[New Orleans] Mayor Ray Nagin, whose shoot-from-the-hip style was both praised and scorned after Hurricane Katrina, narrowly won re-election over Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu on Saturday...Um...
"It's time for us to stop the bickering. It's time for us to stop measuring things in black and white and yellow and Asian."
6 comments:
Ha ha. I saw that bit on the news report and was mightily confused, too.
That's hilarious. Slip of the tongue, I guess?
I certainly hope so.
Hi Tim
It's Tom Cho, popping in for a visit. Thanks for linking to my blog, by the way. I hope that we can meet in person one day. (If you're ever in Australia...)
Tom
P.S. BTW, I have a new blog now. It's at my new website - www.tomcho.com
I saw your name mentioned at Ron Silliman's blague and thought I would visit. I didn't quite understand why you thought Mayor Nagin's comments were so weird or funny. Is the color yellow and the continent of Asia synonymous to your mind so that you thought that he unconsciously repeating himself?
But where does Asia begin and end? Is Armenia in Asia? How about Hong Kong (which has many different colors of people including white and black in addition to yellow). There are Portuguese descendants in Macau, and in East Timor. Is Moscow in Asia? It isn't usually listed as in Eastern Europe. India is almost certainly in Asia. New Guinea is in Asia. Georgia, Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Indonesia.
I think what Nagins meant is that everyone should pull together rather than be divisive along racist lines.
Actually I think he learned a lot during the whole debacle in New Orleans and is going to be a better mayor in his next term.
Hey, include those Azerbaijanis when we think of Asians!
Nagin had just read Mike's poem and didn't want to offend. But I'm blue, and angry that his speech excluded me.
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