Posted on 09/09/2006 10:12:24 AM PDT by Snickering Hound
Seething at what they consider racist slurs against African-Americans displaced by Hurricane Katrina, activists here Friday took verbal aim at gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman and west Houston residents who last week urged city officials to send evacuees back home.
"The nerve of the white man to talk about shipping anyone anywhere," Houston activist Quanell X told a small group of reporters and the public Friday at a Texas Southern University news conference. "This is disgraceful."
His comments came as local and New Orleans activists gathered in Houston to craft a response to the comments, which they said smeared the estimated 100,000-plus former Louisianians now in the city.
Earlier this week, Friedman, a musician, novelist and magazine columnist who is challenging Republican incumbent Rick Perry in a four-way contest for the governor's seat, told reporters, "The musicians mostly have moved back to New Orleans now. The crackheads and the thugs have decided to stay here. They want to stay here. I think they got their hustle on, and we need to get ours."
Friedman later acknowledged many of the evacuees in Houston are good people. He also admitted his own former cocaine use. "I have empathy for these people," he said of drug users. "I know how they think."
Speakers urged New Orleanians who are registered to vote in Texas to vote against Friedman.
On Aug. 30, as many as 1,700 west Houston residents packed a meeting with Mayor Bill White and Police Chief Harold Hurtt to voice concerns about evacuee crime.
During that session, some urged officials to stop government benefits to evacuees and send them to New Orleans.
"This is a black-and-white thing," said Parnell Herbert of the Peoples Institute for Survival and Beyond.
Herbert, who had asked Quanell X and others to the Friday strategy session, said his organization, which has about eight offices nationwide, is a "multiracial, undoing racism organization" that battles "institutional racism."
Herbert suggested west Houston residents who protested evacuee crime simply felt uncomfortable with blacks in their neighborhoods.
Jeannie Bollinger, president and CEO of the West Houston Chamber of Commerce, later responded in an interview that most residents in west Houston neighborhoods relish diversity.
But, she said, crime recently has increased.
"I'm not sure who's responsible for that," she said. "But we're seeing prostitutes on the street and panhandlers, and we didn't have that before. Policemen have told some to lock their doors, and that hurts business."
Bollinger, who attended the Aug. 30 meeting, said some residents were merely expressing frustration that their concerns had not been heard. The chamber president said she found some comments "appalling."
Herbert, who is relocating to Houston, charged that some crimes attributed to evacuees are sensationalized.
"It used to be five words: The black man did it," he said. "Now it's: The New Orleanian did it."
He cited a televised case of an apartment "trashed" by Katrina evacuees.
Upon investigating, he said, he learned that the occupants had been drug addicts, some of them evacuees and some of them Houstonians.
"It was a crack house," he said. "When they were evicted, they left it torn up. I visited with a neighbor, a New Orleans evacuee, and her apartment was as nice and well-kept as any."
The morning news conference was held in tandem with a daylong Katrina Survivors Reunion, which featured a variety of spoken-word and musical entertainment.
Quanell X, occasionally interrupted by expressions of support from his audience, told those gathered for the press briefing that gang members and other criminals from Houston partially were responsible for crime problems in New Orleans.
He noted that it was inevitable that criminals would have joined the more than 250,000 New Orleanians who initially fled to Houston after the storm.
Evacuees, Quanell X said, are U.S. citizens with the right to reside wherever they choose.
Send the Kinkster a donation for his campaign.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Kinky+Friedman+for+Governor%22&btnG=Google+Search
I'd like to know what "New Orleans" activists are doing in Houston because they are NOT interested in having these people come back to NOLA (as witness Q-X's comments that it is WRONG to suggest that any effort be made to send them back to NOLA).
Already done it (though not as much as I've sent to the Diana Irey campaign).
Friedman backtracks on his shot at hunting
While opinions vary on political value of the sport, candidate opts to soften his stance
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
AUSTIN — In a state where hunting seems as natural a campaign activity as baby-kissing, candidates for governor want to make sure they don't misfire when it comes to Texas' multibillion-dollar outdoors industry.
Otherwise, they know it could cost them plenty on Election Day.
Just ask Kinky Friedman. The independent candidate for governor is backpedaling from a column in which he described hunters as waging "a one-sided war against creation."Since he wrote the 2002 article for Texas Monthly saying, "I do not suffer hunters gladly," Friedman said he has met with a "whole lot of hunters" and can see the need for hunting, particularly to manage the deer population.
Still, he refuses to go easy on big-game hunters.
"Somebody that goes out and kills a polar bear or has to go out and shoot an elephant, I believe God punishes 'em by giving them erectile dysfunction," said Friedman, an animal-lover who founded the Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch. "That's just a theory, though."
I do live in Texas.
I am voting for Kinky.
I actually thought about voting for Kinky.
Good man!!
Actually, Kinky has the best position of all four candidates on the abortion issue. You should have heard Kinky on Dan Patrick's radio show. Kinky positioned himself in a more pro-life stance than Perry or Strayhorn. Here's a good account by Lone Star Pundit (http://lonestarpundit.wordpress.com/2006/09/08/texas-gubers-on-abortion):
"Local talk radio host Dan Patrick — conservative, Christian and the Republican nominee for Texas State Senate District 7 — announced a month ago that if (when) elected, his first legislative priority will be to introduce a pro-life trigger law in anticipation of a possible Supreme Court revision.
A trigger law would serve to prevent costly litigation and delays in implementation of a pro-life environment in Texas. Upon reversal of the 1973 Supreme Court decision, abortions would immediately be banned with a trigger law. “When the Supreme Court puts a stop to the madness, I want Texas to be a state that protects life. With a Texas trigger law, we can save lives immediately,” Patrick said."
So Perry and Strayhorn have both refused to support this trigger law. But Kinky will support it:
"In a radio interview with Dan Patrick on Wednesday afternoon, Kinky was asked what he would do if (1) he were elected governor, and (2) Patrick’s proposed trigger law legislation were passed. Friedman’s first reaction was simply, “Well, I’m running for governor, not to play God.” But when pressed by Patrick as to whether he would sign or veto such a law, Friedman said that he would sign it."
No. Quannel is not an X Quannel..
A: Kinky believes in a woman's right to choose
Thanks for that info.
Kinky is anti hunter he can KMA.
The Joker may become more of a flip - flopper than Gore before it's all over with. He's not been called to account nor has all his little rants, cute one liners been reseached and brought to the fore front. But they will before the Nov. vote is taken is my guess.
Already he's trying to soften his pro abortion stance and now having to reverse or soften his hunter statements.
I was intrigued for a minute or two.
Being a clown is cute for awhile, but in the end who cares.
At best I hope he causes Perry to get tougher on illegals.
Now way will he get my vote, when considering his pro gay and pro abortion stance too.
Although I dont hunt anymore my friends do, his anti hunting crap makes me worry about my guns under this leadership.
Kinky=Stinky
Perry, Strayhorn, and Kinky all three say that abortion should remain legal. Only Kinky will commit to signing Dan Patrick's trigger law.
According to the Dallas Morning News interviews with the candidates:
Should Roe vs. Wade be overturned?
Friedman: No. ... I'm running for governor, not God.
Perry: The final disposition of Roe vs. Wade is up to Congress or the courts.
Strayhorn: I believe in the sanctity of life.
Should abortion be legal in cases of rape, incest and to protect the life of the woman?
Friedman: Of course.
Perry: Yes.
Strayhorn: I know there are those extraordinarily tough circumstances where heartbreaking choices have to be made.
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