"I'm Not A Racist"

[Spawn's dad]

"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way,"Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and pilesof black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use mybathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

 

And I'm not posting in this thread, I'm just typing and hitting 'Post'.

 

Why does he keep his black friends in piles? Are they neat piles, or more like pickup sticks? Are the piles better tended to than his heaps of Mexican landscapers?

 

And nothing personal, but I wouldn't let any of you use my bathroom.

[myboyblue]

Why does he keep his black friends in piles? Are they neat piles, or more like pickup sticks? Are the piles better tended to than his heaps of Mexican landscapers?

 

And nothing personal, but I wouldn't let any of you use my bathroom.

I would so use your bathroom.

[jenbobblehead]

I have used his bathroom.

[Edie]

Why does he keep his black friends in piles? Are they neat piles, or more like pickup sticks? Are the piles better tended to than his heaps of Mexican landscapers?

 

And nothing personal, but I wouldn't let any of you use my bathroom.

 

That sounds pretty personal.

 

Maybe he keeps them in piles are so they can be spindled more easily.

[Calexico]

That sounds pretty personal.

 

Maybe he keeps them in piles are so they can be spindled more easily.

 

 

Maybe he keeps his "coloured" friends in little pill dispenser boxes with the day of the week clearly marked on it. Asians for Monday, Africans for Tuesdays, Mexicans for Wednesdays and so on...

[W(TF)]

My first marriage was interracial, and it isn't something I would highly recommend to a friend-- but that has to do with family cultural and religious differences, not skin color. Lasted 10 years and we have a child who's 14 now. It wasn't the reason the marriage didn't work out, but it didn't help matters any.

 

In the US, I think more interracial marriages in general would be a good thing. This jop sounds like a twit, his reasoning makes no sense to me.

[radiatortunes]

Fucking Louisiana.

 

Try supposedly progressive Oregon where we once vacationed. Ours is an interracial marriage - going on 20 years in Jan - so unfortunately, this is old hat. I guess you never really know what people are thinking. This ass just made the mistake of opening his mouth. Just the other day an acquaintance at the gym, someone I had gotten to know over the past 2 years or so, started complaining about a "jumper" on the Lions Gate Bridge, about how much this person inconvenienced her, how the police and their team should have just let the person jump. Unbelievable.

[jenbobblehead]

Only portland, OR and the metro area is liberal. The rest of it is very conservative, and a little reactionary. Not that that excuses bad behavior, but I think Oregon is just not as hippy dippy as everyone thinks it is.

[mountain bed]

Only portland, OR and the metro area is liberal. The rest of it is very conservative, and a little reactionary. Not that that excuses bad behavior, but I think Oregon is just not as hippy dippy as everyone thinks it is.

That's true, according to an old friend of mine who moved here from OR. Still a lot of cowboy mentality out there.

[bjorn_skurj]

Louisiana justice who refused interracial marriage resigns

RELATED TOPICS

• Marriage
• Law
• Civil Rights

(CNN)-- A Louisiana justice of the peace who drew criticism for refusing to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple has resigned, thesecretary of state's office said Tuesday.

 

Keith Bardwell, a justice of the peace for Tangipahoa Parish's 8th Ward, was widely criticized after he refused to grant a marriage license to Beth McKay and Terence McKay, an interracial couple who ultimately got a marriage license from another justice of the peace in the same parish.

 

The McKays hired an attorney and protested the justice's actions.

 

Despite a national uproar and a call by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal for him to lose his license, Bardwell, 56, said in October that he had no regrets. "It's kind of hard to apologize for something that you really and truly feel down in your heart you haven't done wrong," he told CNN affiliate WAFB.

 

He insisted he is not racist and does not treat black people differently. He said he does not perform mixed-race marriages because he is concerned about the children of such marriages.

 

At that time, Bardwell did not return calls from CNN.

 

Beth McKay, 30, said she was speaking with Bardwell's wife by phone about getting a marriage license and was shocked to be asked whether they were an interracial couple.

 

"She said, 'Well, what's the deal? Is he black, or are you black?' And so I answered her question, and then she just said, 'Well, we don't do interracial marriages.'"

 

Terence McKay, 32, said, "Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but he's absolutely wrong on all aspects of his stance." McKay added, "If it wasn't for interracial couples today, we wouldn't have our president. So for him to take that outlook, that's still like 1800s or something."

 

"A lot of people have come up to us and said, 'You know, we're in interracial relationships as well,' not just black and white, and just encouraged us to stand up for our rights and to speak out against things like this," Beth McKay said.

 

The incident "caught us completely off guard," said Terence McKay, "and we're just trying to live our lives."

 

The National Urban League called for an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, saying in a statement that Bardwell's actions were "a huge step backward in social justice."

 

The U.S. Supreme Court tossed out race-based limitations on marriage in the landmark 1967 Loving v. Virginia case. In the unanimous decision, the court said that "Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."

[PopTodd]

For some reason this thread reminded me of this Drive By Truckers song:

 

Three Alabama Icons

I grew up in North Alabama, back in the 1970's, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth…

Speaking of course of the Three Great Alabama Icons… George Wallace, Bear Bryant and Ronnie Van Zant… Now Ronnie Van Zant wasn't from Alabama, he was from Florida… He was a huge Neil Young fan… But in the tradition of Merle Haggard writin' Okie from Muskogee to tell his dad's point of view about the hippies 'n Vietnam, Ronnie felt that the other side of the story should be told. And Neil Young always claimed that Sweet Home Alabama was one of his favorite songs. And legend has it that he was an honorary pall bearer at Ronnie's funeral… such is the Duality of the Southern Thing… And Bear Bryant wore a cool lookin' red checkered hat and won football games… and there's few things more loved in Alabama than football and the men who know how to win at it… So when the Bear would come to town, there'd be a parade. And me, I was one a' them pussy boys… cause I hated football, so I got a guitar… but a guitar was a poor substitute for a football with the girls in my high school… So my band hit the road… and we didn't play no Skynyrd either… I came of age rebellin' against the music in my high school parkin' lot… It wasn't till years later after leavin' the South for a while that I came to appreciate and understand the whole Skynyrd thing and its misunderstood glory… I left the South and learned how different people's perceptions of the Southern Thing was from what I'd seen in my life… Which leads us to George Wallace… Now Wallace was for all practical purposes the Governor of Alabama from 1962 until 1986… Once, when a law prevented him from succeeding himself he ran his wife Lerline in his place and she won by a landslide… He's most famous as the belligerent racist voice of the segregationist South… Standing in the doorways of schools and waging a political war against a Federal Government that he decried as hypocritical… And Wallace had started out as a lawyer and a judge with a very progressive and humanitarian track record for a man of his time. But he lost his first bid for governor in 1958 by hedging on the race issue, against a man who spoke out against integration… Wallace ran again in '62 as a staunch segregationist and won big, and for the next decade spoke out loudly… He accused Kennedy and King of being communists. He was constantly on national news, representing the “good‿ people of Alabama… And you know race was only an issue on TV in the house that I grew up in… Wallace was viewed as a man from another time and place… And when I first ventured out of the South, I was shocked at how strongly Wallace was associated with Alabama and its people… Ya know racism is a worldwide problem and it's been since the beginning of recorded history… and it ain't just white and black… But thanks to George Wallace, it's always a little more convenient to play it with a Southern accent. And bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd attempted to show another side of the South… One that certainly exists, but few saw beyond the rebel flag… And this applies not only to their critics and detractors, but also from their fans and followers. So for a while, when Neil Young would come to town, he'd get death-threats down in Alabama… Ironically, in 1971, after a particularly racially charged campaign, Wallace began backpedaling, and he opened up Alabama politics to minorities at a rate faster than most Northern states or the Federal Government. And Wallace spent the rest of his life trying to explain away his racist past, and in 1982 won his last term in office with over 90% of the black vote… Such is the Duality of the Southern Thing… And George Wallace died back in '98 and he's in Hell now, not because he's a racist… His track record as a judge and his late-life quest for redemption make a good argument for his being, at worst, no worse than most white men of his generation, North or South… But because of his blind ambition and his hunger for votes, he turned a blind eye to the suffering of Black America. And he became a pawn in the fight against the Civil Rights cause… For

tunately for him, the Devil is also a Southerner…

[ih8music]

Ya know racism is a worldwide problem and it's been since the beginning of recorded history… and it ain't just white and black… But thanks to George Wallace, it's always a little more convenient to play it with a Southern accent.

love that line, so true.