Yeah, so do I.
Posted on 11/08/2002 7:37:18 PM PST by AlwaysLurking
Friday, November 8, 2002 6:21AM EST
A lapse looks costly
By BARRY SAUNDERS, Staff Writer
I'll tell you one thing. If the sight of Donnie Harrison traipsing through the woods with bloodhounds wasn't enough to get Wake County's black voters to the polls, nothing will ever be enough.
Harrison, in his TV ads and in an interview with me, noted that he favors bloodhounds to search for lost Alzheimer's patients, children and criminal suspects, but his use of them nonetheless sent chills down my spine because of their historical symbolism.
Judging by voter turnout, Harrison's use of dogs that were at one time used specifically to track down black slaves resonated with hardly anyone else.
Thus, it appears that Harrison has edged out John Baker for the office of Wake County sheriff. Overall voter turnout in the county was 55 percent, but in the predominantly black precincts where Baker was strongest, the figure didn't reach 40 percent.
For instance, Baker got 98 percent of the votes cast at sites in Chavis Heights and Walnut Terrace, but turnout there was a disgraceful 25 percent and 19 percent, respectively.
We shall overcome, indeed.
Show me a bloodhound -- except for ol' Duke on "The Beverly Hillbillies" -- and I think of slavery. It's hard to read anything about that "peculiar institution" and not see references to the hellhounds.
Since reading Richard Wright's short story "Big Boy Leaves Home" when I was 12 years old, I'd rather rassle an agitated alligator than pet a sleeping hound.
Frederick Douglass, speaking to an anti-slavery audience in Scotland in 1846, stated, "There is no spot ... where the slave is secure. He is still exposed to the bloodhounds that may be let loose against him."
Yet the man who could be Wake County's new sheriff featured them prominently in his ad campaign against a qualified black incumbent. And apparently won.
Harrison said, "When you've found people like I have, black and white, you don't think of slavery. ... I like bloodhounds because they're one of the best 'trailers' you can get. That's what's bred into them."
I believe Harrison, and if he's guilty of anything, it's of being insensitive to how the ads could affect some people.
If Baker's only qualification were his color, I'd be indifferent to Harrison's victory.
Baker, though, has been an outstanding public servant and role model. The first time I met with him, he had summoned me to his office to talk about a program he wanted to implement that would allow inmates in the county jail to get their GEDs. That, he said, would lessen their likelihood of returning.
As good a sheriff as he was, though, he made one politically fatal mistake: He thought his record would speak for him.
Alas, he obviously put too much faith in Wake County's electorate.
If you haven't seen Donnie's dogs, trust me, you will: They'll be sniffing around your children's school lockers and anywhere -- or anyone -- else arousing suspicion.
To the county's black voters who lolled around and didn't vote -- for either Baker or Harrison -- I say, with all due disrespect, "You ought to be ashamed."
To Big John -- and with apologies to Willie Tee -- I just want to say, "Thank you, John."
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Harrison has raised and trained bloodhounds to work all over the country finding lost children and criminals too!
I thought my head might explode when I read this trash this morning!
He also was a vocal opponent to NC's CCW law. The state allows 90 days for the sheriff to deliver the permits. Baker would let them sit on his desk until the entire 90 days were up.
Myself include, I've haven't met anyone in Wake County who got there CCW in less than 90 days.
Yeah, so do I.
If you want on (or off) of my black conservative ping list, please let me know via FREEPmail. (And no, you don't have to be black to be on the list!)
Extra warning: this is a high-volume ping list.
That certainly seems to be the case here, considering that this nitwit seems to be horrified by the legacy of a particular breed of dog. Most of the entire article is devoted to his "feelings," you know, concerning a... hound.
No. The Blacktivists would rather flaunt their psychic trauma concerning such things as flags, dogs, colors, and the symbolic representations of such things as snowflakes. Their amazingly self-important and idiotic pronouncements continue to astound the brain.
What else do you expect? It's how they earn their living,and it has made a lot of them rich.
But Granny would wave the Stars and Bars, fire the the double barrel at Hollywood actors dressed in Yankee uniforms, and refused to believe that Lee surrendered at Appomattox (he mistook Grant for a blacksmith and was handing him his sword to sharpen was her explanation for the surrender portrait, if I remember correctly). The Beverly Hillbillies were die hard Confederates and that includes good 'ol Duke. He needs to charged with a hate crime or something too.
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