Sly Apologizes for calling condi Aunt Jemima

[The Straight Story]

is. Radio Host Apologizes for Rice Remark

2 hours, 44 minutes ago

By JR ROSS, Associated Press Writer

MADISON, Wis. - A radio host apologized Monday for calling secretary of state nominee Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) "Aunt Jemima," but refused to back down from his criticism that she is a "black trophy" of the Bush administration.



John "Sly" Sylvester, the program director and morning personality on WTDY-AM, wrote a letter of apology to local newspapers.

"I'm concerned that I have offended many African-Americans by using a crass term to describe an incompetent, dishonest political appointee of the Bush administration. I apologize," wrote Sylvester, who is white.

Sylvester wrote he would not, however, apologize for criticizing Rice, saying "she has allowed herself to be used as a black trophy by an administration."W

Sylvester used the term on last Wednesday's show to describe Rice and other blacks as having only a subservient role in the Bush administration. He also referred to Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) as an "Uncle Tom" — a contemptuous term for a black whose behavior toward whites is regarded as fawning or servile.


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&u=/ap/20041123/ap_on_re_us/radio_host_remark_1&printer=1

[jakefrep]

1. So I guess...

it's not Ok for white folks to use the term "Uncle Tom." I always wondered about that.

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. Actually, I've heard black people use that term against their own.

Along with another term: "Mississippi black"

[fortyfeetunder]

2. Sly, it's OK, baby

What you said was tame....Some of us black folk have even worse names for Condi....

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[walldude]

4. I liked it better when he

apologized to Aunt Jemima...

[jobycom]

5. Why go there?

Bush has a solid record of appointing "incompetent, dishonest political" drones of all races. Every appointment he has made has been to please some group somewhere-- Ashcroft, Olson, Rice, Gonzales... They've all been unqualified jokes. Why mention race at all? It merely implies that other Bush choices have had some merit.

The only appointees who have had any skill were not appointees of Bush, they were appointed to watch over Bush-- another incompetent, dishonest political appointee.

[yourout]

6. I listen this morning also.

Sly is right...she was woefully incompetent as the NSA. The info they had before 9-11 told them everything short of the make of the box cutters the hijackers were using. Either too stupid to listen or just did not want to hear.

[jobycom]

8. Rice

Is an ivory tower academic who did her studies in the wrong era and can't catch up. Remember when Bush first took over and started trying to build the nuclear defense shield, and acting like there was a cold war going on? That was all Rice. Rice trained Bush. She used to hang out with him four hours a day, every day, for over a year, at the Governor's Mansion in Austin, trying to prepare him for his campaign. He knew nothing about foreign policy, and everything he learned was poured into him by Rice.

The problem was that Rice didn't understand anything after the fall of the Soviet Empire. All her studies had been on the Cold War, and she couldn't get beyond that, so everything she taught Bush was about the Soviet Union.

She's not stupid, by a long shot. A friend of mine did some work with her a decade or so ago. She's very smart. She's just not qualified to make real life decisions about subjects she's never studied. The whole nation paid the price on 9-11 of her irrelevant education. It will do so for the next four years if she is approved.

Sly's problem was making that a race issue. She's unqualified. To add race to that sentence is an unnecessary distraction from the basic truth of it.

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. Totally agree with you.

And it pains me that all that "capital" that those of us who came up the ranks through AA have earned, is now being spent on her.

[delete_bush]

7. No comparison, I've always liked

Aunt Jemimah, she seems like she'd be fun to share a pancake breakfast with. I don't feel that way at all about 'Condi'. I'd pour the batter on her head except it would bounce off her weird hairdo.

[cliss]

9. Darn right. Ole Sly shouldn't be insulting

Aunt Jemima like that. She's an absolute sweetheart. Why would anybody go doing something so cold as to compare a beautiful lady with an idiot woman like Condiment Rice?