DemocraticThought police out over Sessoms’ statement
By JR Hoeft | Wednesday, March 31st, 2010 | Catch-All
I grew up with the phrase “cotton-pickin’”.
Dad, 80, would constantly tell me to do my “cotton-pickin’ homework”, or “hit the cotton-pickin’ ball”, or get my “cotton-pickin’” chores done.”
As you can see, I remember the association of the term “cotton-pickin’” with my subsequent juvenile failures with fondness. Not.
Which is why I laughed when I read in the Pilot this morning this quote from Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms:
“It’s just the right cotton-pickin’ thing to do,” he said.
Sessoms said this with respect to the African American Round-table he’s creating to discuss race issues out at the beach.
Of course, not surprisingly, the knee-jerk reaction from the left is to alienate the poor guy.
Vivian Paige writes:
“I don’t know the last time I heard anyone use that phrase. I’d be curious to know if it is a regular part of the mayor’s speech.
“In any case, it seems to me that the mayor might want to rethink its use.”
Oh, give me a cotton-pickin’ break.
It’s a stupid phrase meant to prevent said offender from saying something that legitimately offends sensitive ears to “blue” words.
This is not a racist phrase. It’s not meant to be derogatory. It’s not attempting to be inflammatory. It’s a silly little stupid substitute for the seven words the late, great George Carlin said you can’t say on television.
Give it a rest and move onto something important…like a great idea to establish dialog about race. (Something former Mayor Mayera Orbendorf, a Democrat, never did.)
Agenda item one at their first meeting: the use of the term “cotton-pickin’”.
Or maybe they should talk about the overwhelming use of the word “n****r” amongst young, black Americans.
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About the author
Conservative to the core; liberal with his opinion! J.R. has been involved in politics for over a decade and has worked on several campaigns in Hampton Roads. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Chesapeake and the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. He is also the director of “Blogs United” in Virginia. E-mail J.R.. Follow J.R. on Twitter.
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23 Responses to "
DemocraticThought police out over Sessoms’ statement"I say “doggone” – is that offensive and I just don’t know it???
Growing up a lot of years of my youth in Alabama and Mississippi, I smile every time I leave my neighborhood in the winter onto Princess Anne Road. A cotton field is there next to Pastor Clarence McPherson’s church. I remember picking cotton and chewing on sugar cane with great fondness. And yes, I remember singing, “Those old, cotton fields back home.” Vivian dear, I am a white woman soon to be 51. Lighten up honey!
I don’t care how much Sessoms picks cotton. It isn’t the right thing to do to create special advisory boards based on race, gender or ethnicity. Every citizen is already represented by a Council member. If they want their voices to be heard, write their Council member and attend City Council meetings, when they are held.
No American should get special representation because they are from a racial minority; especially a race who are prone to rioting and criminal behavior whenever they don’t get their special pet minority status honored by government officials.
True Grover. I am unaware of a White-American Roundtable or an Asian-American Roundtable or even a Knights of the Roundtable. How far are we going to take this? However, cotton-pickin is not a slur of any kind. It’s just a funny metaphor people use to avoid a dirty word, like dag-gummit. Bobby Bowden says dag-gummit so he won’t say “*oddammit.” Bobby’s religious. Vivian needs to get her head out her rear end and stop thinking like a victim every time someone says something that could be twisted ten times into a racial slur. It’s not like he said macaca – whatever the hell that means.
Now wait just a cotton picking minute!
“Cotton Pickin” is a non derogatory term, originating long before the anti slavery Republican party was formed, and it indicates dissapproval or something troublesome. The term simply relates to the difficulty of picking cotton. The term is one letter away from “Cotton Picker” which is derogatory, racist and synonymous with the plantation slave term, and I quote, “nigger”. I sometimes hear the phrase “Living in High Cotton” which again refers to cotton picking and relates to the ease of picking tall cotton without bending down so I interpret it as meaning living the good life. Just looked at the label in my shirt and it says USA Hand Made of 100% Combed Cotton.
JR,
What gets me about this episode is that a seasoned politician like Will Sessoms didn’t have enough common sense to not use that phrase, which inevitably was going to get him in the proverbial “deep do-do” in some circles.
Before you dismiss this entirely, a couple things to consider:
1. My friends in the African-American community leadership were as angry as I’ve ever seen them over the Council appointment to replace Ron Villanueva. With that not too far in the past, were relatively fresh scars reopened?
2. Vivian’s point echoes what I heard from a then-VB NAACP official in the wake of Richard Maddox’s “tarbaby” episode in 2004: it’s an archaic expression, so why was he using it?
Our hope as a City should be that Mayor Sessoms has been on the phone to his Roundtable members to make sure any fallout from his poor choice of words is nipped in the bud. With Budget season underway and the Council filing deadline about 60 days off, this could get messy if damage control isn’t applied quickly.
Over on hamptonroads.com, we have some political opportunism at it’s worst: commenters who have shown little, if any, care previously for the state of the African-American community are using the episode to try to attack Sessoms. Absolutely shameless.
In 2008, we saw both the Chamber of Commerce and the African-American Political Action Committee (AAPAC) join forces to help put Glenn Davis onto City Council. Afterwards, Mayor Sessoms formed his Roundtable. As I opined at the time, if you could put together a local elections political alliance of the business community, minority communities, and the Republican establishment, it could take virtually any Council seat it wanted easily. My concern after these two (Villanueva vacancy and Sessoms comment) events is whether too much damage has now been done? We’ll find out over the coming days.
Someone please provide me with a complete list of slang and colloquialisms that are considered inappropriate now. I may be a public servant someday, and I don’t want to have a public relations problem. I think my one year old said macaca today, I am not sure how to “fix” that. I don’t see how cotton picker is racist. Many whites, particularly poor white share croppers picked cotton and I would think that some still do. I picked apples one season, is it okay to call me an apple picker? Next thing you know, I won’t be able to refer to homosexuals as a bundle of sticks.
Lots and lots of people are wound way too tight over there. Vivian is a great person but she can take a left turn on you so fast that you will be left stammering for a comeback or a save.
I have been in meetings with her and the best advice is to zip it as there is no casual conversation tolerated.
Hmmm…I search Ms. Paige’s blog to see if she expressed the same outrage over Dan Rather’s watermelon reference to the President. Maybe I could’ve searched harder, but I found nothing.
But of course, Sessoms is a Republican.
And you all wonder why you can not get minorty and youth support in the GOP… Defending the moron’s statement doesn’t help show openness to the vast majority of citizens. There is no defending his dumb statement anymore than defending Biden’s… They were both unacceptable.
Frankly the statement by Willie would go away much sooner if you all (and he) simply recognized the stupidity and inappropriateness of it and said “sorry.” Instead you justify and rationalize it by looking at others comments or past actions. Willie screwed up…plain and simple so accept it, live with it and move on.
If you do not understand the VB “good ole boy” system, then you’ll never understand why these comments are made by local officials. It is just a throw back to the old days in VB… And somethings change very slowly in this city.
In its entirety I am going to provide a comment I made on VBDems about this subject:
How true.
My experience with the term comes from the height of society’s fascination with the CB radio back in the seventies. Back then, cotton picker was a polite way of using the n-word. Now-a-days all civility is gone from the CB and some will just say nigger. In my occupation, I still need to listen to the CB. But listening is often what amounts to an ordeal I must endure.
But I am not going to judge Mayor Sessoms too harshly. While his usage of the word is still sensitive to many, for most it has passed into the ordinary parlance. People do not understand the history of the word when they use it. Acceptable usage was popularized in films such as “Smoky and the Bandit”.
The BC radio? What the hell are you talking about? Little David – important note: Wil didn’t say cotton-picker – that would be dumb. He said: cotton-pickin. Those are different phrases with different meanings. It’s a cliche and people know exactly what context its used in. You libtards have a funny way of twisting people’s words into your pre-conceived notions of what people are like. Have you EVER spent any time talking to Wil Sessoms? He’s a gentlemen in the classic sense of the word. Your attempts to smear him will fall flat because people know Wil is a standup guy.
Stand up guy???? LOL
I am baffled. Perhaps only 19 years in Virginia is not enough. What is the appropriate name for someone who picks cotton? I am not trying to be difficult here, I just want to know.
Funny – JR just engaged in a blog war over something he did say and attacks me for something I didn’t say. Don’t put words in my mouth, Jim.
For the record, it was a Republican who called me and brought the Sessoms comment to my attention. So much for that “Democratic thought police” idea.
Jim – you’ve jumped the shark. Believe it or not, everything is NOT about Rs and Ds.
And Tim – no idea who you are but since I don’t attend many meetings, I have no idea to what you refer.
JR-You’re right about this. “Cotten-picking,” which my Dad used all the time too, was an alternative to more salty adverbs. Anybody who thinks there’s a raciost connotation to this is just looking for something to create a dispute about.
Try looking “cotton-picking” up on Google or Bing or Wiki and good luck finding a way to make it racist. You can find someone who might say it “could” be racist, but that would have to be in the context of how it was used. Doesn’t seem to fit here. Did anyone ask the mayor what swear word he was substituting this for to see it that swear word would have been as offensive? I’ll bet every region and every age group has a list of sayings that they use without the intent of offense. You have to be looking for something to be offended by for this to work on you.
That makes it more interesting, Vivian, if an R called you.
I wonder if they’re trying to make Sessoms look bad since he just endorsed Rigell?
However, it was you who took offense to it. And it was another liberal blogger who tried to twist my words.
So, forgive me if I view things with just a bit more partisan flavor than perhaps you’re used to.
Again, I have to agree with William. It was a BAD choice of wording on the part of Mayor Sessoms. Sessoms was engaging in his “aw…shucks” charm in the wrong place at the wrong time. We have all been guilty of free flow speaking and said something that came out poorly and wanted to hit the “restart” button.
As William Bailey pointed out, the Mayor said something that he shouldn’t have. Did Sessoms mean anything racially negative by it? OF COURSE NOT! Still….it was a dumb thing to say and everybody needs to just accept that and get over it. The over-defending just makes this bad accident more appealing to the rubber neckers enjoying a good laugh at the mayor’s expense.
I’m sure if Sessoms said, “that cotton pickin’ Bill DeSteph always has to go on about how raising taxes is a bad idea”, then there wouldn’t have been a peep uttered. However, our Mayor just had to use that term while discussing an African American roundtable. He made a mistake, it is ok, and even his critics know he had no ill intent. That doesn’t mean the mayor doesn’t deserve a few critical observations over his careless wording.
I don’t approve of it because it smacks of race baiting, J.R., but there are plenty of Republicans that don’t mind helping Sessoms find some hot water to get into. It didn’t necessarily have to do with Rigell either. It could have been one of those evil Tea Party guys that don’t appreciate all of Sessoms’s ideas about raising taxes and spending our money regardless of the financial reality of things.
Not that she needs it, but I would also like to defend Vivian for a second. I read her blog piece on this. I didn’t see any outrage or her calling the Mayor a racist. To me, it was clear by her language that she took it in proper context. While recognizing that there was nothing truly racial going on, she just pointed out the obvious.
“What a strange choice of words by Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms ”
“In any case, it seems to me that the mayor might want to rethink its use.
Especially when talking about an African American Roundtable.”
- Vivian Paige
Sounds reasonable to me………..
Just because NotLarrySabato was playing gotcha and some Democrats are unfairly lumping all Tea Partiers(and their defenders) as violent racists, does not mean that Vivian is going overboard on this obvious mistake on the part of the mayor.
Excellent response… No more to say so can’t we all just move on?
Will is a good man and an effective mayor. We can agree to disagree with his endorements but enough trash talk. He is doing a decent job and planning for a better tomorrow.
I placed many signs up for his run and, speaking of cotton pickin.. I am greatful that he unseated Meyera O.
End of story.
Supposing you’re right, William and Britt, why even write it then if it were not an effort to further embarrass the mayor? And, Britt, you’re absolutely right – VNS hammered Sessoms on this.
Personally, I just feel this is much to do about nothing. While America is a place where free speech is permitted, it is permitted by ones detractors as well. In this case, Mayor Sessoms’ detractors are out in full force.
I would not put me in the “defender” camp…but on this subject, where folks are trying to manufacture an issue where none exists, I have every right to speak my mind.
Besides, it’s my blog. So, now we can move on, you don’t have that privilege to tell us when debate ends, William…much like you, Mike and Vivian tried to do with the healthcare discussion.
“Oh…I don’t like where this is going…nothing to talk about…no discussion necessary…let’s just move on…”
I don’t know which is more offensive – the taking of language and making it more than it is or the dismissing of any sort of dissent.
Personally, I’m filing this in the “much ado about nothing” bin. Poor choice of words, maybe. A focal point for race relations, not at all. To place this on the same tier as refusing to seriously consider minority candidates for appointment to the City Council is a mistake…a larger one than the usage of the phrase.
I think any constituent group, especially minority groups making up a large percentage of our population, should have representation and a voice. I commend Sessoms for establishing the Mayor’s African American Roundtable, and hope that it will lead to greater cooperation, understanding, and inclusiveness in Virginia Beach.
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