From the “Things Republicans couldn’t get away with saying, but wouldn’t need to because they’d never say them anyway” Department.
The only real point of bringing this story up, in fact, is to point out that cross-party discrepancy in media coverage.
Alvin Holmes, a state representative in Alabama (yes, the one who doesn’t like Clarence Thomas because, in Holmes’s words, “he’s an Uncle Tom”), went on a weird rant in March in which he made this statement:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
The majority of white people in Alabama are against interracial marriage and they are against adoption of black children.
(See LU’s previous coverage here.)
This naturally didn’t sit well with the many Alabamans who have spouses or adopted children of other races. Holmes issued this challenge as well:
During a legislative session discussion on abortion rights, Holmes speculated that members of the GOP would be supportive of abortion if their daughters were impregnated by black men. The elected official, who has served in the state house since 1974, then offered to pay $100,000 cash to anyone who could show him a “bunch of whites” who have adopted black children in Alabama.
Well, don’t tell Alabamans what they can’t possibly do to earn $100,000 in cash. Last week, racially mixed families from all over the state showed up at the statehouse to “call” Rep. Holmes on his wager.
Following the peaceful rally, its organizers, Jeromy and Beverly Owings, were guests on a local radio show. Mr. Holmes called in to the show during their segment to take issue with, well, something. Basically, he called in to rant some more. Blaze recounts the event:
During the five minutes that he was on the radio, he made some additional statements that, according to Beverly Owings, had radio host Rob Taylor shaking his head in disbelief.
Holmes…attempted to focus the discussion on interracial marriage, claiming, “First of all, my statement, that I made was that the majority of white people in Alabama was against interracial marriage.”
The state representative said his belief is based on a November 2000 vote in which Alabama voters overturned a 100-year-old law that prohibited interracial marriage, but which Holmes claimed a “majority of whites” voted against. …
Holmes then followed his claims of racism among his state’s white population with something very bizarre about his own beliefs on marriage.
“Now, I’m for interracial marriage. I’m for same-sex marriage. I’m the one that introduced the bill to have same-sex marriage. I don’t care who marry who. If a man meet a little mule and he wanna get married to the little mule, as long as he and the little mule get along all right, that’s fine with me. It doesn’t bother me any kind of way.”
(H/t: TPNN)
Now, I personally think the concern about whether the man and his little mule get along all right is a nice touch. It argues some responsibility in Holmes’s approach to marriage, right? He has a care for a marriage’s future prospects: whether it’s going to be lasting, result in a stable household, and so forth.
But come on. Is this serial rant – extended across a period of weeks, without evidence of second thoughts – any less stupid than a Republican talking about “legitimate rape”? Is it any less harmful to social amity, in perpetuating outdated, stereotypical thinking?
Mr. Holmes’s rant has no redeeming qualities. But you know as well as I do that come 2016, Democratic candidates from around the country are going to show up to be photographed with Alvin Holmes, putting on silly accents to announce that they “ain’t no-ways tired,” and otherwise frolicking about unhindered by any adverse media coverage in their quest for public office.
