July 9, 2004

WHEN A REPUBLICAN INSULTS A CHILD, IT'S BAD. WHEN A DEMOCRAT DOES IT, SO WHAT?

OFFICIAL'S 'DIRTY GIRL' QUIP DRAWS FIRE
Okay, this is funny but first you have to understand the context and the set up.

The comment was made by California State Education Secretary and former Los Angeles Mayor, 75 year-old Richard Riordan. Riordan is a Republican. That is important because if he wasn't his comment would never have been an issue. Richard has a long and colorful political history. He:
Is the father of five children, two of whom died young. His son, William O’Brien Riordan, died in a scuba diving accident August 17, 1978. He was 21. Richard's youngest daughter, Carol, died of cardiac arrest due to complications from anorexia. She was 18. In his current position, Richard fights for support of public schools.
As Mayor, he ate a hamburger while addressing a group of hunger strikers.
He started the Riordan Foundation supporting literacy which has donated millions to children's causes.
He created the Primary Centers to give the youngest children (K-2) an open, nurturing environment to begin their schooling.
He created the Commission for Healthy Kids. The Commission seeks to increase health coverage for uninsured Los Angeles children. Soon after he announced a $1.5 million donation from the California Healthcare Foundation in February 1999, which helped provide 7,000 uninsured young Angelenos access to health care benefits. Queencare, an LA-based healthcare organization, joined this initiative in 2000 and provided over 100 low-income school children with preventive healthcare.
He is one of the founding members of LA’s BEST (Better Educated Students for Tomorrow), a nationally acclaimed after-school program for children ages 5-12 who live in neighborhoods identified as most vulnerable to gangs, drugs and violent crime.
Thanks to his initiatives and the support of his collegues, during his term as Mayor, test scores were up over 25% for students in grades 2-11 in reading, language, and mathematics. Test scores were up over 60% for third graders in all three subjects. Over 70% of the district’s students are Latino and over nearly 75% are classified as disadvantaged.

So he's spent his life working to better the lives of all children, right? But remember, he's a Republican and that makes him BAD!

So a little 6 year old girl named Isis D'Luciano, in an audience of children that he is reading to, asked Richard if he knew her name meant "Egyptian goddess."

Riordan replied, "It means stupid dirty girl."

Surprised laughter from the room. Except for the kids. The kids think his comment is hysterical. He laughs with the kids then asks, "No, what does it mean?" Isis keeps her cool and says, "It means "Egyptian goddess."

"Oh really?" asks Riordan "Hey, that's nifty!"

Isis continued talking about her name and Richard, in case he ruffled her in any way, apologizes for his joke.

From the exchange, it is clear that Richard didn't hear the girl tell him the meaning of her name the first time and that he is playing with the child.

View the video.

Except the television stations and smokinggun.com chose to cut the video without showing that the girl was unaffected by Richard's remark or Richard's apology.

More people heard about it than saw it, including 78 year-old Democratic state Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally Ph.D. Outraged (oh WHERE is the outrage?), Dymally was quoted by the San Jose Mercury News as saying that he was incensed that Riordan would say that to
"a little African-American girl. Would he (Riordan) have done that to a white girl?"
Floating in the clouds of his own hubris, Dymally's office issued a statement Wednesday calling Riordan's remarks to the girl
"outrageous and irresponsible,"
(Oh, THERE is the outrage!). Still not having seen the video, Dymally then scheduled a protest by civil rights organizations.

Then somebody told him that the little 6 year old girl was white.

The blue-eyed blonde-hair kind of white.

Dyamally's office quickly issued another statement saying "To err is human," though whether he meant himself or Riordan was not known and Dymally isn't taking phone calls.

Still, it's nice to know that should Riordan
(a Republican who has spent his life trying to better the lives of children of all races),
ever publically goes UN-PC again (and it's SO very likely), distinguished Democrats like Dymally
(who have no record of ever doing anything for anyone outside of their own group and apparently intend to keep it that way)
will shout and beat their breasts before the camera claiming outrage around that big fat foot in their mouth.

Now Dymally has a long career of serving, not the greater good (like, say, Martin Luther King Jr.), but only his constituents based soley on race. Now wouldn't you call that racist?

Well, according to the The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, the definition of racist is:
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
In the same book, the definition of bigot is
1. One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.

Now when Dymally thought it was a 6 year old African-American girl, he went nuts. It was Outrageous! It was Irresponsible! When he stopped grandstanding long enough to get his facts straight and discovered it was a 6 year old white girl (a child whose emotions obviously don't mean damn thing to Mervyn, based soley on the color of her skin) he said, "Race is not a factor in this issue. It is time for us to move on."

As for little 6 year old Isis? Her Mother, Trinity Lila, says it was no big deal for her daughter. "She knew he was wrong and she let it go. I'm not going to sue them for therapy bills."

Well, I think its funny. I always like to see ego-driven politicians make asses of themselves. And it happens all the time, so I'm a pretty happy guy!

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