Oh, dear.

[fabrisse]

Representative Paul Kanjorski said (via The Washington Post's political coverage):

"We're giving relief to people that I deal with in my office every day now unfortunately," Kanjorski said. "But because of the longevity of this recession, these are people -- and they're not minorities and they're not defective and they're not all the things you'd like to insinuate that these programs are about -- these are average, good American people." [emphasis mine]

You'll be happy to know his office is affronted to think anyone could construe these remarks as racist.

From their release:
Anyone trying to politicize this issue clearly doesn't get it. Congressman Kanjorski is fighting for all Americans who are struggling. Any statement saying otherwise is grossly misinformed.

In fairness, Representative Kanjorski is trying to protect a program for homeowner mortgage help that is currently available in Pennsylvania through state funding and creating something similar nationally. He's defending it as not helping the "imprudent, the wasteful."

While I can admire him for thinking of this type of program and trying to help the unemployed, it doesn't change the fact that his remarks are, in fact, racist.

Comments

[eanja]

Wow. I think the phrase after your highlighting is actually the worst- you know, in case anyone missed that he agrees that minorities and defectives (whatever the hell that means) aren't good American people.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

You have a point. I was thinking equating minorities and defective was bad, but the idea that minorities aren't "good American people" might be worse.

[eanja]

Ah, I just assumed defective was some catchall terms for drug addicts or gay people or the mentally ill or whoever else doesn't quite qualify as decent normal folk.

[moria923.livejournal.com]

I thought it meant people with disabilities, and that his comment was definitely ableist. But you're probably right: we often aren't on anyone's radar screen enough for them to think of making pejorative comments about us.

[eanja]

Oh, it probably does include people with disabilities, but not overtly, because decent normal people are supposed to feel sorry for the disabled, whereas gay people or drug addicts or whatever chose to be defective and are therefore unforgivable.

There are so many potential underlying assumptions about what constitutes normal or decent in that statement that it's almost impossible to guess what they all are. Who knows what religion, or politics or weight limit or education level someone needs to qualify as normal and decent.

I was torn on that one

[alyburns.livejournal.com]

It's been obvious to me that the Republicans who are asking for things like drug tests before people get their unemployment (because don't we all know that's where the money will go? *rolls eyes); that they're deadbeats who 'don't have to work because unemployment entitles them to stay home and live off the hardworking white workers' or one of the worst: "Unemployment benefits allow 'them' to breed! Allow people we don't want breeding - to breed."

*thud*

So when I heard about his remarks, I wondered at first if he was trying (badly) to say that the Republicans are refusing to extend the benefits because they're racists, because they believe they're talking to Americans who feel the same way: that it's only NON-white people taking this money. I wondered how do you say something like what he was attempting to say without sounding racist?

How do you say that the number of people taking advantage of this system have been doing so for far longer than our current troubles and are a very small percentage of those on unemployment and that they come in all sizes, genders, ethnic and religious backgrounds? And how do you say that we're talking about Americans of all sizes, ages, genders and ethnic backgrounds who, as of this Friday, will be in desperate need of this money because of our current economy and could literally be on the streets?

So was he clumsy in what he was trying to do, or unthinking and unable to realize that he might be just as racist as those he was decrying by making a point of saying that the people in his office, "...aren't minorities...." (could there BE a more racist statement?)

So yeah, I'm thinking a racist, but one who doesn't even realize it.

God, we're so screwed.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Well, you served in the military, so you're probably okay even though you're Catholic. *sigh*

I think the hardest part of some of this is that I know what he means. I grew up with that from some of my relatives. Aaargh!

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Weirdly enough, I don't equate defective with physically handicapped -- and sorry for the ableist language there.

Defective seems to be used for the people who have mental issues ranging from severe depression to schizophrenia. The underlying theme seems to be, "if they'd just pull themselves together they could be useful members of society."

[eanja]

Plus I look enough like a media approved suburban lady that people assume I'm a lot more straight-laced and acceptable than I hopefully really am. (Pretty sure the poly would knock me right out of the decent category if it were obvious).

Re: I was torn on that one

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

I agree that this is a deep underlying racism from someone who was trying to make a compassionate statement.

And two or three years ago, I might have given him a pass because he is trying to look out for people, like me, who have no savings or have depleted their savings or retirement funds just trying to find work. I get that what he's trying to have passed is a good thing.

But after RaceFail and a few other things like that, I realize that the unconscious racism is the one that people need to be called on because it's like fighting fog.

One of the elder's finished his mission last week and we ended up talking about race and poverty before he left because he couldn't understand why black people got things he didn't and it wasn't fair and it's not like it was forty years ago and...

J is a twenty-two year old. His fellow elder is Sudanese, and J thinks of his companion like a brother.

So, we're screwed IF we don't call people on these underlying assumptions, because otherwise the rising generations are not going to do any better.

Re: I was torn on that one

[alyburns.livejournal.com]

I agree wholeheartedly and have discussed this so many times. It's actually MORE important to call out those who don't realize they're racist, who don't understand how ingrained it is in them, than to call out those who acknowledge that they're racists (like skinheads).

The people who don't realize they're own prejudices are far more dangerous.

[riverfox.livejournal.com]

*headdesk*

If his statement wasn't racist or bigoted, he wouldn't have mentioned, and thus excluded from worthiness, specific groups of people.