If you assumed the police commissioner who called President Obama the N-word lived in the South, you were in for a surprise. Robert Copeland lives in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, a state with its share of right-wingers and gun-toting freedom-lovers but one that also voted, twice, for Obama, even though Mitt Romney claimed it as one of his five or so home states. Rather unbelievably, Wolfeboro happens to be the very town where Romney’s vacation estate is located.
For anyone who hasn’t followed the story, Copeland complained loudly in a local restaurant that he’s sick of television, because every time he watches he sees “that fucking n***r,” better known as the president of the United States. When a patron wrote a letter of complaint to the town manager and to all three members of Wolfeboro’s police commission, including Copeland, she got a letter back from Copeland himself:
“While I believe the problems associated with minorities in this country are momentous, I am not phobic. My use of derogatory slang in reference to those among them undeserving of respect is no secret. It is the exercise of my 1st Amendment rights,” Copeland wrote. “I believe I did use the ‘N’ word in reference to the current occupant of the Whitehouse [sic]. For this I do not apologize – he meets and exceeds my criteria for such.”
So for the record, the 82-year-old Copeland is not “phobic” about minorities, and in fact he has “criteria” for who deserves to be called the N-word. He’s not just throwing the word around.
We seem to have an epidemic of elderly white racists trying to explain their racism, to give what they believe are considered explanations for their abhorrent beliefs. They have criteria. They’ve thought this whole thing through. They’re not expressing loathsome and ignorant and hateful prejudice; they’ve got fact and reason on their side.
Say what you will about Obama, I have my own criticism of his time in office, but the racist nut types out there are really showing their true colors. I guess I can't believe that a) this guy was dumb enough to say this out loud about the President and b) dumb enough to do it in a public place. He's not even trying to backpedal from this.
Time for this fool to be fired. He must not have any sense at all to do something like this. What do you all think?
