Look, I understand the need to be racially aware. Really. And when presented with something that is supposedly racist, I tend not to give it the benefit of the doubt. There is no context that makes nooses and actual epithets okay. Subtle racism pisses me off on pretty much a daily basis in a place like Westchester, New York. So I don't think I'm being an insensitive ass when I say that the reaction to this goes over the line.
An Illinois delegate for presidential candidate Barack Obama resigned Tuesday after she used the word "monkeys" to describe black children playing in a tree.
...The father of one of the boys told her it was none of her business, she said, and "I calmly said the tree is not there for them to be climbing in there like monkeys."
It was a stupid thing to say. I'm sure she regrets it. She should be apologizing for offending them. But it seems pretty obvious that there was absolutely no racial intent there. I was compared to a monkey several times as a child, almost always in reference to climbing or swinging from something, and I'm pretty sure it was never said under the mistaken impression that I was of African decent. They're called monkey bars, and children of every ethnicity use them.
There should be no fine. There should be no dismissal. There should be an apology, and that should be the end of it. There is a point where you degrade the value of language by reading more into it than was obviously intended, and this is exactly that kind of situation.
This is not to say that people should not be careful what they say, but simply to say that context is important. This guy, for instance, is an ass.
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