A Republican Mississippi lawmaker who was caught on record saying black people “don’t work” is now claiming his racist comments were taken out of context.
When explaining to The Clarion-Ledger why he was against increased funding for education, State Rep. Gene Alday said he comes “from a town where all the blacks are getting food stamps and what I call ‘welfare crazy checks.’ They don’t work.”
Alday also made eyebrow-raising comments about black people and guns, claiming he almost died in an emergency room because doctors were treating African-Americans first.
“I liked to died. I laid in there for hours because they (blacks) were in there being treated for gunshots.”
Instead of denying the comments, Alday blamed the publication’s reporter for taking his remarks out of context.
“The interview, he just took me out of context,” Alday said. “He asked for one thing and started asking another thing.”
He also claimed he wasn’t a racist, adding that he had no issues with the African-Americans in his community.
“I am definitely not a racist, at all,” Alday told Mississippi News Now. “Because, I mean, I get along with everybody. And I’ve spent a lot of time helping people.”
“Yes, it’s true that most of the blacks in my hometown are on welfare,” Alday told the newspaper. “But they’re good people. I don’t have anything against anybody. I’m a straight-up guy. In my little town they had little civil rights walks and I was with them. I’m with everybody.”
Ah, yep. That definitely makes a person not racist. Especially when you consider his latest comments were said “off the record.”
“It was late at night and he called me,” Alday said of his earlier interview with Clarion-Ledger investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell. “He asked me a question back to when I was in law enforcement … I have a way of talking and saying, ‘take this off the record.'”
Right. Because taking things off the record absolves one of any bad behavior.
SOURCE: Huffington Post, Clarion-Ledger | PHOTO CREDIT: Openstates.org
