Rep. Young ‘Meant No Disrespect’ By ‘Wetbacks’ Remark

[deminks]

Non-apology apology typical from GOPers.

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/rep-young-meant-no-disrespect-by-wetbacks-remark

Rep. Don Young (R-AK) released a statement Thursday that said he "meant no disrespect" by referring to farm workers on his father's ranch as "wetbacks."

"During a sit down interview with Ketchikan Public Radio this week, I used a term that was commonly used during my days growing up on a farm in Central California," Young said, according to the Anchorage Daily News. "I know that this term is not used in the same way nowadays and I meant no disrespect."

(end snip)

[Scuba]

1. So, no apology necessary, I guess.

[pipoman]

2. He meant it just as he said it...

it is a slur, it was a slur when he was growing up and it is still a slur..

[ag_dude]

3. There are places it wasn't a slur

Around here in the 80s even hispanics used the word.

Wetback was the standard of hard work at that time.

The first time I ever heard that it might be offensive was in a class made up of about 60/40 hispanics/whites in the late 80s when one girl said it was offensive. The rest of the class said she was full of it.

I'm not sure when its widespread use stopped, sometime in the 90s I think, but to claim it's always been the word it is now is disingenuous.

[CBGLuthier]

4. It has ALWAYS been a slur

You may think it was not a slur but it sure as fuck was a slur in the 80's where I live.

[ag_dude]

5. Where you live.

You say that like it's an absolute.

The person I remember saying it the most was a hispanic guy whose father was a first generation American who used it just as much.

I thought the fact that the subject of my post made it clear that I was speaking in a regional context.

[datasuspect]

16. what region is that?

some magic happy land where latinos embrace the term wetback?

where is this region?

[joeybee12]

19. A region where there are lots of bigots?

In the 80's this was a slur...try again.

[bowens43]

8. if you don't see the difference between an hispanic person using the word

and some old redneck fuck who hires them and uses them as farm machinery using it then you just don't get.

"Wetback was the standard of hard work at that time" ???????

bullshit


"I'm not sure when its widespread use stopped" when we grew up......

it stopped because it is DEROGATORY. It stopped for the same reason that ni**er is not acceptable.

Unbelievable.....

[ag_dude]

10. Yeah, because the hispanics didn't hire them, right? It was only old redneck fucks.

And you think you have grounds to talk down to others.

You guys don't have to believe it, I realize this isn't a place where people would accept that times change and a word could have a different meaning today than it did 30 years ago.

[rurallib]

11. It is a slur, has always been a slur

no matter who uses it.

[CTyankee]

13. sure has. I am a third generation anglo Texan and it was slur in the 50s

when I was growing up and it's a slur now...

[pipoman]

9. Yeah, and people would have argued

that pollock, n...r, spick, and every other slur wasn't a slur too. People use slurs to dehumanize people who are different than themselves. It is easier to belittle a wetback than a human or a person. No, it has always been a slur just like all of the others..of coarse you are welcome to pretend it isn't/wasn't if it makes you feel better about yourself..

[datasuspect]

15. bullshit

it's always been a slur.

go peddle that nonsense somewhere else.

[bowens43]

6. ROFLMAO!!! ' I meant no disrespect'

conservatives are scum, everyone of them

[hatrack]

7. Don Young, dumber than a fencepost . . . .

Some years back, when Robert Mapplethorpe was still alive (and hotly controversial), here's what Rep. Young declared for the ages when someone asked him to chime in on said controversy:

"Butt-fucking? You call that art?"

Please note that Don Young posed this rhetorical question was in front of an auditorium of high school students.

[Shankapotomus]

12. The point is

he said it today, in this age. When anyone paying attention knows it's a slur.

So all we have is another GOPer living in the past and out of touch with today's world.

That is not someone we want to vote into any office.

[TeamPooka]

14. "a term that was commonly used" by racists and bigots.

[David Zephyr]

17. He should be highly pressured to resign his office immediately.

When we let this shit slide by, they get away with it.

Clearly a raging racist who has slurred a large segment of good Americans including our troops and children and those Latinos who have contributed so much to our nation.

He needs to be pressured to resign. Immediately.

[senseandsensibility]

18. I'm from California, and have lived in the Central Valley and near there all my life

EVERYONE, including my parents' generation, born in the twenties and thirties, knew that that term was offensive. They knew that even in the sixties.

[lpbk2713]

20. Macaca ver 2013

Stand by for the rethuglican idea of an apology " If anyone was offended ... " .


That's the best they can ever do.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

21. Except that he wasn't talking about his past state of mind

He wasn't describing himself sitting in a field at the age of nine, reminiscing about how he said to himself "look at my daddy's wetbacks go." He was contrasting past picking methods to the more mechanized ones of today and expressing his present state of mind.

[Blue_In_AK]

22. Later in the day at a "Choose Respect" rally in Juneau calling attention to domestic violence,

Don Young had this to say:

"Watch the alcohol and the drugs," Young said from a podium on the Capitol steps. "You look at the relationship between violence against the loved ones you love, (it) is usually related to either one of those. And I'm going to suggest for those that may be drinking together -- Stop it! If you want to drink by yourself, you may do it. But when you drink together, the possibility of harm becomes greater every day."




Cue George Thorogood. "You know, when I drink alone, I prefer to be by myself."






Sad to say that some people in Alaska will keep on voting for Don Young because they'd rather die than vote for a Democrat.