If Obama Wanted to Be President, He Should Have Been Born White. That’s Just Good Manners.
There’s a sheriff in Chattanooga, Tennessee, who has gotten himself in a passel of hassle over an interview he did with the local newspaper. He did a newspaper interview about crime and
It started off bad and went downhill so fast you’d think it was rocket fuel powered.
Here’s what he said —
Public interest in crime, safety and security has been more intense over the last three years in part because the nation has its first black president, Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Hammond said.
“We may dance around it but a lot of people are fearful of ‘Ah, this is gonna ruin our country,'” Hammond said this week during a meeting with Chattanooga Times Free Press editors and reporters. “Fear and uncertainty. Part of it is [the] first black president. I mean, we all see that.”
What ya mean by “we”, Kemo Sabe? Sheriff Jim, you are Lone Rangering this one.
So, Sheriff Jim, who if he was any whiter would have to be put on sale every January, has ears that don’t listen to his mouth. That seems to be a common malady among folks who generally have a foot in their mouths.
Sheriff Jim spent the next week going around saying that everybody’s ears were absolutely not in proper working condition. He never said what he’s saying. Ole Sheriff Jim when on an Explainin’ Tour.
During an interview Tuesday, Hammond said because President Barack Obama was in office as the nation’s first black president, some in the community were insecure.
Today Hammond told commissioners his comment about Obama was taken out of context, but he did say fear existed in the county.
And then, come to find out, he said that fear was only the past 3 years and compared it to “carpetbaggers coming to the south after the Civil War.” And right here, the newspaper put up an audio of Ole Jim’s flappin’ lips.
Some think Sheriff Jim was just trying to be neighborly. He said he had even expressed this opinion in black neighborhoods. Boy howdy, I betcha he did. I’m certain that black folks got the message – you elect another black man and you’re gonna get killed.
Thanks to whoever sent me this story because I was outta town yesterday and somehow messed up and deleted the email the tip came in.
Dear JJ, Your caption over your piece says it all!
1“Fear and uncertainty.”
For me it is white male republicans. The make me crazy.
2And they scare me to death.
The thought that this fool is a lawman, and probably armed, makes me want to go back to bed and pull the covers over my head.
3(Voice on bullhorn)
“Attention, Sheriff Jim! Put down the shovel, and step away from the hole. NOW, Sherriff Jim!”
4The STOOPID, it burns!
5(SARCASM ALERT)
6Gee, issa good thing Sheriff Jim ‘splained himself..God forbid we misunderstand what he was REALLY trying to say…
What amazes me is that the entire Republican Party is so willing to destroy the country because the guy in the White House ain’t white. Even though he’s doing the very best he can, with Republicans fighting every step of the way, they blame him for all the woes the Republicans created in the first place.
7Every once in awhile I think, OK, one of these days they’ll realize we got these devices that can record audio, and sometimes video too. Audio and video – – in context. But nope… not yet.
8You think perhaps this guy is related to the idiot judge in Lubbock who wanted to prepare for a UN takeover if Obama was re-elected? Grouchy, stupid ole white men….YUK.
9Maybe he never noticed it, but whenever a white rethuglican gets elected, the African Americans have that same fear and uncertainty.
But their fear and uncertainty is based on hundreds of years of actual history of whites abusing blacks. Hundreds of years. Actual History.
The the white fear and insecurity is based paranoia delusions and racist hate, not reality, and it is no match for hundreds of years of actual history.
10OK, but let’s not lose sight of what was dumb about Jimbo’s remarks, namely that he made them to a newspaper reporter. As several commenters above clearly realize, what he said wasn’t wrong at all!
11People like this guy genuinely seem to believe that President Obama plans to mug them in a dark alley and that’s why he’s takin’ all their guns away.
Sheriff Jimmy, baby, the President does not even know that you exist.
12CdeV, what he said was not incorrect, but there is no circumstance in which that is not a stupid thing to say.
13Chattanooga (Hamilton County) is just at the north Georgia line where all the GA counties are former (and maybe now) “Sundown Counties” (iow, don’t be here after the sun goes down, you know who I’m talking to, counties).
Someday all this will be (embarrassing) history, I hope.
14Let me clarify, Ralph. I’ve read the original article on Big Jim. I don’t know Sheriff Jim from Captain Kangaroo, and reading JJ’s article, I don’t think she does either. I can’t tell from his published statements whether he himself has a problem with a black President, so I’m not going to assume that he does (regardless of where he lives). Without further evidence, I choose to believe that he was simply expressing a concern about the many idiots in his purview that do have such a problem, and are behaving in hostile and irresponsible ways that should be of concern to a sheriff. Now, it may not be politically correct to say what he did, but it was most likely the objective truth nonetheless, and I don’t know of any circumstance (aside from when talking to a dimwitted reporter) in which speaking the truth is stupid.
15CdeV – When I saw that he attempted to run away from those words faster than a jackrabbit with 6 legs, it was very apparent (at least to me who has lived my entire life in the south or Texas) that he meant what he said. That was what sold me on it.
Far be it from me to fret about political correctness. I am concerned about attitude. Why did he say “three years,” why not simply, “there has been an increase …”? Why did not at least try to explain that people who thought that were wrong? How about, “Some misguided people believe that ….”?
I know the buzz words, CdeV, and those are buzz words.
16I bow to your sensitivity to these things, JJ. Being mainly (though no longer) a left coaster, my ear for this particular set of dog whistles is somewhat lacking.
17No problem at all, CdeV. I was raised in the Southern Baptist Church in Texas. To be fair, my home church broke off from the Southern Baptist church and became like a Bill Moyers Baptist church. As a little girl, I went to an evangelical revival being held at my church. Momma looked down and I was hiding under my chair, crying, “Momma, I don’t like that loud mad Jesus,” I told her. Momma took me out of there straight away and and the next week the entire congregation decided that they didn’t like the mean loud Jesus either.
18Well, Juanita Jean, my day isn’t complete without reading your witticisms. Helps me retain a bit sanity (I hope) in these tumultuous times. That said, I tend to side with “Cdev” on this issue. I too, was raised in a (Louisiana) Southern Baptist Church, and heard all the fear mongering the minister could create (If we elected Kennedy, the Pope would rule America). I have twice voted for Obama. More importantly, my WW2 veteran father, legally blind (Macular Degeneration), wanted to vote this year, just so he could cast his ballot for Obama. I assisted him with the absentee ballot. But, this Tennessee sheriff seemed, to me, to be stating the obvious as far as his constituency was concerned. I well recall taking my father to a school reunion in Louisiana prior to the 2008 elections and hearing those lily white “Christians” claiming we all needed to vote, since we couldn’t allow a black (I’m being nice here) man to be president. I also heard with my own ears a SBC deacon state, after a brief discussion concerning taxes in Texas vs Louisiana, that we haven’t seen anything yet. His words: “Just wait ’til the n****r in the White House gets through with you. This ole sheriff is just stating the obvious (probably his beliefs too), pandering to his base.
19It never gets old watching the super manly, macho stud-muffins of the radical right talk about how scared they are. Makes me want to get a t-shirt that just says “Boo” to see how high they’ll jump.
20“During an interview Tuesday, Hammond said because President Barack Obama was in office as the nation’s first black president, some in the community were insecure.”
That part…. I believe. I suspect Sheriff Hammond is the most insecure of the whole bunch.
What’s so danged frustrating about all this….. is how do you get these bigots out of office?
21“. . .in which speaking the truth is stupid.”
Have you never seen a man with a bad toupee?
You know right away it is a bad toupee. That’s the truth.
Not all truths need to be spoken.
22East Tennessee is RACIST in general, the little corner where Chattanooga is has a very particular kind of confederate Evangelibagging racism. It is kind of like being in East Texas – as in EXACTLY LIKE being in East Texas~
23The only people in Chatta who are insecure are the African Americans who were insecure before, now these REPIG Imbeciles in law enforcement have made it WORSE – you know, like Vidor, Texas.
24We all know that racism is alive and well in the USA and it’s not just in the South. That’s what makes President Obama’s victories so glorious. There are no longer a majority of racists in America. Our country is shedding the hate and ignorance we carried for so long, but it is far from over. That is why the Voting Rights Act needs to be affirmed and extended. The Republican Party is, unfortunately, the last bastion of that prejudice against minorities. Witness the unnecessary voter ID laws, jerrymandering and redistricting and attempts to change the way electoral votes are cast, just to ensure that minority votes don’t count.
25The Supreme Court is about to throw us back to the dark days by striking down this imprtant civil rights law.