It appears as if Sonny Thomas, the founder of the Springboro Tea Party, tweeted this lovely message to his followers recently:
Plunderbund points out that Thomas blamed his tweet on a Bee Gee's song:
“As I am a lifetime music lover of all genres, I always have some sort of song that can fit almost any occasion or situation. Coincidently the song “Spicks and Specks” by the Bee Gees had been on my player. I made the reference to the song not stopping to think of the era that it was produced and taken out of context could be offensive to some people."
Nevermind that the lyrics to this tune refer to the "spicks and specks" of all "the girls on my mind" and is in no way a reference to Latinos. Besides the slur, how about the part where he advocates shooting immigrants? ThinkProgress reports that while the tweet has been taken down, an apology has yet to be issued.
To top it off, the Dayton Daily News is reporting that Thomas has a 6-year-old son who is part Hispanic:
Racist comments, including a slur about Hispanics, posted on the Twitter page of the Springboro Tea Party were particularly hurtful to Alana Turner.
“Illegals everywhere today! So many spics makes me feel like a speck. Grrr. Wheres my gun!?” said the March 21 posting on the site managed by the group’s founder, Sonny Thomas.
Turner said the comments upset her because she and Thomas have a 6-year-old son who is part Hispanic.
“Basically, it’s like he’s saying he hates his son,” Turner said.
1 comment:
Obviously the guys comments are totally unacceptable. But back in the civil rights era, NATIONALLY prominent black leaders like Malcolm X, Elijah Mohammed, and Stokely Carmichael said probably equally incendiary remarks. (Not to mention modern leaders like Barack Obama's mentor Rev. Wright) But the 'intelligencia' always contextualized the comments by pointing out how they are probably good indicators about the frustration many rank and file blacks felt about living in a society that appeared to them as not offering fair opportunity and ignoring and not dealing with the underlying grievance would only lead to even greater unrest in the future. Could the so-called 'racist' elements in the tea party also be indicative of frustrations about what appears to be a society that is moving more and more toward a position where a relatively higher economically-performing white population is forced through the political system to pay for the upkeep of a growing relatively underperforming minority bloc(who more or less regards them as evil hethens to boot)? Is it wise for folks who claim they are interested in creating a better society to simply browbeat the dumbasses of a movement who say very stupid things and completely ignore the underlying grievances of the movement which may sound to many like a rather accurate description of modern circumstances?
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