That's racist

[bottomfeeder]

http://blog.al.com/wire/2013/03/post_44.html

State Rep. Joe Mitchell, D-Mobile, had an outlandish exchange via email with a Jefferson County man who asked him and other lawmakers not to pass any laws that would restrict gun ownership.

Eddie Maxwell sent a mass email to state legislators at 10:54 p.m. on Jan. 27, warning them that even attempting to introduce a gun control bill was, in his opinion, a violation of state law.

Mitchell responded from his public, ALHouse.gov email account at 11:59 p.m., telling Maxwell: "Your folk never used all this sheit (sic) to protect my folk from your slave-holding, murdering, adulterous, baby-raping, incestuous, snaggle-toothed, backward-a**ed, inbreed (sic), imported criminal-minded kin folk."

"That’s not the type of reply I expect to receive from a state legislator," Maxwell replied on Feb. 11. "I’m not a racist and I find your reply to be especially offensive considering the position you hold."

Copies of the email exchange were provided to AL.com by state lawmakers who were included in the correspondence. The emails are printed below, edited only to remove the specific addresses.

Mitchell, who is black, did not respond to email and telephone messages from AL.com seeking comment this week. He told the Associated Press today that he was explaining that citizens who descended from slaves and were disenfranchised by the state constitution have a different view of history and the constitution than white citizens.

Maxwell, who is white, verified that he wrote the messages sent from his email address and said he was "surprised at the racial tones" in Mitchell's responses.

He said the exchange was the first and only contact he's had with Mitchell, who has served in the state House since 1994.

"It just makes me more determined that we the people need to stay involved," Maxwell said in a telephone interview today. "It's up to us as citizens to watch our government."

Maxwell, a retired coal miner, said he'd heard from two state lawmakers who told him they regretted Mitchell's comments. One of them was state Rep. Patricia Todd, D-Birmingham, who said in a Feb. 11 email to Maxwell that "this member hears you loud and clear."

"I just received this chain of emails and wanted to let you know that I am with you on the gun issue and am saddened by the tone of my colleagues email," Todd wrote, copying all members of the legislature, including Mitchell. "All of us have suffered from the racism of the past and I thank you for your civic and thoughtful response."

Maxwell said he hoped that legislative leaders would discipline Mitchell for his comments.

"I think (Mitchell) needs to be called in to face his actions. I think he at least needs to be questioned about it," he said.

[AUTiger1]

What's wrong wit da beer we got?  It drank purtty good don't it?


Alabama politics folks, no wonder this state is fucked up.

[Snaggletiger]

What's wrong wit da beer we got?  It drank purtty good don't it?


Alabama politics folks, no wonder this state is fucked up.

What da' name uh someahdoze beeyahs?  Millah... Uh, uh, Kuwahs...

[AUTiger1]

What da' name uh someahdoze beeyahs?  Millah... Uh, uh, Kuwahs...

From Germany!!???

[Townhallsavoy]

What's wrong wit da beer we got?  It drank purtty good don't it?


Alabama politics folks, no wonder this state is fucked up.

He's just not an eloquent person.

It's the same mindset many people have, actually. 

"I don't like Obama's plan to restrict gun rights in America."
"Oh, sure.  You're actually just racist and can't stand that a black man is in the white house." 

[dallaswareagle]

I wonder if Jesse and Al are en route to stamp out this blatant case of racism.

[AWK]

So, I wonder if this guy will get re-elected.  He seems like an intelligent person.

[bottomfeeder]

[dallaswareagle]

So, I wonder if this guy will get re-elected.  He seems like an intelligent person.

Based on some of the stoopied things that have been said out here.

Stooopied folks elect who represent them the best. 

[bottomfeeder]

Based on some of the stoopied things that have been said out here.

Stooopied and uneducated folks elect who represent them the best.

fixt

[War Eagle!!!]

This shit is worse than the story proclaims.

Take a look at the actual emails. So fucking sad...

From: Representative Joseph Mitchell

Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2013 11:59 PM

To: Eddie Maxwell

cc: (all members)

Subject: Re: Gun Control and our Constitutions

Hey man. You have used the word ‘except’ when I think you mean somethin’ else.

Hey man. Your folk never used all this sheit to protect my folk from your slave-holding, murdering, adulterous, baby-raping, incestuous, snaggle-toothed, backward-a**ed, inbreed, imported criminal-minded kin folk. You can keep sending me stuff like you have however because it helps me explain to my constituents why they should protect that 2nd amendment thing AFTER we finish stocking up on spare parts, munitions and the like.

Bring it. As one of my friends in the Alabama Senate suggested – “BRING IT!!!!”

JOSEPHm, a prepper (’70-’13)

Mobile County

From: Eddie Maxwell

Sent: Monday, February 11, 2013 2:23 PM

To: Representative Joseph Mitchell

cc: (all members)

Subject: Re: Gun Control and our Constitutions

Rep. Mitchell and other members of the Legislature of Alabama,

That’s not the type of reply I expect to receive from a state legislator. The lack of response to your racist comments from your fellow members speaks volumes about the state of our legislature as a whole.

I’m not a racist and I find your reply to be especially offensive considering the position you hold.

My parents and grandparents taught me to love God and my fellow man as myself. My father was threatened by members of his church back in 1954 for inviting a black family to attend the church he pastored.

My father-in-law was threatened when he hired a young negro man to work in his shop back in 1968 in a community where several neighbors were members of the Ku Klux Klan. He didn’t allow those threats to keep him from treating people of all races equally.

In 1969, I was a draftee in the US Army and bunked with a young negro man named Earl Shinholster at Fort Benning. Earl later became a prominent leader of the NAACP back home in Georgia after serving with me in the Army. When I received numerous racist threats from negroes who knew I lived near Birmingham, Earl warned me of the knives they carried and cautioned me to be more careful around them. Earl had been watching me and he had come to know and respect me for my Christian values. Earl and I became friends and he helped me get through some tough times there.

Racism is not exclusive to my own people. I learned that before 1955. It is just as ugly now as it was then, regardless of the race of the person who is consumed by it.

I love my country and my state, and I vowed to support and defend our constitutions. I expect you and all of our representative to do the same.

Sincerely,

Eddie Maxwell

From: Patricia Todd

Sent: Monday, February 11, 2013 4:41 PM

To: Eddie Maxwell

Cc: (all members)

Subject: Re: Gun Control and our Constitutions

Mr. Maxwell:

I am Patricia Todd, a member of the house. I just received this chain of emails and wanted to let you know that I am with you on the gun issue and am saddened by the tone of my colleagues email. All of us have suffered from the racism of the past and I thank you for your civic and thoughtful response.

We all have different life experience that shapes our values. I pray that we can all respect, and, celebrate, our differences. That is what make America the greatest country on earth, scars and all.

This member hears you loud and clear. 

From: Representative Joseph Mitchell

Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2013 5:09 PM

To: Eddie Maxwell

cc: (all members)

Subject: Re: Gun Control and our Constitutions

Eddie. I grew up in Albany Ga. I was a military brat for most of my youth. Air Jump Master and DI USMC. Because I preference my issues with the values that I learned in ‘the heat of battle’ during the mid-fifties through the ‘70’s and into today might tell you what and who I am. I find no need to define it or explain it to you because you can identify with the threats of reprisals against your folk for helping somebody of African Descent. I know ol’ Ft. Benning and Columbus like the palm of my hand.

Where were you during the Albany Movement? Oh…. You shoulda been there. I am certain that your experiences through how your kin folk ‘helped’ colored folk would have helped us a lot when we were bombed in Albany, Leesburg, Newton and Sylvester.

I apologize for the restless nights your folk endured out of fear of the Klan. At least as they stood on the sidewalk watching my cousins and me get beat up by some of your neighbors they were able to push you out into the street to physically intervene. They did do that didn’t they? Oh …. Well, I rear where you were one of the first to integrate the all-colored school to prove your parents point.

Do you that your fathers ‘black’ friend was unable to get FHA benefits? Knowing about those knives and stuff were of benefit but did you know that colored military typically carried knives to protect themselves from folk who looked like your father? Historically, violence on Black folk was committed by White folk. It’s a fact but is it ‘racist?’ It is ‘racial.’ I had seven uncles and three aunts who served in three different ‘encounters. My father was Regular Army.

Eddie, a person without the power to exercise a threat cannot be a racist because he or she will be eliminated. A person who can, by merely stepping back on the sidewalk’ ore being quiet can support racism and benefit from the ‘first hired,’ affirmative action, preferential treatment fostered by systemic racism and bigotry.

It is unlikely that I, through sharing my many experiences on the receiving end, will convince you of your errors. For that matter, you will never convince me that our discomforts were comparable. Let the next generations resolve this continuing story.

Lock and load.

jmitchell

[Saniflush]

All I saw in that was "blah blah blah.  White people are wrong".

[AUChizad]

And he's not sorry, btw.

And maybe the craziest part about him? He went on that racist rant to AGREE with the guy.

http://blog.al.com/wire/2013/03/rep_joe_mitchell_i_dont_have_a.html

Rep. Joe Mitchell: 'I don't have an apology' for offensive emails

By George Talbot | gtalbot@al.com

on March 29, 2013 at 8:16 AM
   
 MOBILE, Ala. - State Rep. Joseph Mitchell, D-Mobile, has confirmed via social media and in interviews this week that he sent a series of racially charged emails in response to an inquiry from a Jefferson County man, saying his comments were misunderstood and that he saw no reason to apologize.

AL.com on Wednesday reported on the correspondence between Mitchell and Eddie Maxwell, a retired coal miner who sent a mass email to legislators in January advising them not to pass any new restrictions on gun owners.

Mitchell’s volatile response – he referred to Maxwell’s "slave-holding, murdering, adulterous, baby-raping, incestuous ... kin folk" – exploded across the Internet, prompting state Democrats to condemn his remarks and Republicans to demand an apology.

Mitchell, who is black, has declined to respond to telephone, email and social media messages from AL.com seeking comment on the emails. But he appeared to address the controversy in a message posted to his Facebook account on Wednesday, hours after the story broke.

“I was NOT elected to make people happy. I was NOT elected to say what somebody ELSE wants me to say,” Mitchell wrote. “I got elected because I protect my community. Folk in other communities were electd (sic) to do the same thing. We do not need ‘leadership’ to go noplace.”

Mitchell posted a second message that day in which he appeared to challenge his critics.

“I am a descendent of a run-away slave. If you have problems with THAT, then it's YOUR PROBLEM,” he wrote. “If you would like citations that back my position on ANY subject or statement then (Facebook) mail me. I have more information than some folk wanna handle.”

Mitchell, a state representative since 1994, confirmed in an interview with the Associated Press that he wrote the emails. He said he was trying to explain that citizens who descended from slaves and were disenfranchised by the state constitution have a different view of history than white citizens.

Mitchell elaborated on his explanation in an interview published Wednesday by Lagniappe, an alternative newspaper in Mobile.

Mitchell, according to Lagniappe reporter Gabriel Tynes, downplayed his comments as “racial, not racist” and emphasized that he was talking about people in the past.

"Anything that I have said that was taken as racist is a misconception,” Mitchell said, according to Tynes.

"If somebody got irked that’s on them. What I was saying is if my kin folk 400 years ago had guns, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I’m in favor of guns and encourage everyone I know to have them because the last time we didn’t have them we were abused.”

Mitchell told the bi-weekly newspaper that the state House hallways are lined with portraits of former legislators — white slave owners, he said, whose descendants continue to hold positions of wealth and power in Alabama.

"If I put myself in their place I can see the context, but how many times has anyone put themselves in my place?” he asked. "I don’t have an apology, I just ask (Maxwell) to come up and look at the wall I have to face every day and know that everybody on that wall had slaves and benefitted from it.”

[bottomfeeder]

Listen in on hay rake central:  http://www.legislature.state.al.us/audio/houseaudio.html

[Buzz Killington]

He must have been hanging out around John Rogers and Mary Moore too much lately.

[bottomfeeder]

He must have been hanging out around John Rogers and Mary Moore too much lately.

I run into these types all of the time. It's on the surface ready to be extracted. Once tactfully extracted, it is there for all to see.