Beyond Belief
I’ll be the first to stand up and say that we have taken ‘tolerance’ and ’sensitivity’ to wildly absurd heights – yet and still, how, in the year 2006, does the following make it through the ‘appropriateness’ filters we all have?
Bellevue Community College President Jean Floten apologized Wednesday at an emotional open-campus meeting called after students complained about what they said was a racially offensive math question used on a practice test.
…The question read, “Condoleezza holds a watermelon just over the edge of the roof of the 300-foot Federal Building, and tosses it up with a velocity of 20 feet per second.” The question went on to ask when the watermelon will hit the ground, based on a formula provided. The question propagates a racial stereotype and denigrates Secretary of State Rice, said [the Rev. Wayne] Perryman. While Rice’s last name wasn’t mentioned, the reference was clear, he said.
“How many Condoleezzas spell their name that way and how many Condoleezzas are associated with a federal building? It doesn’t take much to connect the dotted lines,” he said.
One is immediately reminded of the Fuzzy Zoeller comments after Tiger Woods won his first Masters title:
“That little boy is driving well and he’s putting well. He’s doing everything it takes to win. So, you know what you guys do when he gets in here? You pat him on the back and say congratulations and enjoy it and tell him not serve fried chicken next year. Got it?”
Then Zoeller smiled, snapped his fingers, and walked away. Then he turned and added, “or collard greens or whatever the hell they serve.”
The point? Just because we cry racist too much as a society doesn’t mean racism isn’t alive and well. What a shame that a woman who has accomplished as much as our Secretary of State has to deal with idiotic sentiments of the sort that conceived of that question…
How can this be a surprise, when so – called African – American leaders such as Harry (“Day – O”) Belafonte and others routinely have called Rice a “slave on the plantation,” and much, much worse.
I don’t seem to remember anyone from that particular wing calling these folks to account for their deplorable statements re: the Secretary of State – so why shouldn’t a teacher feel free to indulge his worst tendencies as a human being?
You would think that people would have learned from Jimmy the Greek’s example.
Likewise Clarence Thomas. And Colin Powell when he was unambiguously FOR the war. There was a black fellow here in Ga who ran for Senate as a Republican (seems to me he made his name and fortune in fast food, the name escapes me) and the reaction from our Liberal Superiors was the same; he’s an “Uncle Tom”… Oreo… you know the rap. Anti-Semitism also has enjoyed an Indian Summer with the Protocols of the Elders of Harvard just the latest peak. The Anti-Neo-Cons have always had this habit of invidiously raising all the canards of yesteryear’s suspicions of The Jew. The recent demonstrations denouncing the alleged racism on display in immigration legislation have championed naked and explicit racism as in the nostrums of La Raza and other organizations. It’s Back to the Future! What an ugly and disgraceful turn this is. And of course all the while they denounce anyone to the right of Walter Mondale as a Confederate/Nazi/Klansman. Pathetic.
Mega – you’re thinking of Herman Cain, who ran for Senate and got defeated in the primary by Isakson. I think.