CovOps
 Location : Ether-Sphere
Job/hobbies : Irrationality Exterminator
Humor : Über Serious
 |  Subject: A senator from Mississippi joked about ‘public hanging.’ Her black opponent called it ‘reprehensible.’  Sun Nov 11, 2018 11:30 pm | |
| - Quote :
- "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row"- Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith says in Tupelo, MS after Colin Hutchinson, cattle rancher, praises her.
Hyde-Smith is in a runoff on Nov 27th against Mike Espy. pic.twitter.com/0a9jOEjokr
— Lamar White, Jr. (@LamarWhiteJr) November 11, 2018 Drawing cheers from a gaggle of supporters, the line appeared to be a throwaway one.
“If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row,” Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss) is heard saying in a video posted to Twitter on Sunday morning.
The full context of her comment was not immediately clear, but she faced swift backlash. Lamar White Jr., a journalist and blogger who tweeted the video, said in his tweet that Hyde-Smith made the remark while campaigning with a cattle rancher in Tupelo, Miss.
Hyde-Smith became the first woman to represent Mississippi in Congress after she was appointed in April to replace Thad Cochran, a Republican senator who was forced to step down because of health problems. She faces Democrat Mike Espy in a Nov. 27 runoff to determine who will serve the remaining two years of Cochran’s term, as neither candidate was able to win more than 50 percent of the vote in the Nov. 6 special election, according to the Clarion Ledger.
Espy and Hyde-Smith, who received President Trump’s endorsement, were the two highest vote-getters, each receiving about 41 percent of the vote. If Espy were to win, he would be become the first black senator to represent the state since the reconstruction era.
In a statement Sunday, Espy called Hyde-Smith’s comments “reprehensible.” He added, “They have no place in our political discourse, in Mississippi, or our country. We need leaders, not dividers, and her words show that she lacks the understanding and judgment to represent the people of our state.”
In her own statement Sunday, Hyde-Smith asserted that her remark was an “exaggerated expression of regard.”
"In a comment on Nov. 2, I referred to accepting an invitation to a speaking engagement. In referencing the one who invited me, I used an exaggerated expression of regard, and any attempt to turn this into a negative connotation is ridiculous.”
Many critics of Hyde-Smith’s comment noted the history of racism and hangings in the state. Statistics from the NAACP show that nearly one-eighth of the 4,743 lynchings between 1882 and 1968 that occurred in the United States took place in Mississippi.
“Hyde-Smith’s decision to joke about “hanging,” when the history of African-Americans is marred by countless incidents of this barbarous act, is sick,” said NAACP President Derrick Johnson in a statement Sunday. “Any politician seeking to serve as a national voice of the people of Mississippi should know better.”
- Quote :
- The next US Senator from Mississippi will be chosen in a runoff election between Mike Espy and Cindy Hyde-Smith. Saying positive things about public hangings while running against a black candidate in the South is certainly an interesting tactic. https://t.co/FtpfRIsbZk
— Sean Carroll (@seanmcarroll) November 11, 2018 - Quote :
- Whatever her intention, Hyde-Smith’s joke amounts to this: “We are not the kind of people who are hanged. We are the kind of people who do the hanging.”
— Angus Johnston (@studentactivism) November 11, 2018 - Quote :
- Hold up. Hold up. Stop EVERYTHING.
A sitting United States Senator, IN MISSISSIPPI just said “If he invited me to a public hanging I’d be on the front row.”
REALLY?
She just said this in the heart of lynching country.
SHE’S RUNNING AGAINST A BLACK MAN!
Unthinkable. https://t.co/UTfKiVsF0P
— Shaun King (@shaunking) November 11, 2018 Cristen Hemmins, chair of the Lafayette County Democrats in Mississippi, said the video was “absolutely stunning.”
“With the history of lynching of Mississippi, you just don’t say something like that,” Hemmins said in an interview Sunday. “I can’t even imagine the kind of mind that would come up with a throwaway phrase like that. I’m a Mississippian. Nobody I know talks like that. It’s absolutely unacceptable.”
Hyde-Smith, of Brookhaven, Miss., is a former Mississippi Democratic state senator and agriculture commissioner. In 2010, she switched to the Republican Party, according to the Clarion Ledger. Last week, she vowed to keep pushing Trump’s agenda, asserting that “Republicans are going to keep this seat” and that she would “fight like nobody’s business the next three weeks.”
Trump has been vocal in his support for Hyde-Smith, tweeting in August that she is “strong” on issues such as job creation and his proposed southern border wall, helping him to “put America First!”
He added, “Cindy has voted for our Agenda in the Senate 100% of the time and has my complete and total Endorsement. We need Cindy to win in Mississippi!”
At an Oct. 2 rally in Southaven, Miss., Trump continued to stump for Hyde-Smith.
“She’s always had my back,” he said. “She’s always had your back. And a vote for Cindy is a vote for me.”
Republicans are expected to gain seats in the Senate. The majority they held before the election, 51 seats, will end up higher — between 52 and 54 depending on races in Florida and Arizona.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/11/11/senator-mississippi-joked-about-public-hanging-her-black-opponent-called-it-reprehensible/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.92b8e2ed9421 |
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RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space
Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
| | Subject: Re: A senator from Mississippi joked about ‘public hanging.’ Her black opponent called it ‘reprehensible.’ Mon Nov 12, 2018 3:31 pm | |
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(PS Feds: just a jk) |
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