Follow-up: Rep. Jim Welker and "Black Moral Poverty"
| By Alan Franklin - Mar 12th, 2006 at 9:19 am EST |
Last Monday, Rep. Jim Welker (R-Loveland) forwarded out a fairly scurrilous article from last September that blamed "welfare-pampered blacks" for the tragic situation in New Orleans. We're happy to have helped it make its way to a number of fellow legislators who needed to know about it.
If this was some redneck backwater -- let's use Kansas for example -- one might expect to find redneck legislators who think "if you're black and a hurricane is about to destroy your city, you'll probably wait for the government to save you."
This ain't Kansas.
First problem is that this "wait for the government to save you" crack is from the first few sentences of the editorial he forwarded out. You have to assume he at least read the beginning, right?
Second problem is this stuff isn't happening in a vacuum. The Longmont Daily Times-Call says
And the in Fort Collins Coloradoan, we read
I think it's great that the legislators most offended by this pocket outrage are taking the high road and accepting his apologies, but I also think there's an open question whether or not they mean anything. Welker says he's "going to be real careful" with what he forwards out to his list. Doesn't what he believes matter more?
If this was some redneck backwater -- let's use Kansas for example -- one might expect to find redneck legislators who think "if you're black and a hurricane is about to destroy your city, you'll probably wait for the government to save you."
This ain't Kansas.
Welker said that before he forwarded the article via e-mail "from 'my office up in Loveland'" he hadn't read it carefully enough...
First problem is that this "wait for the government to save you" crack is from the first few sentences of the editorial he forwarded out. You have to assume he at least read the beginning, right?
Second problem is this stuff isn't happening in a vacuum. The Longmont Daily Times-Call says
In August 2005 he forwarded a news story to the list about drug trafficking involving Hispanics, titled "drug bust -- guess what nationality was involved?" Welker said he did not write the title.
And the in Fort Collins Coloradoan, we read
Phil Koster, president of the Fort Collins chapter of Not In Our Town, or NIOT, an organization that fights racism and discrimination, said this is not the first time Welker has forwarded such e-mail.
"Members of the Fort Collins clergy met with Welker a year and a half ago because he sent out an extremely anti-Muslim e-mail and then claimed ignorance," Koster said Friday. "Apparently it didn't work."
I think it's great that the legislators most offended by this pocket outrage are taking the high road and accepting his apologies, but I also think there's an open question whether or not they mean anything. Welker says he's "going to be real careful" with what he forwards out to his list. Doesn't what he believes matter more?
Comments are closed for this post.
He first came to my attention with a mailing that claimed 90 or 95% of all lawyers are Democrats. The comment is on its face pure nonsense, and it's not clear what it means anyway. When I called him on it, he retracted a bit (90% of trial lawyers are Democrats -- still nonsense), he claimed he heard it somewhere and "it seemed about right."
While standing for election for the first time for a seat he had been appointed to, his yard signs said "Re-elect Jim Welker." (He ran against a dead man, who was head and shoulders above him.)
Then his famous comment that if we allow gay marriage, men will want to marry animals, based on some cowboy's long ago request for a marriage license for his horse, and Welker thoroughly incapable of seeing the irony/Americana/social commentary aspects of the whole thing.
Finally, he has taken it upon himself to become minister of propaganda, putting everyone in his district on the mailing list for Imprimis, the conservative publication of Hillsdale College. (Interestingly enough, the articles in Imprimis are far more thoughtful than he has shown he has the ability to be.)
I would suspect that the public revalations of the Welker E-mail only hardened his racist beliefs and he will hide his true feelings from the public.