Posted on 07/29/2008 7:56:52 AM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
Cohen is in trouble. The blacks in his majority black district want a black to represent them. I don’t know if the TN primaries are already over or not for the upcoming election.
If you thought race was an uncomfortable issue in the Democratic presidential primary, wait ‘til you get a load of what’s going on in the Democratic primary in the Memphis area’s 9th District of Tennessee, where a shockingly worded flier paints Jewish Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) as a Jesus hater.
“Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen and the JEWS HATE Jesus,” blares the flier, which Cohen himself received in the mail — inducing gasps — last week.
Circulated by an African-American minister from Murfreesboro Tenn., which isn’t even in Cohen’s district, the literature encourages other black leaders in Memphis to “see to it that one and ONLY one black Christian faces this opponent of Christ and Christianity in the 2008 election.”
Cohen’s main opponent in the August 5 Democratic primary in his predominantly African-American district is Nikki Tinker, who is black. The Commercial Appeal wrote an editorial in Wednesday’s paper condemning Tinker for not speaking out against the anti-Semitic literature.
“What does Nikki Tinker think about anti-Semitic literature being circulated that might help her unseat 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen in the Democratic primary next August?” the editorial asked. “The question goes to the character of the woman who wants to represent the 9th District, and 9th District voters deserve an answer. But Tinker declined to return a phone call about the flier.”
The editorial also noted that last summer Cohen came under attack from black ministers who challenged the congressman’s support for federal hate crimes legislation to protect gay rights. The paper wrote that the “real motive” behind the ministers’ attacks was revealed later by Rev. Robert Poindexter who, according to the Commercial Appeal, said of Cohen: “He’s not black and he can’t represent me, that’s just the bottom line.”
Cohen tells the Sleuth it was “shocking” to receive the flier, “particularly coming from an African-American the week after Dr. King’s birthday. This was just such an ignorant and racist and prejudiced type of flier — it’s hard to fathom we’re in the 21st century,” Cohen says.
The first-term congressman hopes Barack Obama’s success will trickle down. “Obama is showing us that Americans have gotten beyond race. He’s gotten a good number of Caucasian votes, so I think we’re making advances,” says Cohen, who endorsed Obama.
While he says he has plenty of support from the “old guard” African-American leaders in his district, Cohen is having difficultly wooing influential black colleagues from Congress to campaign on his behalf. He’ll surely be looking for support from Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who is scheduled to be honored as this year’s April 4th Foundation awards banquet in Memphis along with actor/singer Harry Belafonte - whose sister, Shirley Cooks, coincidentally, serves as Cohen’s chief of staff.
Cohen battled racial and religious innuendo in his 2006 campaign for Congress, but not anything as blunt as the flier he received last week. After winning, he tried unsuccessfully to become the first white member of the Congressional Black Caucus, leaving him decidedly white.
“It’s a chink in my armor,” Cohen says. “I’m always going to be white. I don’t have to always be Jewish — but I am, and will be.”
Steve Cohen is my rep. It is a 80% black district and he is pandering for votes. Race is the main thing is this district. It used to be Harold Ford Jr’s seat.
He may last one more term due to the sheer pitifulness of the black Democratic opposition but by the next election, he is gone for sure.
Whoever wins the democratic normination has the election in the bag.
I don’t have a problem with more syllables, but “black” is the simplest descriptive term that makes no assumptions. It is not a race or ethnicity, but a color. Most Haitian immigrants are black, but not African-American. African immigrants who have not become citizens are not African-American. Canadians of African ancestry are not African-American.
I had a college roommate who gave me an education on the issue a few years before Tiger Woods brought it to national attention. He disliked being called “African-American” simply because it did not describe his heritage. His mother is a black woman from the West Indies (Antigua, I think), his father Thai. “Black” is the most descriptive term, when and if it was relevant at all.
I’m not opposed to hyphenated terms when they’re the most accurate term available (and when the person’s ethnicity is relevant). I used to work with a beautiful Korean-American woman, born in the US, who went to a high school a couple of districts over from mine. There is no question that she’s as American as I am, and that to call her simply “Korean” or “Asian” would be insufficient and insulting. “American of Korean ancestry” would be most precise, but it’s far too clumsy for daily use.
I laughed out loud here at work when they called a man from Gambia, an African American from Gambia. Utterly stupid!
Were they slaveowners? Were the African-Americans kept as slaves? Why apologize for something they did not do?
It seems so lame.
Unless. Unless...the Dems are taking precautions to curry favor with the blacks -- against the possibility of dumping their Magic Negro in Denver.
It's still lame. But, at least, that creates an excuse for the action.
Just imagine the uproar if the color was reversed in this statement from the Nurfreesboro preacher. A far cry from Martin Luther King's wish for a society where character, not skin color, is the basis of judgments.
Why’d you remove my original post? Because I used the word “negro”? I thought that kind of PC nonsense for for the Daily Kos, not here on FR.
It will get worse until the Messiah is elected. Then normal people will put down their remotes and finally grow some testosterone-producers, and stand up for their rights.
I’d apologize except that I didn’t own any slaves.
"The House 'apologizes to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow.'"
On behalf of the "people of the United States"? They don't speak for me and I don't apologize. I never owned a slave and none of my ancestors owned slaves or were part of any country or entity that promoted slavery.
The House of Representatives doesn't represent much these days. They surely don't represent logical thought either. How freaking stupid. Our government shows no bounds to idiocy.
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