In March, 2013 a GOP taskforce released a hard-hitting report titled The Growth And Opportunity Project. Commissioned after the 2012 elections, this self-assessment laid out many of the challenges facing the GOP in a changing and diversifying nation. Among the greatest challenges discussed was the party’s inability to connect with minority voters.
So the report laid out 220 prescriptions for change. Prominent among these was a $10 million marketing campaign aimed at women, minorities, and gays. The outreach program was called GO-Pout. After hours of background checks and interviews, the GOP has finally introduced its spokesman for minority-outreach:
Okay, this isn’t really the Minority Outreach Spokesman. I made that part up. This guy is a deputy-sheriff in Georgia who decided to go to a Halloween party dressed as a “Camden County inmate who was picking cotton.”
Someone else must have already come to the party dressed as Timothy McVeigh. It totally sucks when your costume gets scooped and you’ve gotta come up with something else quick.
The County Sheriff said this:
“We are here because of someone’s inappropriate, insensitive actions. Extremely insensitive is what it is. I do not believe [deputy’s name] is a racist”.
Yup, when I saw that picture my first thought was “Damn, that’s insensitive. But definitely not racist.”
But many good people in Georgia spoke up and called for the guy to be fired. He got suspended without pay and put on probation for a year. Which is a blessing for the GOP. Now they can grab this temporarily-employed guy and make him their Minority Outreach Spokesman.
Archie? Is that you?
He probably put that on and laughed and laughed!
I have long been convinced that racists don’t know they are racist. But some of their best friends . . .