Lawmaker Opposes Education Funding Because It Would Go To ‘Blacks’ Who Get ‘Welfare Crazy Checks’

From Think Progress:

A Mississippi state lawmaker said he opposed putting more money into elementary schools because he came from a town where “all the blacks are getting food stamps and what I call ‘welfare crazy checks.’ They don’t work.”

In an interview with the Clarion-Ledger regarding education funding, state Rep. Gene Alday (R) stated his opposition to a push to increase funding to improve elementary school reading scores. Alday implied that increasing education funding for children in black families would be pointless.

More here.

The big story with this isn't the story itself.

Well, okay, it's a story definitely worth mentioning--an elected Republican official is spewing crazy racist crap. But the BIG story is that it's YET ANOTHER elected Republican official spewing crazy racist crap. How many of these do we need to get before people acknowledge that there's a problem?

I'm getting kind of tired of being told that these people are outliers, or "isolated incidents," or that they're "not representative" of the GOP. I mean, to some undeniable extent, these people are, in fact, representative of the GOP, in that they have been elected to be representatives in various legislative bodies around the country. But I'm supposed to keep on imagining that being elected to represent doesn't really mean that they represent any point of view but their own. It's starting to get confusing stringing all these bizarre and contradictory defenses and refutations together into a coherent idea.

If the Republican voters electing these people to office aren't racist, and don't endorse the racist views of these foot-in-mouth Republicans, how on earth are they elected to office in the first place? What kind of voters vote for people with whom they disagree?

No, I'm not calling Republicans racist, but this is getting pretty sinister and weird.

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