Newt Gingrich: Ugly Bigot

Gingrich is simply indulging again in blaming the victim—as if merely learning how to speak English the way that he does is the magical ticket to prosperity, without addressing why the ghetto doesn’t have access to the kind of schools his kith and kin have. In the 21st Century, a politician with such an openly ugly attitude – equating those who live in the ghetto, a caste system created largely through the policy of neglect and discrimination of Gingrich’s forefathers – will never be elected President of the United States.

BLACK STAR NEWS EDITORIAL

It’s a good thing that the Presidential Race has started so early this time around—this way, knucklehead racists such as Newt Gingrich can be eliminated early.

The Former House Speaker has equated bilingual education with “the language of living in a ghetto” and he ridiculed calls that ballots be printed in multiple languages, according to published reports.

“The government should quit mandating that various documents be printed in any one of 700 languages depending on who randomly shows up,” to cast their vote, Gingrich told the National Federation of Republican Women, in a speech Saturday. “We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto.”  His audience, reportedly more than 100, cheered him on.

Gingrich, who will reportedly seek the Republican Party 2008 nomination as their Presidential candidate, should crawl back into the Georgia cave from whence he hails—then again, maybe he should seek the nomination to further expose his, and segments of his party’s, bigotry. We don’t live in the 1950s anymore Mr. Gingrich. This is not your father’s or your grandfather’s America anymore—and it never should have been anyway.

Gingrich is simply indulging again in blaming the victim—as if merely learning how to speak English the way that he does is the magical ticket to prosperity, without addressing why the ghetto doesn’t have access to the kind of schools his kith and kin have. In the 21st Century, a politician with such an openly ugly attitude – equating those who live in the ghetto, a caste system created largely through the policy of neglect and discrimination of Gingrich’s forefathers – will never be elected President of the United States. Gingrich’s language reminds us of Jean-Marie Le Pen in France, who, every election cycle, emerges with his xenophobia and appeal to base racism—he collects a large number of votes but never is a serious candidate.

That Gingrich, a man who is not completely unintelligent, would openly expose such sentiments is a little surprising. In recent years, since the Republican defeat and his ouster, he had appeared to have sobered up a bit politically, and avoided intemperate language. He had even appeared wise, occasionally.

But some old habits –and core beliefs—like terrible viruses never really die, so long as the carrier is still around.

 

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