Virginia Beach is the biggest city in Virginia, and the hometown of the state's current Republican Governor, Bob McDonnell. Now it's also home to the latest example of a racist email forward destroying a prominent conservative's political credibility and possibly career.
As the progressive Blue Virgina blog reported Monday -- and I independently confirmed from one of the recipients Tuesday -- Virginia Beach Republican Party chair Dave Bartholomew forwarded a racist email comparing African Americans to dogs. The email, subject line "my, dog," consists of a racist parable about African Americans and welfare. In the first 24 hours since the email came to light, Democrats condemned Bartholomew and he resigned his position with the Republican Party.
Reading the text of the joke (let's just say the punchline involves by comparing a dog to an African-American, it's easy to get the dog a welfare check, which is racist awesomeness on multiple levels) I have to honestly believe that Dave Bartholomew here thought A) it was really funny and B) thought it was honestly inoffensive.
And that's just it, clearly it never occurred to this guy that any of it was racist. Why would a white male in Virginia actively think about what qualifies as racism? There's no reason for him to. No filter there, no alarm bells, no warnings. Just, hey this joke is funny.
A large chunk of racism is people honestly not thinking about what racism qualifies as. granted, some of it is deliberate hatred, but most of it is never having been told that this behavior is unacceptable...because you've never been called on it before.
That's the kind of thing you blame on culture. Most of us are pretty thick-headed when it comes to doing or saying things that offend other people. When you've grown up all your life hearing and seeing things that do offend you, you become more aware of your own actions.
When you've not experienced that, you're not as aware.
I'm not justifying his actions here. They really are quite breathtakingly racist and ignorant. I'm just explaining where this ignorance comes from, and that's never being called out for being ignorant and offensive.
We still have a long way to go in this country.
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4 comments:
"hey, if it doesn't offend me, then it simply isn't offensive. period."
signed,
some anonymous white dude wearing a confederate flag t-shirt.
The only ignorant one here is clearly Zandar.
Do you even have any friends? You might want to ask the handful of people who can stand your arrogant, fact-free bullshit long enough to see what they really think about you, which is behind your back they think your blog is a great example of liberal stupidity.
You're nothing but a joke.
and there are no stupid/arrogant/etc conservative blogs? jeez, dude.
Well, I suppose it makes if it makes them feel better about their racism to call someone arrogant...
But hey, you just look like an asshole to the rest of us. Now run along and let the adults talk.
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