Alabama Senator Caught Calling Blacks Aborigines

[Gayle in MD]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">MONTGOMERY -- Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale, on Tuesday apologized for a comment he made referring to black people as "aborigines."

Beason in a press conference said he was sorry for the remark, calling it both inappropriate and "careless and unnecessary."

But some senators said Beason's apology is inadequate and that he should step down as chairman of the powerful Senate Rules Committee.

"My purpose today is to say that I am very sorry and I apologize to anyone whose feelings were hurt by my comment," Beason said, reading from a statement at a press conference at the Gardendale Civic Center.

"As I have stated before, I do not know where that word came from or why it popped in my head that day. Nevertheless, the comments were careless and unnecessary," Beason said.

The comment was caught on tape when Beason wore a wire for FBI agents during an investigation into alleged State House corruption and vote-buying.

But Senate Democrats on Tuesday said Beason's apology was inadequate for the offense he caused and that he should step down as Rules Committee chairman or be removed from the position by GOP leaders. The committee sets the debate agenda in the Alabama Senate.

"That is not good enough to me," said Sen. Vivian Davis Figures, D-Mobile, said of Beason's apology.

"That type of language should not be tolerated by any member of the Alabama Legislature. ... If he truly was a leader, the only thing he would have done, and should have done, is resign," Figures said.

Beason said Tuesday that he had not discussed his comments with minority members of the Senate, but would be happy to if they wanted to talk to him.

The wire Beason wore during the FBI investigation recorded him and two other Republicans joking about economic development in predominantly black Greene County and Greenetrack casino, which was one of the county's largest employers.

"That's y'all's Indians," former Rep. Benjamin Lewis said.

"They're aborigines, but they're not Indians," replied Beason.

Senate Minority Leader Roger Bedford, D-Russellville, said he was both, "sad and shocked that in 2011 the Senate Republican leadership would condone Sen. Scott Beason's racist comments."



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http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2011/09/alabama_state_sen_scott_beason_2.html


<span style="color: #990000">Obviously he's a racist, and five will get you ten, the Repub in his state will not push him to resign...he will refuse to regsign, since, since as we all know, IIARIOK!

He says he doesn't know where that word came from??? IT CAME OUT OF YOUR MOUTH, YOU NITWIT!

Disgusting.

g. </span>


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">In short, the Koch Bros increased their wealth by 30% in the last 2 years [ its a recession remember!!!]. At the same time they layed off 67,000 American workers.

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[sack316]

Pretty bad there. What's also concerning is what an idiot he is because:

A)He was wearing the wire when he said it!

B)He obviously has no clue what the word means!

I hope he does the right thing and steps down, and if not, then I hope he is forced out.

Sack

[cushioncrawler]

Australian Aborigines
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about a specific class of people in Australian law. For more general information, see Indigenous Australians.
Australian Aborigines

Total population
517,000[1]
2.3% of Australia's population
Regions with significant populations
Northern Territory 32.5%
Western Australia 4.0%
Queensland 3.6%
New South Wales 2.5%
South Australia 2.3%
Victoria 1.0%
Languages
Several hundred Indigenous Australian languages, many no longer spoken, Australian English, Australian Aboriginal English, Kriol
Religion
Mixture of Christian, small numbers of other religions, various locally indigenous religions grounded in Australian Aboriginal mythology
Related ethnic groups
see List of Indigenous Australian group names
Australian Aborigines (pronounced /æbəˈrɪdʒɨni/, aka Aboriginal Australians) are those people regarded as indigenous to the Australian continent.
In the High Court of Australia, Australian Aborigines have been specifically identified as a group of people who share, in common, biological ancestry back to the original occupants of the continent.[2]
Justice Deane of the High Court famously described and defined an Australian Aboriginal person as "a person of Aboriginal descent, albeit mixed, who identifies himself as such and who is recognized by the Aboriginal community as an Aboriginal".[3]
Since 1995 the Australian Aboriginal Flag (above right), designed in 1971 by Aboriginal artist Harold Thomas, has been one of the official "Flags of Australia".

Eve Fesl, a Gabi Gabi woman, wrote in the Aboriginal Law Bulletin describing how she and other Australian Aborigines preferred to be identified:
The word 'aborigine' refers to an indigenous person of any country. If it is to be used to refer to us as a specific group of people, it should be spelt with a capital 'A', i.e. 'Aborigine'.[4]
While the term 'indigenous' is being more commonly used by Australian Government and non-Government organizations to describe Aboriginal Australians, Lowitja O'Donoghue AC, CBE, commenting on the prospect of possible amendments to Australia's constitution, was reported as saying:
I really can't tell you of a time when 'indigenous' became current, but I personally have an objection to it, and so do many other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. [...] This has just really crept up on us ... like thieves in the night. [...] We are very happy with our involvement with indigenous people around the world, on the international forum [...] because they're our brothers and sisters. But we do object to it being used here in Australia.[5]
O'Donoghue went on to say that the term indigenous robbed the traditional owners of Australia of an identity because some non-Aboriginal people now wanted to refer to themselves as indigenous because they were born there.[5]
[edit]Definitions from academia

Dean of Indigenous Research and Education at Charles Darwin University, Professor MaryAnn Bin-Sallik, has publicly lectured on the ways Australian Aborigines have been categorised and labelled over time. Her lecture offered a new perspective on the terms urban, traditional and of Indigenous descent as used to define and categorise Aboriginal Australians. She said:
Not only are these categories inappropriate, they serve to divide us. [...] Government’s insistence on categorising us with modern words like ‘urban’, ‘traditional’ and ‘of Aboriginal descent’ are really only replacing old terms ‘half-caste’ and ‘full-blood’ – based on our colouring.[6]
She called for a replacement of this terminology by the word: Aborigine or Torres Strait Islander, "irrespective of hue[6]."
[edit]Origins

The origin of the Aboriginal peoples in Australia has been the subject of intense speculation since the nineteenth century. Unfortunately no theory of migration has gained wide acceptance and genetic studies have not proven any close relationship to any other racial group in the world. Some scholars have proposed theories of kinship with groups in South Asia whereas others have proposed a more direct migration from Africa only passing through South Asia.[7]
In a genetic study in 2011, researchers found evidence from the DNA of Aboriginal hair strands that the Aboriginal population split off from the European and Asian population between 62,000 and 75,000 years ago, before the European and Asian populations were distinct.[8] This finding supports earlier archaeological findings of human remains near Lake Mungo that were dated to 45,000 years ago. Another 2011 genetic study showed varying levels of Denisovan admixture in Aboriginal populations.[9]
[edit]Groups of Aborigines

Main article: List of Indigenous Australian group names
Four hundred and more distinct Australian Aboriginal peoples have been identified across the Australian continent, each distinguished by unique names for groups of people's ancestral languages, dialects, or distinctive speech mannerisms.[10]
[edit]Other names used by Australian Aboriginal people

There are a number of other names from Australian Aboriginal languages commonly used to identify groups based on geography, including:
Koori (or Koorie or Goori or Goorie) in New South Wales and Victoria
Murri in southern Queensland
Noongar in southern Western Australia
Nunga in southern South Australia
Anangu in northern South Australia, and neighbouring parts of Western Australia and Northern Territory
Palawah (or Pallawah) in Tasmania.

[Gayle in MD]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: sack316</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Pretty bad there. What's also concerning is what an idiot he is because:

A)He was wearing the wire when he said it!

B)He obviously has no clue what the word means!

I hope he does the right thing and steps down, and if not, then I hope he is forced out.

Sack </div></div>

So do I, Sack, but I doubt very much if Republicans will force him to resign. That's doesn't seem to be their M.O. unless they have no choice.

G.