Al Rantel
Monday, July 12, 2004

Story Continues Below

  This is likely the worst example yet of a politician trying to be funny and inserting his whole leg into his mouth, not just his foot. Riordan is a man in his 70’s, and probably just lost it for a few moments in an ill-advised attempt at humor and meant no malice. He has since apologized twice over the affair.

But the best part of the story is yet to come. Upon hearing the news reported out of the Santa Barbara classroom, State Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally, who happens to be black, tells the San Jose Mercury news that Riordan would never have said that to a white little girl. He demands that Riordan be fired by Governor Schwarzenegger. Then, the California NAACP gets into the act. State NAACP President Alice Huffman demands that Riordan be fired as well. Dymally plans a protest rally.

There is only one problem: little Isis, the girl named for the Egyptian goddess, is white with blonde hair. Dymally cancels his protest and says that he did so after Riordan talked to him and expressed remorse. Then the NAACP steps into it deeper. Alice Huffman, the NAACP leader, comes on my radio show and declares that she still wants Riordan fired and that the NAACP did not know the race of the little girl when they sprung into action. She claims she heard the story, and called her office and began the effort to go after Riordan simply because the NAACP cares about little children.

It’s hard to type this as I laugh out loud. Later, I learn my suspicion is right when someone calls from the NAACP to tip me off that the organization did in fact go after Riordan because when they heard the story, they assumed that Isis was black because of her name.

So here we have the NAACP assuming that if you have a relatively strange name you must be black, and that Riordan was saying such an unkind thing to a child because he was being racist. Wrong on both counts. Even some white parents these days like giving their kids unusual names and sometimes politicians just say dumb things without being racist in the least. That never occurred to Assemblyman Dymally or the NAACP.

What is fascinating about this story is that it demonstrates how silly it is when people are so into being victims that they even sometimes trip all over themselves. Now the NAACP leadership in California is forced to follow through with its effort to get Riordan fired even though it will no doubt now be half-hearted. They now have to try to prove that they just care about children with weird names who get picked on, no matter what their color.

It’s either that or come out and say we are so eager to find insults and racism that we made two assumptions that make us look as stupid as the State Education Secretary’s comment was. As refreshing as that would be, even a real Egyptian goddess couldn’t make that happen.