Mr. Uppity

Georgia’s Rep. Lynn Westmoreland used the word “uppity” to describe Michelle and Barack Obama last Thursday. Yes, he said uppity.

Anyone who was around during the civil rights movement (I was, and although I was just a child I understand “uppity”) knows what that word means to a white southerner like Westmoreland - it is used to describe black people who don’t know how to stay in their place, who have the nerve to want more than a servile place in life. “Uppity” is used by a white southerner to describe a black person who dares to challenge the status quo and has the audacity to consider themselves at an equal level to white people.

I wish I’d have been there to witness it! After he spit that word, the stunned reporters asked for clarification: “did you say uppity?” “Uppity, yeah,” he said. You know, I would probably make a lousy reporter. Hand on hip and head snapping I would probably have had my finger in his ridiculous face as I called him out. People would be dropping their microphones trying to hold me back.

As the pressure mounted and people started blowing up the switchboard in his office, he claimed innocence. He expects us to believe that he, a 58 year old man from the south, didn’t know that the term “uppity,” when applied to a black person, has racial implications. Please. On ABC’s “This Week,” political consultant David Gergen said that “as a native of the south, I can tell you, when you see this Charlton Heston ad, “The One,” that’s code for “he’s uppity, he ought to stay in his place.” Everyone gets that who is from a Southern background.””

This is one of the major problems I have with republicans, they simply don’t know how to “man-up” and admit they were wrong and inappropriate when they say incredibly stupid things. They either say “it was a joke,” or plead ignorance, and there’s a reason for it. Even if the later apologize, they’ve already made an impression on the stupidest of their constituency, and they know that what they said will stick even if they apologize later. So Rep. Westmoreland was speaking to the most ignorant of his backwoods constituents who, he knows damn well, well say ‘yeah!“That thur’s one uppity n!gger, and the dadgum congressman said so!”

Shame on him!