“It sounds like Central Collections has become a black hole,” Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield said Monday, during a Dallas County, Texas commissioners’ meeting.
Commissioner John Wiley Price said “black hole” was a racist term, and also indicted “angel food cake” and “devil’s food cake” in his tirade.
This has understandably drawn comparisons to the “niggardly” flap in DC of a few years ago, but I think there’s a key difference. I saw that as more an illustration of declining word comprehension skills in the country (and sad as that is, its sociocultural connection is considerably less direct). Conversely, in this week’s incident, Price has apparently revealed himself as the sort of fellow who looks for any opportunity to be “offended,” and could probably find racism in a ham and cheese sandwich.
Commissioner Price: Shame on you, you small, fatuous idiot. (Is that racist?) You are the pettiest of petty malcontents, and your babbling about the inherent “racism” of clearly innocuous terms does nothing to advance race relations. If anything, it diminishes genuine progress that has resulted from real heroes fighting real, meaningful battles.
Are there any sane people left?
You might also like:
- On Alabama sororities and a black girl
I’ve been following the sorority debacle at the University of Alabama with some interest. If you’ve … - Harry Reid, Negro dialects, &c.
Two of my favorite smart people on the Harry Reid/Negro dialect/racism flap: You see, good liberals … - Funnel cake in the house
Aaron got a funnel cake kit for his birthday, and he made them this week. I guess I always thought t… - Particle accelerator to destroy Earth
So do you know about the Large Hadron Collider? It’s an enormous atom-smasher that’s about to go liv… - As we fall all over ourselves to discuss Sotomayor’s sex and ethnicity, let’s keep these two things in mind
Barack Obama recently nominated Sonia Sotomayor, who has a vagina and was born to poor Puerto Rican …
I saw that in the news the other day. As I was trying to wrap my mind around the sheer stupidity of the remark, I tried coming up with PC sensitive names for black holes. I have nothing to add to this conversation other than wondering how people that stupid continue to get elected(?) by their peers.
Tremendous amount of mass exerting too much gravity to allow light to escape holes be damned.
You’re kidding, right? No? Oh, Lordy. Now, this makes me wonder – exactly what “hole” are we talking about? You know what? Never mind; I don’t want to know.
Look. I’m all for watching one’s language and being sensitive to the origins and meanings of words, but fercryinoutloud, People!
This John Wily Price is a dumbass whatever color he is. Why don’t we just ban the word “black” entirely? Dark? Ebon? Ebony? This dimwit obviously has a “hole” in his vocabulary and education. Grade inflation at work, no doubt.
There are only two sane people left in the world, and I’m not sure about the other one (than me).
By merely pointing to these words it highlights the fact that … he wants to make sure the concern for them is still highlighted. Just to see people squirm. Even if the word black were deleted from all vocabulary and dictionaries… wouldn’t replacement be then saddled with the negative connotation again?…soon we’d end up at a shoe store deciding between the brown and the “color-that-must-not-be-named” shoes. Words are what you make of them, and prejudice works both ways if you have that kind of hate in your heart.