[1]RPV Vice Chairman Mike Thomas issued a letter late last night admonishing Republican leaders to repudiate comments made by one of the The Bull Elephant’s prime contributors, Jeanine Martin, asking Virginia Republicans to publicly repudiate her sentiments and refuse to “give voice to those who insist on using pejoratives, slurs and personal attacks on others, whether by membership or proxy” — and issuing a call to make the Republican Party more welcome to all Virginians, in the spirit of the RPV Creed.
From the letter:
Over the last few days, a Republican blogger — one who has previously carried a proxy to a RPV State Central Committee meeting and is a primary contributor for a Republican blog used by a faction of the Party to espouse their viewpoints — used a word that is often invoked as a slur to describe individuals who came to this country as refugees fleeing from Communist dictatorships in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, asking “do we really need hundreds of thousands of Hmongs in this country?” and declaring that “people are sick to death of illegals and many of the legals.”
The Hmong people were (and remain) anti-communist freedom fighters. The author implied that even their legal immigration to the United States in the wake of the Vietnam War was not acceptable, because “Not all cultures are equal…”
As Republicans, we often wonder why our conservative message struggles to be heard among minority and ethnic populations. When statements such as these come from leaders within any part of the Republican Party, leaders who set the tone for who we are and what we believe as Republicans, they render outreach nearly impossible.
Full letter is below:
Very glad to see this letter issued this morning.
For too long, we’ve allowed voices such as Jeanine Martin’s over at The Bull Elephant to define the rest of us. No longer… and hopefully, until proper amendment has been made, hopefully Jeanine Martin and those who share her sentiments against minorities will never carry a State Central proxy ever again.
UPDATE: Lynn Mitchell comments on Jeanine Martin’s racist sentiment [2]:
It’s hard to believe there is still this thread of thought among some in 2015, an embarrassment when we blog and work beside friends of all nationalities. Kudos to Mike and Carole for taking the lead on this issue.
Indeed.