US Elections

Lesley Russell hates eskimos

By James Morrow in Sydney

15 April 2010

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Dr Lesley Russell hates Eskimos. I have no proof of this, and in fact I am pretty sure it is not the case. After all, Dr Russell is a very intelligent woman, entitled to put lots of fancy letters after her name, who has made her career in environments where the merest hint of intolerance can be fatal. Nevertheless, I disagree with her politics. So I may as well say she hates Eskimos.

After all, it is essentially the same thing she did earlier this week when she wrote, in an otherwise light round-up of events, “If you had a really strong stomach, you could watch Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin together delivering their red meat, racist rhetoric, rah-rah rallying cries to adoring fans in Minneapolis . But you really need to be James Morrow to enjoy that!”

Now, I like red meat as much as the next guy, but racist rhetoric? Count me out – indeeed the idea that I do is personally offensive. And count Bachmann and Palin out while you’re at it: there’s no support for this sort of defamatory claim about their speechifying anywhere in the link she provides.

Nor, for the record, is there much in the way of proof that Tea Party protesters shouted racial slurs at legislators.

Indeed, if race is a problem for people on the right, it is because the left makes it one, virulently stigmatising minorities who fail to tow the party line.

Anyone who is in the market for some rabid racism or lunacy would do worse than to hang out with Obama’s pals at the SEIU – which is apparently race-obsessed and shot through with bigotries in every direction – or better yet, attend any lefty protest march.

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