The mayor of Los Alamitos is coming under fire for an e-mail he sent out that depicts the White House lawn planted with watermelons, under the title “No Easter egg hunt this year.”
Local businesswoman and city volunteer Keyanus Price, who is black, said Tuesday she received the e-mail from Mayor Dean Grose’s personal account on Sunday and wants a public apology.
“I have had plenty of my share of chicken and watermelon and all those kinds of jokes,” Price told The Associated Press. “I honestly don’t even understand where he was coming from, sending this to me. As a black person receiving something like this from the city-freakin’-mayor - come on.”
The Orange County Register first reported the e-mail on its Web site Tuesday night.
Grose confirmed to the AP that he sent the e-mail to Price and said he didn’t mean to offend her. He said he was unaware of the racial stereotype that black people like watermelons.
So, either he’s an idiot for not knowing the stereotype (I find that hard to believe) or he’s an idiot of knowing about it and still forwarding on the e-mail.
How can adults behave like this an still expect to be taken seriously?
I’m going with the latter, but with an added layer of stupidity: that he would expect anyone to believe the former.
Right up there with “wide stance” and “I didn’t inhale.”
ow, reminds of the thoughts I had last year watching a story on CNN or ABC, I forget which. They had a black reporter hanging out with a black middle class family that was struggling in the current economy. They talked about life adjustments, etc, all while enjoying a meal with fried chicken as the main course. Nothing wrong with chicken, but all I could think was, why perpetrate the stereotype. Good news though, no watermelon!
OTOH, watching local channels the other night there was a commercial for some mortgage firm with the narrator/owner talking over pics of the all black staff, saying “we are a black owned and operated business…” . Imagine if it was “we are a white owned and operated business”.
