Kansas Republican apologizes to "colored people" for using racial slur

WHEW. Almost thought he was a racist ass hat, but he has a black friend, so

Ahh Kansas. Once again you have me cringing. --s6

... actions speak louder than words.
So while that expression he used is horrible and hateful,
maybe it was like he said: something he grew up around and said reflexively,
without ever really taking the time to consider how hurtful it is.
He still deserves censure! But coupled with some leniency, perhaps.

One-strike-and-you're-out policies with speech don't really seem so good to me.
Everyone says stupid stuff on occasion. Maybe not racist stupid stuff,
but stupid stuff of one sort or another.
And if it was one of us, instead of him,
well --

He won't be out--he's a Republican! Didn't you hear him? He HAS a colored friend. He is exactly what the Republicans are looking for, someone with pull in the black community! --s6

... that's good he won't automatically be booted out.
But that should be b/c of peer and public allowance.
Not political insideness. Politics as usual.

Ken said:

... actions speak louder than words.
So while that expression he used is horrible and hateful,
maybe it was like he said: something he grew up around and said reflexively,
without ever really taking the time to consider how hurtful it is.
He still deserves censure! But coupled with some leniency, perhaps.

One-strike-and-you're-out policies with speech don't really seem so good to me.
Everyone says stupid stuff on occasion. Maybe not racist stupid stuff,
but stupid stuff of one sort or another.
And if it was one of us, instead of him,
well --

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I just can't with this explanation anymore, honestly. It's not currently 1975. I get that people still do grow up with racist spew.

However, if even my 94-year-old grandmother, who actually did grow up in a time when words like 'coloured' were the accepted, respectful terms, can grasp that this is no longer the case and long ago changed her terminology, I'm just not buying it.

There's no way 'oopsy, 'n-rigged' just came out, I didn't mean anything by it!' Yes, yes you did.

When this stuff happens, I'm always reminded of a little anecdote from George Stephanopolous' book about the Clinton campaign. Stephanopolous said he got a call that Clinton had gotten into it with Jesse Jackson and there'd been some screaming about Jackson on Clinton's part, in private or semi-private, that'd been picked up by a reporter. Stephanopolous was racing to try to put out the fire, without knowing what happened, just thinking please don't let Clinton have used the n-word, please please. He knew Clinton wasn't a racist, but was afraid that having grown up in a certain area at a certain time, certain language may be lurking. It wasn't and he realized that it just wasn't in Clinton's vocabulary, no matter what.

If it's not in you, it's not in you, because there's no f'ing way someone in this day and age does not know the connotation. If you say it like that, it's for a reason, imo.

... maybe so, Cornflake.

Outreach!

Okay, dude? The reason "*****-rigging" is a slur isn't just because of the n-word being attached to it. It's also because of the implication behind the term--that white people do things the "right" way (I've actually heard people in my very neighborhood say "the white way") whereas African Americans do it cheaply and inefficiently. THAT is the slur. Not the word by itself.

What a dumbass.

Following it up with "Afro-Americanized" damn well proves he knew what he was saying and meant it. He's flat out lying when he says otherwise.

You would think that these guys would have learned from the Earl Butz incident - and we're something like 37-38 years later?

For him to say "Afro-Americanized" is the most telling aspect of his sham of a non-apology.

Yes, he's an old codger, and yes, he grew up saying words like that before it was "wrong" to say them.

But he did NOT grow up with the term "African American." That's relative newcomer to PC lexicology. And yet rather than embracing the correct delivery of that term, and rather than demonstrating the correct and respectful application of it, he instead adopted a very modern and snarky bastardization of it, one which plays off of that old-timey phrase "nigger-rigging" --a phrase he damned well should have expunged from his vocabulary years ago.

No, dude. Even your formal statement smacks of how stupid you are.

" 'I am not a prejudiced person,' Gile said Friday. 'I have built Habitat homes for colored people.' "

You likewise botched "people of color."

You just don't get it, dude.

Rhoda Nightingale said:

Okay, dude? The reason "*****-rigging" is a slur isn't just because of the n-word being attached to it. It's also because of the implication behind the term--that white people do things the "right" way (I've actually heard people in my very neighborhood say "the white way") whereas African Americans do it cheaply and inefficiently. THAT is the slur. Not the word by itself.

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THIS, EXACTLY, QFT, +1.

Know it's "wrong" to use "teh n word" while not even getting the actual insult of the phrase...

and then "rephrasing" the exact same insult to be what he thinks is "PC" ....

Just... God. Help us all.

“I am not a prejudiced person,” Gile said Friday. “I have built Habitat homes for colored people.”

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No question that this guy is a tool box, but as an aside this is why I don't use the more PC 'people of color' in verbal discussion.

I'm prone to mixing things up as they come out. I could imagine myself saying 'colored people' by mistake, then, you know, having to live under a rock.

Man, it's almost as if the GOP doesn't even want to win...

When you're a political party who has been wiped out in two consecutive presidential elections and you're tired of being called old, White and racist, who you gonna call?

The Super Seven G.O.P. Outreach Team!

Rep. Don "Wetback" Young
Jim "the Nigger Rigger" Gile
Dr. Ben "Gay Marriage Will Lead to Pedophilia and Bestiality" Carson
Sean "Ben's Ass and My Lips" Hannity
K. Carl "Frederick Douglass Republican" Smith
Sen. Rand "I Love the Civil Rights Act" Paul
Sarah "Shuck and Jive" Palin

Todd Kincannon and Jennifer Olsen because superheroes need sidekicks.

and Reince Preiebus as Professor X.

These half-assed efforts at "outreach" might be a sign Republicans just aren't any goddamned good at this sort of thing.

Fail.

Maybe I'm just in one of those moods, but reading this... I actually accept his apology. I think it's possible that he just fucked up and vomited a term he used to use and knows is wrong but it came out. I'm willing to give him that. Lord knows I'm susceptible to it.

But to everyone out there, stop using the "I have a black / Hispanic / Asian, etc. friend" line when something like this happens. It's like being a high schooler who swears he has a girlfriend but she just "goes to another school." Nobody thinks that person exists.

My girlfriend moved to Canada. You don't know her.

It was a stupid thing to say. And it's--the phrase--a product of a racist mindset, no doubt.

Whether or not one believes his apology was sincere is a matter of personal opinion.

But I think it fair that he catches heat--a lot of it--because that's the only way such phrases are gonna get worked out of the common vernacular.

Another one that I still hear all the time is "Jew him down," meaning "negotiate a better price." Many of the people I have heard say this are not people who have otherwise acted like anti-Semites. I'm not sure what such slips mean, tbh. Do they necessarily indicate something deeper or are they just things picked up and thoughtlessly reused?

robeiae said:

Another one that I still hear all the time is "Jew him down," meaning "negotiate a better price." Many of the people I have heard say this are not people who have otherwise acted like anti-Semites. I'm not sure what such slips mean, tbh. Do they necessarily indicate something deeper or are they just things picked up and thoughtlessly reused?

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Probably a little of both.

I mean, for example, I won't lie and say I didn't grow up tossing around homophobic slurs among my peers like it was no big deal, and even after I came to my senses and decided to excise those terms from my vocabulary, they still would come up by mistake from time to time.

Now, I could be wrong, but I never thought of myself as homophobic at the time (though, unconsciously, I probably was to some degree). But the language I was using came from a place of ignorance and carelessness that took some time to shake, more so because it was a habit, not because I was holding onto any hateful beliefs that I was struggling to let go of.

But I agree that bringing the heat to someone when they say something ignorant or careless can be effective in calling attention to how vile those terms are.

robeiae said:

Another one that I still hear all the time is "Jew him down," meaning "negotiate a better price." Many of the people I have heard say this are not people who have otherwise acted like anti-Semites. I'm not sure what such slips mean, tbh. Do they necessarily indicate something deeper or are they just things picked up and thoughtlessly reused?

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Maybe it's where I live, but if someone said that, I'd look at them just as askance as if they said, "That's mighty white of you."

You know the, 'what are you, from the 1950s?' look.

At the very least, someone should give this guy a swift kick in the testicles.

missesdash said:

WHEW. Almost thought he was a racist ass hat, but he has a black friend, so

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Why do people do this? It is okay to make gay jokes if you have a gay friend? Or black jokes if you have a black friend?

I have never understood the thought process.

Rhoda Nightingale said:

Okay, dude? The reason "*****-rigging" is a slur isn't just because of the n-word being attached to it. It's also because of the implication behind the term--that white people do things the "right" way (I've actually heard people in my very neighborhood say "the white way") whereas African Americans do it cheaply and inefficiently. THAT is the slur. Not the word by itself.

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This. I don't really believe in magic words -- I think offensive language in an otherwise non-offensive statement is measurably less bad than an offensive statement couched in "acceptable" terms. But that's not what happening here.

calieber said:

But that's not what happening here.

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Yes, at least this guy's consistent - he uses offensive words in an offensive statement.