reesesWeb

This article is inadvertantly hilarious.

To summarise, Schwarzenegger's Education Secretary made a silly comment to a little girl when she asked him if he knew what her name, Isis, meant.

"Stupid dirty girl."

The "Stupid" bit might be strong language for talking to a little kid, but I know a lot of people who say seemingly insulting things to kids. I've been known to call my six-year-old niece "stinky" or "gross", all of which make her laugh and call me something similar in return. However, she usually goes for the jugular, saying something like,"You have boogers for hair and you poop baby snakes."

Sniff I'm so proud.

Anyway, a lot of people made the assumption that I'm sure you made -- that "Isis" is an african-american girl. If you read the article, the first outside reaction is from the president of the NAACP.

...Alice Huffman, president of the California chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (news - web sites), said Thursday that Riordan "is not suitable to lead education in our state" and should be removed.

Later in the same article, it's fun to watch an opportunistic wannabe politician backpedal.

Democratic state Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally, who had scheduled a protest by civil rights organizations, canceled the demonstration after an apparent mix-up over the girl's racial background.

Dymally was quoted in the San Jose Mercury News Thursday saying the child was "a little African-American girl. Would he (Riordan) have done that to a white girl?"

The girl is white, with blond hair.

Dymally did not return telephone calls. His office issued a statement Wednesday calling Riordan's remarks to the girl "outrageous and irresponsible," then issued another statement Thursday saying, "To err is human; to forgive is divine."

"Race is not a factor in this issue," Dymally said in Thursday's statement, adding that Riordan had apologized a second time. "It is time for us to move on."

In other words, let's overreact and call a protest when someone else does something from which we can profit, but it's time to be adults when I do something foolish. :-)

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