Another GOP Racist Candidate

[Placebo]

http://www.wonkette.com/politics/top/racism-week-continues-at-wonkette-194935.php

New GOP meme: Blacks can't swim

RedStaters respond, "I get tired of packaged politicians; slick and well coached by professional "handlers"..."

What?

[kurth]

1. Yeah, darker colors not good for fluid dynamics

Where do they find these assholes?

[patrice]

2. They are definitely calling to the Racists in this country,

incipient/latent and otherwise.

[jobycom]

3. He may have been confused, because blacks frequently weren't

allowed to swim in pools or even swimming holes with white people. So maybe Bubba there just had never seen black people swim.

[China_cat]

4. In some ways it's racist

but in others, it has a lot to do with culture. Up to the last 20 or 25 years, it has been a taboo among island blacks off the coast of SC to learn to swim or to even go out in boats because the water would 'take them'. Wouldn't even let their kids ferry to the mainland to school because of it. And I know from experience that a lot of African-American parents didn't want their daughters to use the pool at Girl Scout camp or learn to canoe for the same reasons. It took a lot of doing to overcome that resistance.

So there's truth in what he said. What makes it racist is that he didn't point out the reasons for it.

[Stinky The Clown]

5. Gee ...... those 'race rioters' at Rye Beach(?) in the 60s musta

had it wrong. Guess there weren't any brown bodies on that beach after all.

I grew up on Long Island Sound, just a few blocks from the beach, in the 50s and early 60s. Our beaches had many brown bodies. Not all were overly tanned 'Biff and Brittany' types.

That case you cite is likely true and I'm not ignoring it. But I also happened to live for a time in Charleston. The 'island blacks' were a pretty insular group (no pun intended) and are far from representative of blacks in general. In many ways they were (are?) a separate subculture. I recall local whites calling them 'Gullah' or 'Geechies'. I'm thinking this was not seen as a racial slur, but rather and ethnic distinction, kinda like Creole. Anyway, my point is that these particular people are likely not representive of many Blacks. (I am open to correction).

But back to the initial point ..... the guy in the video is clearly a racist asshat.

[China_cat]

6. That's Gullah and it's taught in schools here

as well as the annual festivals. But the guy was talking about Alabama...coastal Alabama and a lot of the same attitudes hold sway in like communities.

I'm not saying the guy isn't racist. Just that there is enough of a truth in his words. And I find Mark Sanford's appearance today much more racist than those words. (He had on so much fake tan he might as well have been in black-face. He was about 5 shades darker than Jesse Jackson)