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OMFG. When I read the AP version of the story of the justice of the peace Keith Bardwell in Hammond, Louisiana’s Tangipahoa Parish’s 8th Ward — the man who refused to marry an interracial couple out of “concern for the children,” I thought that was bad enough.
But the CNN, USA TODAY and AP reports oddly left out the real money quote Bardwell offered up. You may have read this:
“I’m not a racist,” Bardwell told the newspaper. “I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children.”
Well look at what The Guardian and several others published — also from the AP — that you might not have seen:
“I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way,” Bardwell said. “I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else.”
WTF? So the intimacy of letting a black *ss sit on your pot is proof positive that you’re not racist Mr. Bardwell? Wow. He must have just gotten rid of the outhouse he had reserved for the black bride and groom.
31 Comments
Un-frigging-believableI’ll bet he’s willing to let blacks clean his toilet, too. No, not racist at all. IMO, even more appalling is the fact that only 74% of the respondents to a poll accompanying the MSNBC story thought that Bardwell should be fired – http://bit.ly/4tAOLu
$$$ incomingLook on the bright side, at least the couple will be able to go on a fabulous honeymoon AND be able to buy a big-ass villa with the money they are gonna get when they sue.
Except…
Except that, under color of law (please note: that’s not a racial pun, its magic language from the Civil Rights Act of 1868), you prevent them from marrying white people.
Why would anyone see a problem with that?
Oh…
Not surprising actuallyRemember – the last two constitution-based interracial marriage bans (South Carolina and Alabama) to be done away with symbolically (they’d been, of course, made inoperative by Loving v. Virginia) via referendum were only done away wih by 60-40 margins.
And these were relatively recently. One was in 1998 and the other in 2000.
Let’s start all over againI am continually amazed by the ignorance, bigotry, and sheer hate that lives within us. Is the hope for the survival of our species or shall we destroy ourselves? Well, look at the bright side, God will be able to start all over again; maybe this time he will get it right.
Other way around
Actually if life began anew, the one thing that should change in order to prevent most pain, suffering and death that has occurred would be to never bring the concept of religion into existence.
AP mysteriously leaves out the money quoteI just read this story on MSNBC.com and it was missing the money quote. I actually found the story last night via another blog who had a link to the story on Yahoo. That story had the quote about the toilet. It’s a bit disingenuous for AP, USA Today and MSNBC to leave out what is clearly the most damning evidence. If you’re going to run the story why not include the words out the idiot’s own mouth that condemn him?
They need to be called on this. If Yahoo can carry the unvarnished, unedited article why can’t the big guys?
Majority of Louisiana is biracialSomething in the swamp water. The steamy heat.
UghI would have thought that the votes of non-Southern respondents to the MSNBC poll would have made the percentage a lot higher. (By comparison, in 2007 94% of respondents told Gallup that they would be willing to vote for a Black President – http://bit.ly/1FxjQr). Thank goodness we live in a “post-racial society,” right?
I think that this shows…once and for all that racism has not magically vanished and that racism and homophobia tend to originate with the same source.
He probably would have flown into a rage had a gay couple turned up.
I can see it now…
“No, ya’ll may not use mah bathroom…That’s only for good clean christian folk and ni***ers!”
Reality
The only reason the wingnuttia ‘accept’ Clarence Thomas’s interracial marriage is that, in general, the public never has to see Supreme Court justices’ families except, possibly, at confirmation time. Hence, they can conveniently ‘forget’ that Thomas is defiling a white woman – yet they can selectively access the fact whenever they want to defend him as a ‘Republican civil rights hero’.
Even though the public at large was aware that Obama himself came from a mixed marriage, I’d bet every bit or money imaginable that if Michelle was white, he’d still be Sen. Obama.
That’s a hypothetical.
Here’s a real-world application: I’m a white transsexual woman, in a relationship with a non-trans woman. My sister is white, married to a black man and they have two kids. My mother is from Mississippi, born at the beginning of the depression (all siblings older), and is one of the few members even of her extended family to ever move away from Mississippi.
Take a wild guess as to which one my mom’s two children are welcome among those hard-core baptist relatives of ourse in Mississippi?
Now, I’m under no illusions. I haven’t seen any of them in over 25 years, and, even then (long before I transitioned) any time I’d show up there, they all went into ‘convert the heathen’ mode, and I’m certain that that’s the only reason I’d be ‘welcome’ there now – to try to ‘cure’ me.
But, that’s the key. A transsexual? ‘Curable’ in their psychotic world. But, a white woman who’s been with a black man? Game over.
And did I mention that the one time that my sister did go visit some of those relatives along with her oldest daughter (which would have been only 10 or so years ago), said daughter left with the memory of some of her own relatives referring to her as ‘the little n****r baby’ (direct quote per my niece and my sister)?
Yeh – America is ‘post-race’ to the same extent that the Vatican is ‘post-opulence’.
LOL-exactly!
One point of disagreement:Had he married a white partner-track associate at Dorsey & Whitney or wherever they both worked…Obama wouldn’t even BE a senator.
I think he’d be the most popular law professor at the University of Chicago.
As I hit ‘post’
As I hit ‘post’ I thought the same thing. That’s what I get for finally pulling up on the cynicism throttle
God?You mean evolution.
“I have piles and piles of black friends.”Well, he has piles and piles of something, all right. I’m just not sure it’s friends.
it’s not the heat it’s the stupidityUntil the late 1980s early 1990s Louisiana still had the “one drop” law – that determined that if a person had “one drop” of African blood they were “colored” and that’s what was on their birth certificate. A woman sued over this, because when she looked in the mirror she appeared Caucasian, but “colored” was on her birth certificate.
So this justice of the peace was raised in this endemically racist culture – the way Louisiana remains today. What’s so odd about his strange decision is that very fact, that the majority of people in Louisiana are a mix of many ethnicities (or races).
There’s a saying in New Orleans – it’s not the heat it’s the stupidity.
More insideous than standard fare racism, just hating BlacksThey are tapping into the miscegenation sh*t, of mixing White and Black blood. By doing this they can even get a small amount of Blacks who don’t like bi-racial couples, to buy into this cr*p too.
Someone on Huffpo said the should throw the book at this Justice of the PeaceI answered
finding a book in Louisiana is the challenge
But the real question…… will the Obama Department of Justice follow the pattern and defend this?
You want to bet this moron hits KO’s Worst list tonite?
Defend what?What this guy did is against the law.
I have piles and piles of black friendsjust because the secretary, janitor, receptionist, fast food cashier, bus driver, and others that we see everyday and may exchange a few words of pleasantries , does not make them “friends”. The word is too broadly defined
Some other possibilities:* He was coming out strongly against Jim Crow/segregation.
* He meant that he isn’t afraid they’ll steal the toilet paper, soap or knickknacks. Or something.
* The reporter made the whole thing up, because it’s pretty unbelievable.
Just as an observation….I had posted this in my diary Thu Oct 15, 2009 at 19:35:28 PM EDT…
Maybe next week.Tonight was the repeat of KO’s excellent Special Comment on Health Care Reform!
We’re missing a WONDERFUL opportunity here…Think about it. Mr. Bardwell is certainly entitled to his first amendment right to believe any bone-headed thing he wants. For all we know, it’s a deep-founded religious belief. Does that mean he’s entitled to make law, or exempt himself from the law? Of course not, though the argument is made that same sex marriage “forces” JPs to violate their religious beliefs, and we should be this ramming down the throats (er, excuse the metaphor) of those arguing against same gender marriage on the premise that it might violate some clerk’s (or JP’s) religious beliefs. One has every right to belief… but not to any particular job.
O, cut the guy some slack!Let’s take JP Bardwell at his word; he’s totally concerned about (hand over heart, eyes lowered respectfully) the children. Just think about it. A black man marrying a white woman in the United States in the Twenty-First Century… why, the mind reels! Who knows what could happen to those poor kiddos? One of them might grow up to be President or something! One never knows, do one?
The local NEWS here in Louisiana had an interview with the bi-racial couple
That tears it!There’s no doubt about the sex of God. Only a man could fuck up this world this bad.
We’re a democracy….LET’S VOTE!!That’s right folks. I think the good folks of Louisiana should VOTE on this very important, moral issue.
I wouldn’t support it, of course, because some of my best friends ae inter-racial couples.
Lets see what happens…and do whatever the majority says is best.
LOL…LOL…LOL…
Stuart & Robert Wyman-Cahall
Las Vegas, NV 89142