The Great White Hope

Anyone who has ever spoken in public has put their foot in their mouth at one time or another. I remember attending a luncheon honoring Topeka Capital-Journal columnist Zula Bennington Greene who was being honored for her 50 years in journalism. I was told she was retiring, and in my remarks, when I mentioned her retirement, she spoke up, with shock in her voice, and said "What? I'm not retiring. Am I being fired?" It took 5 minutes of cajoling and apologizing from the T C-J's publisher, John Stauffer, and me to assure her she was not being retired.

Well, Rep. Lynn Jenkins did it last week when she spoke at a forum in Hiawatha. Asked who the rising stars in the Republican Party were who might challenge Speaker Nancy Pelosi's leadership, Jenkins rattled off a few names but admitted, "Republicans are struggling right now to find the great white hope." She denied she was referring to Barack Obama and she plead ignorance as to the origin of the phrase that came into common usage about 100 years ago after the fighter, Jack Johnson, a black man, became the World Heavyweight Champion.

From Wikipedia: "The term, "the great white hope," reflects the racism and segregation of the era in which Johnson fought. It could be argued that Johnson, the first African American to hold the World Heavyweight Championship title, was the best fighter of his generation. Yet, white reaction against Johnson's win and his very public relationships with white women was so strong that, in 1912, the United States Congress, concerned that scenes of Johnson pummeling white boxers would cause race riots, passed a law making it illegal to transport prizefight films across state lines. "The great white hope" is a reference to the boxer whom whites hoped would finally defeat Johnson."

Perhaps even more embarrassing to Rep. Jenkins was the acknowledgment from her spokeswoman, Mary Geiger, that just one month earlier, Jenkins had co-sponsored a House resolution urging a presidential pardon for Johnson's crimes. The resolution included the offensive phrase, but stunningly, Jenkins' spokeswoman said the representative had not read the resolution before she voted on it.

I can excuse the representative's statement made off-the-cuff at a public forum, but is it a sound defense for her spokeswoman, with plenty of time for reflection, to admit she votes on measures without reading them---even resolutions she co-sponsors? Not reading the bill is what gets our elected representatives into trouble and it should not be tolerated. Another one who doesn't excuse Jenkins is Keith Olbermann who named her the Second Worst Person in the World on September 1, 2009 and interviewed Rep. Maxine Waters regarding her verbal error. The clips to Olbermann's show are provided since he is on MSNBC and you may not have ever heard of Olbermann.