Mayor who sent White House watermelon e-mail to resign
Los Alamitos Mayor Dean Grose issues statement saying he is sorry.
By JAIMEE LYNN FLETCHER
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
LOS ALAMITOS – Mayor Dean Grose said he will resign from his post because the controversy surrounding an e-mail he sent to a local businesswoman that she said was racist and offensive has impeded his ability to lead the city.
Grose announced in an e-mail released Thursday night that he will step down Monday.
“The attention brought to this matter has sadly created an image of me which is most unfortunate,” he wrote. “I recognize that I've made a mistake and have taken steps to make sure this is never repeated.”
Grose forwarded an e-mail to a small group of people from his personal account depicting a picture of the White House with a watermelon patch imposed as a White House garden.
Keyanus Price, an African American businesswoman and community volunteer, said she was horrified when she opened the e-mail.
“What I'm concerned about is how can this person send an e-mail out like this and think it is OK?” she asked.
Grose apologized by e-mail Tuesday to Price, her boss and the City Council. He said he did not send the joke to hurt or offend anyone.
“This was clearly my mistake, which I accept was in poor taste and I regret that it has created this cloud,” he wrote. “I am hopeful that Ms. Price will accept my apology with the spirit and intent that is offered.”
Some community members said they were disgusted that a city official sent an e-mail they said was overtly offensive, while others have said they believe what was intended to be a joke has spiraled out of control.
“A public spectacle is a little overboard, if you ask me, and it appears it has been blown way out of proportion,” Placentia resident Katey McDonnell wrote in an e-mail.
Others said the e-mail was racist.
"It appalls me how much racial insensitivity continues in this day and age," Aliso Viejo resident Brian Alpers, 48, wrote in an e-mail. "Even forwarding e-mails like that continue to perpetuate stereotypes and, yes, even racial hatred."
The e-mail has generated national attention from the media after being reported by The Orange County Register on Tuesday night.
Police are patrolling the mayor's home and office after a smashed watermelon was found Wednesday in front of his office at Los Alamitos-based Event Medical Services.
“He just wanted to report it because of the controversy that is surrounding him right now,” Los Alamitos police Capt. Bruce McAlpine said. “We are not concerned at this point that there are any physical threats against him.”
McAlpine said there will be an added police presence at Monday's council meeting, when Grose is expected to resign.
Grose has served on the City Council since 2006, and this is his first term as mayor. He took up the leadership position in January in a 4-1 vote by his fellow council members.
I'm so sick of these racist fuckers pretending they didn't know they were saying something racist. And frankly, the people who stick up for them and say "what's the big deal" are probably racist too.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
General Zod wrote:This subject line is confusing. For a moment I was thinking physical watermelons were being sent to the White House.
Sorry, I had trouble fitting "e-mail" so I just shortened it.
Darth Wong wrote:I'm so sick of these racist fuckers pretending they didn't know they were saying something racist. And frankly, the people who stick up for them and say "what's the big deal" are probably racist too.
Oh, there's no doubt that he knew what he was doing. The rest are apologists.
It would be so refreshing if he were roundly condemned by his peers, but some are probably friends and simply have no stones. That assumes that they even see anything wrong with it, no "big deal" indeed.
So, yeah, I think their true feelings are quite evident.
Darth Wong wrote:I'm so sick of these racist fuckers pretending they didn't know they were saying something racist. And frankly, the people who stick up for them and say "what's the big deal" are probably racist too.
You mean like the other cartoon thread?
Never apologise for being a geek, because they won't apologise to you for being an arsehole. John Barrowman - 22 June 2014 Perth Supernova.
Countries I have been to - 14.
Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Germany, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, USA.
Always on the lookout for more nice places to visit.
Darth Wong wrote:I'm so sick of these racist fuckers pretending they didn't know they were saying something racist. And frankly, the people who stick up for them and say "what's the big deal" are probably racist too.
You mean like the other cartoon thread?
What cartoon thread?
PS. Oh, I see the one you must be talking about. Well, it's hardly surprising that people who were pro-Bush back in his glory days are sticking up for that "Obama monkey" racist bullshit. They just see an opportunity to say "both sides do it!" without looking at context.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
Summary: New York Post runs a political cartoon that compares Obama to a chimpanzee, not fully thinking through the racist connotations of such a cartoon.
Last edited by Instant Sunrise on 2009-02-27 09:30pm, edited 2 times in total.
It kind of peutered out after a while, but it became kind of heated.
Never apologise for being a geek, because they won't apologise to you for being an arsehole. John Barrowman - 22 June 2014 Perth Supernova.
Countries I have been to - 14.
Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Germany, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, USA.
Always on the lookout for more nice places to visit.
When ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets.
—Abraham Lincoln
People pray so that God won't crush them like bugs.
—Dr. Gregory House
Oil an emergency?! It's about time, Brigadier, that the leaders of this planet of yours realised that to remain dependent upon a mineral slime simply doesn't make sense.
—The Doctor "Terror Of The Zygons" (1975)
I must admit, seeing a watermelon patch in front of the White House made me laugh. Crass or not, that's a funny damn picture! That mayor, however, is a complete tool. When I first heard the news about this on XM, I thought to myself "maybe the mayor was referring to Limbaugh's watermelon metaphor," i.e. green on the outside and red on the inside, basically calling environmentalists commies. Then I thought, "wait, what do watermelons or environmentalists have to do with Easter? This guy's a douche." The picture capped it...he's not a douche, he's a used tampon from a syphilitic whore.
But the picture's still funny. And I still love watermelon. And fried chicken. But I draw the line at okra.
The only people who were safe were the legion; after one of their AT-ATs got painted dayglo pink with scarlet go faster stripes, they identified the perpetrators and exacted revenge. - Eleventh Century Remnant
Count Chocula wrote:I thought to myself "maybe the mayor was referring to Limbaugh's watermelon metaphor," i.e. green on the outside and red on the inside, basically calling environmentalists commies.
Yeah, well, not knowing anything about, let alone never hearing of Mayor Jackass before I saw this story, I am willing to bet he doesn't possess the meager intellect needed to get that particular joke.
Count Chocula wrote:When I first heard the news about this on XM, I thought to myself "maybe the mayor was referring to Limbaugh's watermelon metaphor," i.e. green on the outside and red on the inside, basically calling environmentalists commies.
You almost have to love the transparently obvious convolutions involved in that "metaphor": theoretically let's Herr Limbaugh claim he's making some "subtle" political comment through the use of racist stereotyping so as to escape the charge of racism. Wonder who thought of it for him?
When ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets.
—Abraham Lincoln
People pray so that God won't crush them like bugs.
—Dr. Gregory House
Oil an emergency?! It's about time, Brigadier, that the leaders of this planet of yours realised that to remain dependent upon a mineral slime simply doesn't make sense.
—The Doctor "Terror Of The Zygons" (1975)
I will be honest, and say that I personally would love to receive a watermelon in my mail.
Of course, I'm not a Black American man in the White House, and over here, we don't have the same connotation regarding watermelons, catfish, and black people.
"Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too—ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring the earth." M.A.A.A
I thought Roman candles meant they were imported. - Kelly Bundy
12 yards long, two lanes wide it's 65 tons of American pride, Canyonero! - Simpsons
Support the KKK environmental program - keep the Arctic white!
Black people loving watermelon is a really heavy racial stereotype in the US, especially in the Deep South as far as I know. For this guy to claim he didn't know the connotation of the joke is akin to claiming no knowledge of the color of the sky.
(One thing I'd really like to see - someone responding to that patently untrue line with "If you didn't understand the joke, why did you pass it on?" just to see the look on his face.)
Apparently watermelons and fried chicken were associated with black people as the food that slaves ate. Wiki on fried chicken. So, it's a joke that was pretty clearly intended to be racist, and the guy apparently had a crude sense of humor, laughed, and forwarded it to friends.
Edit:
Kuja wrote:For this guy to claim he didn't know the connotation of the joke is akin to claiming no knowledge of the color of the sky.
(One thing I'd really like to see - someone responding to that patently untrue line with "If you didn't understand the joke, why did you pass it on?" just to see the look on his face.)
The most likely explanation is that he thought it was hilarious and figured all of his friends would, too.
A Government founded upon justice, and recognizing the equal rights of all men; claiming higher authority for existence, or sanction for its laws, that nature, reason, and the regularly ascertained will of the people; steadily refusing to put its sword and purse in the service of any religious creed or family is a standing offense to most of the Governments of the world, and to some narrow and bigoted people among ourselves.
Would you forward an E-mail that referred to blacks as niggers? You wouldn't because the connotation of forwarding an E-mail is that you have no problems with its message. Hence, you are a racist (not an accusation against you Zix, just the conclusion of the argument).
Oh and Surlethe, stop bitching that these things we find racist didn't come up in your education. You had a graduating class smaller than my precalculus class in High School, so the pretense that you had anything resembling typical American education is horribly flawed.
A teenage girl is just a teenage boy who can get laid.
-GTO
We're not just doing this for money; we're doing this for a shitload of money!
Dark Hellion wrote:Oh and Surlethe, stop bitching that these things we find racist didn't come up in your education. You had a graduating class smaller than my precalculus class in High School, so the pretense that you had anything resembling typical American education is horribly flawed.
Show me where I'm "bitching" in this thread. Or did you have a problem with the argument I made in the other thread, and decide to bring it up here instead?
A Government founded upon justice, and recognizing the equal rights of all men; claiming higher authority for existence, or sanction for its laws, that nature, reason, and the regularly ascertained will of the people; steadily refusing to put its sword and purse in the service of any religious creed or family is a standing offense to most of the Governments of the world, and to some narrow and bigoted people among ourselves.
Zixinus wrote:I'm going to risk some ire here and ask: am I the only one finding this ridiculous?
Yes, he forwarded a semi-funny e-mail that has crude racist humour, but did he demonstrate that he was racist in any other way?
Who cares? Since when is forwarding racist jokes not enough proof someone's a racist? Even if he's not burning crosses, the fucking idiot made it impossible for himself to govern effectively, so he's gone.
Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves…We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.--Ada Louise Huxtable, "Farewell to Penn Station", New York Times editorial, 30 October 1963 X-Ray Blues
Zixinus wrote:I'm going to risk some ire here and ask: am I the only one finding this ridiculous?
Yes, he forwarded a semi-funny e-mail that has crude racist humour, but did he demonstrate that he was racist in any other way?
Among those he sent it to, one was a black woman. She was rightly offended and let him know about it.
He could have included any number of stupid joke pictures, but he picked one that was clearly intended to be offensive. People of his age know damn well what it's all about. I don't necessarily expect teens or people outside the US to get it, but he knew what he was doing.
It's not even a joke without knowing of the racist connotations. There's no other reason for the picture to even exist. That's what boggles me.
"I spit on metaphysics, sir."
"I pity the woman you marry." -Liberty
This is the guy they want to use to win over "young people?" Are they completely daft? I'd rather vote for a pile of shit than a Jesus freak social regressive.
Here's hoping that his political career goes down in flames and, hopefully, a hilarious gay sex scandal. -Tanasinn
You can't expect sodomy to ruin every conservative politician in this country. -Battlehymn Republic
Zixinus wrote:I'm going to risk some ire here and ask: am I the only one finding this ridiculous?
Yes, he forwarded a semi-funny e-mail that has crude racist humour, but did he demonstrate that he was racist in any other way?
This reminds me of the redneck who once said to me "Just because I call 'em niggers doesn't mean I'm a racist."
At the very least, it means he is utterly contemptuous of the issue of racism and the feelings it engenders, which is itself a problem and which strongly suggests that he is in fact a racist whether he admits it or not.
PS. Sadly, I'm not making that up. A guy actually said that to me once.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
I actually have a college classmate - an attorney practicing in Central New York, now - who uses the word nigger to describe anyone he views as low-class, ill-educated, undisciplined and generally dumb and loutish. You know what I mean, white people can be 'niggers' too; it's not a race-thing.
I can't say that I understand it, but there *are* people out there who somehow in their own heads have decided that the word can be divorced from its racist origins.
I find myself endlessly fascinated by your career - Stark, in a fit of Nerd-Validation, November 3, 2011
