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PrintFebruary 16, 2011
Dallas Politician: 'All of you are white. Go to hell!'
Most of you won't know the name John Wiley Price, but he's obviously a man well qualified to hold a position at the Eric Holder Justice Department. What has Price, a Dallas County Commissioner, done to distinguish himself?
He told a group of five citizens, "All of you are white. Go to hell!"
CBSDFW.com reports on the story, writing:
The exchange started during the public speaking portion of the meeting, which happens after the commissioners have gone through their weekly agenda.Six citizens addressed the court. All of them talked about the recent controversial departure of county Elections Administrator Bruce Sherbet. Sherbet, who was the Elections Administrator for 24 years, said he felt Price and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins forced him out.The last public speaker at Tuesday's meeting, Jeff Turner, began by stating that he would refer to "a certain member of the court" - Price - as "the Chief Mulllah [sic] of Dallas County."Court rules state that public speakers may not address individual commissioners by name.As Turner spoke, he continued to call Price "Chief Mulllah [sic]." Price interrupted Turner several times, yelling at him, "don't call me Chief Mulllah" [sic] and "call me by my name."
This caused Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins to adjourn the meeting. It was at this point that, upon leaving, Price turned to the five citizens and said "All of you are white. Go to hell!"
Price states that he thought the pejorative applied to him was "Chief Moolah," which, he said in a written statement, "has its roots in a slang that was used against Italian immigrants and was later used by the same to defame or discredit African Americans" (this writer, raised in the Bronx, has never heard of it). Price went on to explain that it was "obvious" that Turner was trying to make race an issue and wrote, "‘Nigger' is ‘Nigger,' spoken overtly or incognito." Paranoid much?
Now, I'm pretty sure Price is sincere about this; that is to say, there's little doubt that he is bigoted enough to read racial intentions into anything a white person may say. It's reminiscent of the incident some years back in which a public official used the word "niggardly" - which means "cheap" - and was also accused of bigotry.
And Price's bias has to be intense. After all, with the ever-present threat of Muslim terrorism having made terms such as "mullah" household words, the logical assumption is that Turner was using this very term and not some bit of slang whose widely understood definition is "money." Moreover, while CBS notes that Turner pronounced the word as "moolah" and leaves readers with the impression that this is an error, the station is wrong. As Dictionary.com indicates, it is an acceptable pronunciation (it's also the way I've always pronounced the word). And given that pronouncing "Muslim" as "Mooslim" (also acceptable) is very popular among Black Muslims, one might think that Price would have known this.
Regardless, that is all secondary. The real issue is this: What would be the reaction if a white politician said to a group of complaining Americans, "All of you are black. Go to Hell!"? How much media focus would there be on a citizen who might have rubbed the politician the wrong way? Would any excuse be sufficient to justify a dismissive comment containing an overt racial reference?
If a white politician had disgorged such words, it would be front-page news around the nation. And this double standard is evident in CBS' coverage. Unbelievably, the headline they chose to run with is "John Wiley Price Tells Citizens To "Go To Hell." Are they for real? Anyone at all interested in capturing readers and the spirit of the story would have had to include the "All of you are white" part of Price's utterance. It would have lit up search engines the blogosphere over and driven more traffic to the site. Instead, the Effluent Stream media has once again signaled that, as much as they want to grab headlines, they care about something else even more: being politically correct.
Update from Selwyn Duke:
Update from Selwyn Duke:
Wikipedia claims, "John Wiley Price has been charged with the following over the last 25 years; Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, Assault, Criminal Mischief, Criminal Trespassing, Terroristic Threat, Aggravated Assault-Serious Bodily Injury, and Sexual Assault (which was dismissed by the Judge)."
