last night and urged him to repudiate Alday's remarks. I'm glad to see that he and other leaders of the party of Lincoln did so. But Chairman Nosef had to hedge his bet with the voters who agree with Alday by mentioning comments made by our sole African American Congressman about Phil Bryant. Here's the difference, Joe: Congressman Thompson was talking about one man, by name. Alday attacked an entire race. There is no comparison, and to attempt to draw one cheapens the earlier repudiation. Mississippi deserves better."
Beautiful.
That Alday is a racist is quite obvious. The thing that I find it harder to do is to not automatically apply that label to all Republicans. Of course the Mississippi GOP is going out of their way to denounce Alday, and distance themselves from him, but I can't help but wonder if it's more out of a sense of self-preservation than any kind of racial enlightenment. How many times have we seen and heard racist actions or statements come from individuals within the GOP, or their supporters, as the party remains silent. The Republican Party has a reputation for being racist, homophobic, and bigoted for a reason. They can do all the rebranding they want, but until they do more than just pay lip service to their so-called "compassionate conservatism" and actually eject clowns like Alday from their party, that reputation will continue to slime them. Sadly, it also slimes the otherwise good people who support them, making it harder for people like me to see them as good people.