You can find out a lot about people when they get angry and yell things out in the heat of the battle or argument. During a town meeting on Tuesday, Mayor James Levigne angrily told a person that he would not answer his question and said: "I hope the Ku Kluxers get you, too." Wow, just wow. I wonder what books he reads/ Here's what happened.
At the end of Tuesday's meeting of the Pearl River Board of Aldermen, Lavigne refused to allow Marshall to comment about an issue discussed during the meeting. When Marshall continued to try to ask a question about how long members of the fire board would serve, Lavigne told him he would not take questions and added, "I hope the Ku Kluxers get you, too."
It was not clear exactly what the mayor meant by the comment or why he referenced the Klan, and his Thursday statement shed no light on those issues. Numerous attempts to get Lavigne to speak about his comments, including phone calls to his home and office and visits to Pearl River's Town Hall, were unsuccessful.
For years, Marshall has had a tempestuous relationship with Lavigne and with the board of the fire district. Marshall has frequently criticized the fire board in person and on NOLA.com forums, accusing its officials of mismanagement and violations of state ethics codes.
In his statement, Lavigne referred to "disgruntled and paranoid persons expressing ... untruths on the computer."
During Tuesday night's meeting, Lavigne attempted to shut off debate several times. First, he tried to force aldermen to vote on a measure that would have had the town join him in an effort to remove Clay Harper, one of his opponents in the October election, from the ballot. Lavigne said Harper was not a resident of the town, though Harper produced documents at the meeting showing he was eligible for the position. Lavigne said he planned to have Town Attorney Ron Guth continue the effort on his behalf...read on
But racism is dead in the USA, isn't it? I remember Tony Snow (he's passed on now) telling us that much in 2003 when he defended his buddy Rush Limbaugh from racism charges.
Here's the unmentionable secret: Racism isn't that big a deal any more. No sensible person supports it. Nobody of importance preaches it. It's rapidly becoming an ugly memory. If you want proof, open a Philadelphia paper tomorrow. If Donovan McNabb has a bad game, he'll get ripped ruthlessly, just like any other signal-caller. Which means that Rush's observation, if anything, was dated -- and that the sports world has become sufficiently colorblind to judge players by their performance and not their skin color.
Tony is no longer with us, but if he was I wonder how he would defend Rush Limbaugh's ramped up racist behavior since Obama's been in office? Would he see a correlation with Rushbo's attack on McNabb that got him fired? And now we have a mayor throwing out a "KKK" bomb. Jesus.
