Rep. Corrine Brown, who assailed United States policy toward Haiti as a “racist” policy concocted by a “bunch of white men” and later told a Mexican-American Assistant Secretary of State that “you all (non-black people) look alike to me”: “I sincerely did not mean to offend Secretary Noriega or anyone in the room. Rather, my comments, as they relate to ‘white men,’ were aimed at the policies of the Bush administration as they pertain to Haiti, which I do consider to be racist.” Rep. Henry Bonilla has accepted this “apology” and withdrawn his call for Rep. Brown to resign. But where is the apology? Brown has played the old “I apologize if I offended anyone, but I’m not backing down” trick.
Aside: I find Rep. Brown’s racial demagoguery on the Haiti issue offensive. I’m not so sure about the wisdom of Secretary Noriega’s response that he resents being considered white. I’d preferred he criticized her on more general anti-racial demagoguery grounds. After all, outside the world of affirmative action categories, individuals of Mexican origin witha European appearance in the U.S. are generally considered, and consider themselves to be, “white”, and they certainly are in Mexico, so there is something a little manufactured about Noriega’s outrage at being lumped into the “white” category. How about a little outrage that Rep. Brown can’t just say she finds the policy stupid, but needs to racialize her criticism?
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