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Jewish World Review Feb. 1, 1999 /15 Shevat 5759
Mona Charen
What did he say?
(JWR) --- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com) THIS MUST BE SOMEBODY'S IDEA OF A JOKE. David Howard, former head of
constituent services for D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, resigned last week
after uttering a racial epithet.
Or did he? Well, it sounded like a racial epithet. There is no dispute
about the word. Here is exactly what Howard said, "I will have to be
niggardly with this fund because it's not going to be a lot of money."
Two district employees were shocked upon hearing this word and immediately
raised an alarm. Howard sputtered that the word means miserly or cheap and
derives from Scandinavian roots. He then apologized for choosing the word.
Well, hold on. It sounds like poor old Howard was caught chewing gum in a
refinery -- if we stick with the mayor's metaphor -- except someone thought
the gum was a cigarette ...
Oh, dear. So let's see, under this latest language regulation, it is now a
job-forfeiting offense to use words that can even be misheard or
misunderstood as racial epithets. That covers a lot of ground. One certainly
hopes that the District of Columbia has no problems with raccoons or the
judiciary. There can no longer be a nip in the air, and neither cars nor
geese can be said to honk.
Shouldn't the employees who misunderstood the word and revealed their
ignorance of the English language be the ones offering apologies? Apparently
not. In the Alice in Wonderland world of political correctness, down is up
and up is down. In any case, when you put a weapon like this in people's
hands, they are going to use it for the sheer fun of it.
And just to add icing on the cake, there is another layer to this farce.
The gays and lesbians are getting in on the act, too. It seems that Howard
is openly gay. Accordingly, the gay groups are rallying to his cause. They
argue, heatedly, that Williams' decision to accept Howard's resignation so
readily is "a slap in the face to a constituency that supported him."
Here's a brain teaser: Analyze to within a fair degree of certainty the
chances that gay and lesbian groups would rally to the support of any
straight man unjustly fired in such circumstances.
Is it really so idealistic to imagine a world in which gay and lesbian
groups, civil rights groups, whoever, would simply stand up for what is
right instead of perceiving injustice only when group interests are at
stake?
Meanwhile, in the District of Columbia, in response to a Washington Post
report about the extremely high number of child and infant deaths that were
never "solved," the new coroner is reopening old cases and finding some that
"cry out" as homicide. Four-month-old Ebony Brown was pronounced dead on
Nov. 12, 1994. Though she had multiple healing fractures and weighed just 7
pounds, the cause of her death had been, until now, "undetermined."
Chaulette Willis was also 4 months old when she died in a crack house in
Southeast Washington in 1992. Her diaper had not been changed for days, and
the skin beneath it was "raw, ulcerated, and rotting." She weighed 10 pounds
at death and had 2 pounds of feces in her diaper. Her death, until it was
re-examined with a spur from the Post, had been labeled "sudden infant death
syndrome."
Nicole Des Ware was 17 months old at death in 1995. Her parents said she
tumbled down a flight of stairs. But Jonathan Arden, the coroner, says a
fall would not have caused the old injuries that were discovered during the
autopsy.
No charges have been filed in any of these cases, nor have any district
employees offered their resignations for failing to notice or prosecute
these murders. Dr. Arden warns that prosecutions are still highly unlikely.
Just don't call them niggardly.
No matter. He had to submit his resignation. Resigning was the right
decision, explained Mayor Williams, because "given the overall
circumstances" and a "racial climate that needs a lot of work," Howard's
word choice was akin to "getting caught smoking in a refinery that resulted
in an explosion."
Williams: Critics said he’s "too white."
Boy, did he show them!
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