"...it perpetuates a problem we may not have in this community."

You couldn't write fiction with this shit...nobody would believe someone that stupid. Maybe as a sitcom, Duke's of Hazard style Boss Hogg, but not real fiction.

I feel bad for the mayor. To me he comes off as someone who's not racist, but hasn't verbalized his thoughts and opinions in his head and as such puts his foot in his mouth when confronted on the issue. Getting flustered and frantically digging himself deeper in his hole after the initial stupid comment just makes him look dumber. But if you try to understand what he's trying to say, he's trying to make the point that he thinks his community is more tolerant than what the media portrays it to be, that while this incident sets a horrible example, it's not indicative of the community as a whole.

I think that people get outraged way too easily and that the word racism is thrown around much too liberally. Personally, I try to separate what a person thinks, what the person tries to say and what actually comes out of the mouth. Poorly verbalized thoughts are a more common occurrence where I work, perhaps, but to me a ridiculously ethnically insensitive sentence doesn't make someone a racist. To me it only makes them a racist when the sentence is the correctly formed verbalization of that persons thoughts and opinions.

I agree the guy isn't racist. He just has a callous, almost criminal disregard for his latino constituents. I don't know how that's better than him being a racist. Either way, it sucks to be latino in that town.

The reporter gave him several chances to highlight what he was doing for that local community, and all he could sputter were "tacos" or some half-thought-out platitudes about keeping everyone safe. I doubt he even reaches out to his latino constituents, let alone have his finger on the pulse of tolerance in his town.

BTW, I haven't heard anyone in that town or state accuse this guy of being a racist. His remarks have been soundly condemned, but people seem to take him as a buffoon, not a snarling racist.

>> ^longde:

I agree the guy isn't racist. He just has a callous, almost criminal disregard for his latino constituents. I don't know how that's better than him being a racist.

I find it rather fascinating how shy people have gotten about using the word racist.

What does one have to say or do these days to "be a racist?"

Does one have to be a full-on white supremacist?

IMO, a "callous, almost criminal disregard for latino constituents" is what racism is usually about. You don't have to go that last mile and actively hate minorities to be a racist; treating minorities like they're not real human beings is good enough to qualify you for the label.

It only makes it worse if someone's response to being told that what they said was insensitive is to launch into a tirade about how oppressed they are by the PC police. It makes me think they're mostly pissed off that they bit back the racial slurs they wanted to use in the first place, and still got crap anyways.

Add in the fuller context (he's being interviewed about the police being investigated for using racial profiling!) and it's hard for me not to call him much worse than "racist."

I'd be horrified if I ever said something like what this guy did, and would get very contrite very quickly in response to the "don't you think that's insensitive?" question, especially in a situation like that.