Posted on 10/17/2009 11:54:04 AM PDT by big truck
NEW ORLEANS – Louisiana's governor and a U.S. senator joined Friday in calling for the ouster of a local official who refused to marry an interracial couple, saying his actions clearly broke the law.
Keith Bardwell, a white justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish in the southeastern part of the state, refused to issue a marriage license earlier this month to Beth Humphrey, who is white, and Terence McKay, who is black. His refusal has prompted calls for an investigation or resignation from civil and constitutional rights groups and the state's Legislative Black Caucus.
Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal said in a statement a nine-member commission that reviews lawyers and judges in the state should investigate. "Disciplinary action should be taken immediately — including the revoking of his license," Jindal said.
Bardwell did not return calls left on his answering machine Friday. Bardwell has said he always asks if a couple is interracial and, if they are, refers them to another justice of the peace. Bardwell said no one had complained in the past and he doesn't marry the couples because he's worried about their children's futures. "Perhaps he's worried the kids will grow up and be president," said Bill Quigley, director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Justice, referring to President Barack Obama, the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas. Obama's deputy press secretary Bill Burton echoed those sentiments. "I've found that actually the children of biracial couples can do pretty good," Burton told reporters aboard Air Force One as it flew to Texas.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
My dad is white and my mom is Asian. As a U.S. GI, he married her in early 1946 in Tokyo, and they left Japan for the U.S. east coast a few years later. They decided to drive cross country and settle in SF. During the drive thru southern states, they stopped at a few gas stations.
My mom saw the "White Only" and "Colored Only" signs on the restrooms, and asked the locals which one should she use. The men there would look at her, an Asian, ponder it for a moment, then look at their own skin, then direct her to the "White Only" door.
That was a long time ago. Incidentally, my dad met a lot of resistance from Army officials and had to fight for the right to marry an Asian.
Moroever, instead of making it clear that there is no room in the conservative position for bigotry, there are folks who try to apologise for it, rationalize it, or allow that it is one man's opinion, to which he is entitled, but that should not ruin it for the rest of us.
Well, my copy of the Declaration of Independence says something about all men being created equal, and we conservatives, who wrote that document, might just start from that position, as well as the rest of the declaration and the constitution, all of it, including the 14th amendment, which states rights folks don't like, and the part prohibiting searches and seizures except upon probable cause, and warrant issued under oath or affirmation, a clause the law and order and WODies don't like.
Before we can start attracting a majority in under our broad conservative tent, there are a whole host of pretty disreputable folks we need to start throwing out.
If you want conservatism to be taken seriously, then you need to want yourself to be taken seriously. To be taken seriously you need to make a serious point and then end it with a period, instead a long string of cartoons, the point of which I care not, which have completely detracted from any point you were trying to make, which I will not read because you made yourself look ridiculous by posting an inane string of pointless cartoons.
How about we just ridicule the bigot, and all of the idiots here who try to make more of it than it deserves.
According to Department of Justice statistics on homicides, 86% of white victims were killed by whites and 94% of black victims were killed by blacks. Yes, blacks committed 52% of homicides during that period but they were mostly killing other black people and the percentage of whites killed by blacks (14%) is only a percentage point higher than the percentage of blacks in the general population (13%), meaning that if all of the white people killed in a year were killed by a random member of the population, you'd expect 13% of white people to be killed by a black person. My point here is that while it's unrealistic to pretend that black-on-white violence doesn't exist and that only white-on-black violence is a problem, it's equally incorrect to portray black-on-white crime as a particularly acute problem. And just as the James Byrd slaying was hardly characteristic of the way most white people treat black people, the slaying of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom is hardly characteristic of the way most black people treat white people.
Let me give you a particular experience that I had to prove the point. Some friends lived just down the road from a particularly rough black neighborhood in New Jersey that saw race riots in the 1960s. I decided to stop in the McDonalds in that rough neighborhood before heading over to their house one night. A group of cocky young black men there that night decided to play "Let's stop whitey from getting served" and kept cutting in front of me to talk to the cashier or order something (as one would finish up, another would step in). I simply patiently waited there and finally the black woman behind the counter said to one of them, "I think he's next," and took my order. If I wanted to, I could focus on the racist young black men who were hassling me, sure, but that ignores the fact that the young black woman behind the counter, seeing how unfairly they were treating me, put an end to it, too. You mentioned a black truck driver intervening to help a white victim in Flint. Blacks also intervened to help white victims during the LA Riots and in other instances of black on white violence. There are good and bad black people. There are good and bad white people. And if you can't look past race, you won't see the good.
Yes, it makes sense to use stereotypes to assess risk. Young black men who look and act like thugs should be avoided, not because they are black but because they look and act like thugs. You should avoid white and Asians who look and act like that, too. And elderly black man, and elderly black woman, a young black man dressed in a suit carrying himself like a professional, and so on don't pose a threat any more than the ubiquitous Swedish old lady or Amish teenager does. And if you don't look at more than race, you can and will miss a great deal that's far more important than race in assessing threats.
At least part of the problem is that the Admins don’t catch it all because they don’t see it all. If you see something that looks racist, hit the Report Abuse button and report it. More often that not, if it’s overtly racist, it will get removed by the moderators, as will entire threads if the source is questionable.
At least part of the problem is that the Admins don’t catch it all because they don’t see it all. If you see something that looks racist, hit the Report Abuse button and report it. More often that not, if it’s overtly racist, it will get removed by the moderators, as will entire threads if the source is questionable.
Horse. Water. Drink.
If a liberal wants to accuse you of racism they will make something up to do it with. I agree that blatant *racism* must be censored but there is a gray area. It is that gray area that you are afraid of and I am not. It bothers me a bit but there are appropriate times to discuss and even joke about such things in a FREE society. Without that FREEDOM we are lost. And that is EXACTLY what the left wants. They want us to shut up entirely so that we are *safe* from the self-appointed PC thought police. I used to be afraid, too. I grew up in that PC climate in Los Angeles. I was even caught in the wrong part of Los Angeles when the last big riots (Rodney King) broke out. If looks could literally kill you should have seen what was in the eyes of the rioters. Mostly they wanted others to be scared. That's what the left wants, too, on a daily basis. I'm older and more mature now. I say, screw 'em. They're liars and I won't censor any but the most egregious truly racist examples (which I do on a regular basis.) Conservatives can't be taken seriously if they are cowed and frightened of every tiny slight. Conservatism can't be killed by little trolls calling us "racists" either. That's the myth they want to portray. Don't be scared of their lies and thought-control and as a result you fight with other conservatives. They win, we lose. Fight the left OUTSIDE of Free Republic. (Maybe you do, I don't mean anything by that.) That's what an activist site is about. You do as much damage here to FR by calling your fellow FReepers "racists" - or more - than the original posts do that really mean nothing much in themselves. Hit the abuse button or move on or send FReepmail. Don't air dirty laundry in the same venue you are worried that the bad guys are reading. THAT makes us look worse.
being thought of as "racist" is a huge Achilles Heel for the right
If a liberal wants to accuse you of racism they will make something up to do it with. I agree that blatant *racism* must be censored but there is a gray area. It is that gray area that you are afraid of and I am not. It bothers me a bit but there are appropriate times to discuss and even joke about such things in a FREE society. Without that FREEDOM we are lost. And that is EXACTLY what the left wants. They want us to shut up entirely so that we are *safe* from the self-appointed PC thought police.
I used to be afraid, too. I grew up in that PC climate in Los Angeles. I was even caught in the wrong part of Los Angeles when the last big riots (Rodney King) broke out. If looks could literally kill you should have seen what was in the eyes of the rioters. Mostly they wanted others to be afraid. That's what the left wants, too, on a daily basis. I'm older and more mature now. I say, screw 'em. They're liars and I won't censor any but the most egregious, truly racist examples (which I do on a regular basis.)
Conservatives can't be taken seriously if they are cowed and frightened of every tiny slight by the opposition. Conservatism can't be killed by little trolls calling us "racists" either. That's the myth they want to portray.
Don't be scared of their lies and thought-control and as a result you fight with other conservatives. They win, we lose.
Fight the left OUTSIDE of Free Republic. (Maybe you do, I don't mean anything by that.) That's what an activist site is about. You do as much damage here to FR by calling your fellow FReepers "racists" - or more - than the original posts do that really mean nothing much in themselves. Hit the abuse button or move on or send FReepmail.
Don't air dirty laundry in the same venue you are worried that the bad guys are reading. THAT makes us look even worse.
The folks on this ping, after AndyJackson, were accused here of racism, without being pinged, as is FR custom. So I am pinging them now.
Thank you.
“From GeorgiaDawg32:
35-year-old Tarranisha Davis and her 15-year-old son, Tremaine.
Since race wasn’t mentioned, I’m guessing those pesky Amish have the strangest names..”
For your benefit, and the benefit of those unable to tell the difference between sarcasm and truly bigoted comments, I will now label ALL sarcastic remarks I make with “/SARCASM”
Thanks for the ping. Please see my post #73..
High quality post QA, Thanks
Lucius Cornelius Sulla actually pinged you but I’m glad someone thought to include you at long last. I was responding to the accusers and didn’t think to ping anybody.
Is that why Colin Powell voted for Obama? I just figured it was because he is a black racist. Thanks for setting me straight.
Mainstream media repeatedly reports black-on-white assault as an “economic crime” and nearly always follows up with a quote from a local LEO stating that the crime was determined not to be “racially motivated”. Yet, white-on-black assault is almost always categorized as a “hate crime” prosecutable under hate crime statutes. An impartial observer would have to be blind or naive not to see the operative jurisprudential double standard.
On an anecdotal level, as a white male I know of black men in the workplace who make no effort to disguise their preference for white women, and at the same time actively avoid any involvement with women of their own race.
Also on an anecdotal level, it seems black men are the only men who are sanctioned by our society to display what was once thought to be traditional male dominance behavior. The same behavior in a white male elicits criticism and accusations of sexism from most women. Does this “license” have something to do with why so many white females prefer black and minority males as partners?
In other words, have we succeeded in institutionalizing a form of “racist mating behavior” to the point where we are encouraging what many black male ethnocentrists consider to be “racial suicide”? The suicide reference is to the empirical conclusion that repeated mating of blacks with whites will result in the eventual eradication of blacks as an identifiable race.
How about we admit that if someone breaks the law for politically INcorrect reasons, they should be punished and that if someone breaks the law for Politically Correct reasons, they should also be punished.
In other words, while you spend so much time on FR insulting FReepers and others, why don’t you also criticize those on the left who commit the same transgressions.
How’s that sound?
Bardwell appears to be a moron, it’s amazing they rise to such positions. He would make a lousy conservative or liberatrian and I bet he’s been voting democrat all his life. Bet he keeps a picture of Lester Madox on his desk...
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