Justice Official Apologizes for Remarks on Minorities
The head of the Justice Department's voting section apologized today for saying that racial minorities are more likely to die before becoming elderly and therefore are not hurt as much as whites by voter identification laws.
Quotes:
"Our society is such that minorities don't become elderly the way white people do," Tanner said. "They die first . . . And so anything that disproportionately impacts the elderly has the opposite impact on minorities -- just the math is such as that."
A few days earlier, Tanner also suggested to the Georgia NAACP that poor people are likely to have photo IDs because check-cashing businesses require them.
Tanner, who is white, also asked the group: "You think you get asked for ID more than I do? I've never heard anyone talk about driving while white."
― libcrypt, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 20:15 (eighteen years ago)
The check-cashing quote is just totally choice.
― libcrypt, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 20:16 (eighteen years ago)
tpm media has a bunch of posts on this, the guy was raked over the fucking coals in testimony today
― gff, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 20:16 (eighteen years ago)
The problem isn't the comment itself (the first one), it's the idea that that's totally okay, and so people should just not give a shit about what happens to minorities when they're old. Bush pulled this bullshit when he was trying to sell private SS accounts: "Dear black men, you're totally gonna die young anyway, so wouldn't you rather cash out on this one while you can?"
― nabisco, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 20:22 (eighteen years ago)
He's like a walking lesson in wrong + wrong != right.
― libcrypt, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 20:25 (eighteen years ago)
I'm actually pretty happy that my life is such that the biggest hassle I have to deal with is getting asked for my ID.
― HI DERE, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 20:26 (eighteen years ago)
Well, and precisely the kind of guy you assign to the voting rights section when you'd really rather there weren't a voting rights section anyway.
― nabisco, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 20:27 (eighteen years ago)
My friend's coworker totally got pulled over for driving while Mexican. That shit blows my mind.
― mh, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 20:34 (eighteen years ago)