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| CHAPA LaVIA: What's a "half?" |
Invariably,
somebody on that side of the political equation would get snitty. There’d be a
few moments of ire. Usually something along the line of how unfair it was to
Republicans to point out the fact that all of the non-white legislators were in
the Democratic Party caucuses.
SO
WHEN I learned about the rant this week of state Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia,
D-Aurora, and the reaction it has stirred up in Springfield, I can’t say I was
shocked.
Because
it’s really the same old nonsense. Even the people who are trying to claim that
the “Lady from Kane” is somehow the ultimate bigot strike me as spewing the
same nonsense. It’s as though nothing changes with the passage of time.
If
you get the sense that I’m not terribly offended by the representative’s
comments, you’d be correct. They were garish, but no more so than 99 percent of
the rhetoric that gets spewed in the course of a day by the General Assembly.
I’m
actually more bothered by the people who want to make an issue of this.
Including the Chicago Tribune, which on Thursday editorialized against her and
said she deserves public admonishment from the Legislature’s leadership.
NONSENSE!!!
THE ONLY people who deserve admonishment are those who want to make an ongoing
issue out of this. They really weren't entitled to the "apology" that Chapa LaVia felt compelled to make on Thursday.
For
the record, the Illinois House of Representatives on Wednesday was debating a
bill related to charter schools. The representative isn’t a fan, in part
because she thinks they wind up focusing their benefits on certain people – while
ignoring the educational needs of others.
And
yes, by others, she means those people who aren’t white. So that puts the
racial tinge on this conversation, which will make people uneasy enough.
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| ANTHONY: GOP contribution to black caucus |
But
then the rhetoric got stepped up when she said to her legislative colleagues,
“Listen to me, minorities. I’m over here because we’re all over on this side of
the aisle, right?”
WHICH
GOT THE Republican side of the Illinois House all in an uproar because – back
in August – a legislative vacancy out of Kendall County was filled by naming
John Anthony as a representative. He’s biracial. So technically, the Illinois
House Republican caucus isn’t as lily-white as usual.
She
then responded to the GOP outburst by saying, “Wait! We have a half. We have a
half.”
Which
she since has told the Aurora Beacon News newspaper referred to the fact that
she was directing her talk to the Democratic “half” of the Illinois House,
rather than the Republican half.
Although
the Chicago Tribune chooses to take this to mean that Anthony isn’t a real
person – but is just a “half.”
ALTHOUGH
WHEN I first heard the comment, I thought she meant that she was mocking the
idea that the Republican black “caucus” of Anthony is somehow equal to the
notion of the 20 Illinois House and 10 Illinois Senate members who are
African-American.
Which,
to me, is what the Republican complaining always tries to imply. Also consider
that Anthony was the first black person to serve as a Republican in the
Illinois General Assembly in three decades – meaning you have to go back to the
days when the Legislature was structured in a way that every district HAD to
pick people of both parties. Which meant inner-city districts sent Republicans
to Springfield, just like the rural areas had token Democratic members.
I
also can’t help but notice that whenever Anthony does get mentioned in news
coverage, it always emphasizes the fact that he was a cop in Champaign and with
the Kendall County sheriff’s department. As though Republican leadership
doesn’t want to acknowledge his race UNLESS they think they can score political
points off it.
The
bottom line is that Republicans probably are the last people to complain about
this issue – even if they don’t like having that fact pointed out to them.
AS
FAR AS the explanations of what Chapa LaVia meant, I honestly think my
interpretation makes more sense that hers, or the Tribune’s. But I’ll give the
representative credit for being truthful in explaining herself.
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| More 'gloom' and 'doom' for the Statehouse Scene |
“Half”
meant the Democratic Party half of the Illinois House; which is the only reason
I’m not willing to absolve Chapa LaVia of any blame in this whole nonsensical
fiasco.
Directing
her rhetoric solely to her allies, while trying to shut out the opposition?
That’s the kind of stunt we often accuse the Tea Party types of doing. The fact
that she would do it too makes her no better than the people she’d criticize.
The
fact that she gave some political blowhards with racial hang-ups some ground to
think they have a moral high ground on anything is worse than anything she
actually said.
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