NY Councilman wants to slap anti-reparation whites

Slap-Happy Reparations Pol Gets Media Pass

The same New York media that went ballistic three years ago over mildly bigoted remarks uttered by an Atlanta ballplayer have virtually ignored the comments of New York City Councilman Charles Barron, who announced Saturday that he wanted to slap white people who didn't support reparations.

"I want to go up to the closest white person and say, 'You can't understand this, it's a black thing,' and then slap him, just for my mental health," Barron told a crowd of demonstrators who had gathered in Washington, D.C., to support the cause.

But 48 hours after the elected official uttered the incendiary remarks, the New York media have all but embargoed the story.

Though the quote first surfaced Saturday in a Reuters wire story and was confirmed by Barron Sunday during a New York radio interview, all but one of the metropolitan area's major daily newspapers has declined to report the story.

The New York Daily News covered the story Monday on page 15, based on Barron's confirmation to WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg. During the interview the pro-reparations Brooklyn politician excused the remark, saying he was merely engaging in "black hyperbole" and "oratorial [sic] improvision [(sic]."

Outside New York, only the Chicago Tribune and Long Island Newsday picked up the Reuters story. The Washington Times also covered Barron's remark in its own independent report. An Associated Press report covering the reparations rally omitted any mention of the slap-white-people remark.

The media silence on the incident stands in marked contrast to the reaction garnered by Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker, who described what he saw aboard a New York subway train in unflattering terms to Sports Illustrated in December 1999.

"Imagine having to take the No. 7 train to the ballpark, looking like you're riding through Beirut next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS, right next to some dude who's just got out of jail for the fourth time, right next to a 20-year-old mom with four kids," Rocker said, adding, "It's depressing."

The remark prompted a deluge of negative coverage for Rocker and the Braves, with baseball commissioner Bud Selig eventually deciding to suspend him for the first 28 days of the 2000 season. He was also hit with a $20,000 fine.

So far, no New York City politician, black or white, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has dared to criticize Barron for his remark, though earlier this year Bloomberg said he so deplored racial profiling that he was opposed to an FBI plan to single out Muslim houses of worship in America for extra scrutiny in the wake of the 9-11 attacks.

 

huh?

 

Ah, I see...

...bit of a stretch...