Well, this is creative of Oregon GOP gubernatorial candidate Chris Dudley.
When Republican gubernatorial nominee Chris Dudley addressed the Oregon Association of Minority Entrepreneurs’ monthly “Coffee & Issues” breakfast on Sept. 24, he reprised a comment he’d made at an earlier interview with the Urban League of Portland.
“I heard him say he ‘understood what it was like to be a minority because he had played in the NBA,” recalls state Rep. Lew Frederick (D-Portland), the only African-American man in the Oregon Legislature. (Frederick’s business partner, former Portland Public Schools board member Sue Hagmeier, recalls Dudley’s comments similarly.)
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“Frankly it was stunning that he would say something like that,” Frederick adds. “It shows a lack of sensitivity but also shows you do not understand at all what it’s like to be a minority and that you have a shallow understanding of what that question is being asked.”
Yeah. Coming from a really, really white guy, not good. Although as a Yale grad, he was only one of a handful of Ivy Leaguers in the league, so I guess he had that going for him. But really, it was only a joke, his spokesman says. "He wasn’t seriously making the comparison,” Suski says. “In no way was it an attempt to minimize the challenges that members of the minority community face.”
That's not cutting it with Dudley's audience. "Frederick says he’s unsatisfied with that explanation. 'It’s just an unbelievable comparison,' he says. 'Trying to make a joke out of it because he doesn’t know how inappropriate the comparison is, is really upsetting.'"
And indicative of someone who is really not prepared for the big leagues of politics.