Republican defends use of ‘uppity’

Source: AJC

U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.), who was born and raised in the South, said Thursday he’s never heard the word “uppity” used in a racially loaded fashion —- and meant nothing more than “elitist” when he applied it to Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and his wife.

“If anyone read more into it, no undercurrent was intended,” said Brian Robinson, a Westmoreland spokesman.

...

Westmoreland, who is contemplating a 2010 run for governor, released the following statement:

“I’ve never heard that term used in a racially derogatory sense. It is important to note that the dictionary definition of ‘uppity’ is ‘affecting an air of inflated self-esteem —- snobbish.’ That’s what we meant by uppity when we used it in the mill village where I grew up.”

Read more: http://www.ajc.com/search/content/news/stories/2008/09/05/westmoreland.html

entire life to describe "niggers who forget their rightful place"......I know what he means...the lying bastard.

Southerners do use the word but it can be used correctly and incorrectly. Politially correctly and politically incorrectly. In general use it's correct. When directed, even indirectly, at an African-American, it's incorrect. Most Republicans, who in the South invariably are former Democrats who fled the Democratic Party when racism became politically incorrect, who use the word use it incorrectly. Although of course to them, it's politically correct. Minorities are all uppity.

The "red scare" of today is the Republicans. Nasty, racist, and just downright evil at times.

He's from the south and he's never heard the word used that way?!? Riiiight. :eyes:

He's just such a racist he doesn't recognize it.

he never heard it used in any OTHER way.

:rofl:

LIES.

I'd be willing to be the number of white people he referred to as uppity in his mill village where he grew up was ZERO.

THe only time I have ever heard the word "uppity" used it was in a racially loaded fashion. I can only imagine that it would be even more prevelent in GA.

That's a start.

used as a derogatory term and always coupled with the "n" word. He's a lying sack of shit.

If the MSM runs with this, he's over.

purported message across. With his using "uppity", you're just waiting for the n-word to follow.

was pretty obviously RW code for "Uppity Ni**er."

This guy's so full of shit his eyes are brown.

I would know. Either related to skin color or sex.

a lying wingnut congressman qualifies as "latest breaking news"

it was just a matter of time before we started seeing and hearing this kind of thing.

It is newsworthy and it should sink his campaign.

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I mean that in the nicest way possible.

Yep. Sounds like a Republican to me.

These people are just DERANGED.

They really are sick in some profound and troubling way -- a bunch of little Manson Family members... led by a bunch of little Charlie Mansons.

Riight. I believe you. I mean, gosh, you grew up in a mill town after all. Is there a more persuasvie argument than that? Oh, except for the "I was a POW so I'm qualified to be president" one of course.

He's never opened a dictionary in his life.

and there ain't nothin' racial about THAT epithet.

:evilfrown:

When I first heard the talking point "elitist" I knew they really wanted to say "uppity." Somebody has finally admitted it.

"“I’ve never heard that term used in a racially derogatory sense."


where the hell have you been living? couldn't have been Georgia

been alive, but I have lived in Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas ...there is NO mistaking what is meant by the word 'uppity' when applied to a person of African American descent.


Interestingly it has been applied to women since the 1960s rise of feminism but that goes way way back as a major racist code word

A lynching was being planned. For this yahoo congressman not to know that is inconceivable.

So he's saying he's never heard the word used in a racially charged fashion?

So he's never watched or read the following:

HuckleBerry Finn by Mark Twain
Roots
Driving Miss Daisy
Blazing Saddles by Mel Brooks
The movie Glory
Gone with the Wind


I'm sure the list goes on and on.

So he's either a liar, so sheltered he doesn't know how to turn on a TV or such a racist that he refuses to watch or read media with black people in them.

He might have had to resign.

used in a racially derogatory sense? I call bullshit. Really, really powerful bullshit. Who the fuck does he think he's fooling?

This is the same guy who was nailed by Colbert on the Ten Commandments issue:

http://dlcinci.blogspot.com/2008/09/uppity.html

jeez, I grew up in Los Angeles, CA -- with racial strife, yes.... I you where I heard that phrase? From movies out of the state of Georgia.
Whoa.

This guy needs a reality check -- as in loss that might wake him up to his delusions.

One exception: adults talking to a mouthy kid. That, I have heard, as in "don't you get uppity with me or I'll tan your backside!"

Never heard it applied to a white adult.

dupe

Just as racists used to try to defend use of the n-word.

A southerner who never heard that term used in a racial context? When did he move to the south -- yesterday?

Instead of asking for or demanding an apology, say, "That tells you a lot more about HIM than me. It's just sad that in this day and age some people still think like that while the rest of us have moved beyond it."

It's not exactly accurate, but it makes the attacker look like a toothless, out of step old fart.

You have now.

a racially loaded fashion. He's f-----g full of S--t!

8 years after Westmoreland. I grew up in the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC. My parents did not use the "N" word, nor did they tolerate it when visitors used it. That did not keep me from hearing it or its uppity modifier, however.

You can't tell me that Westmoreland, who would have been somewhat politically cognizant at about the time I was born, and who lived in a state renowned for its history of racial prejudice, had never heard that term.

Westmoreland is a liar.

Yet co-sponsored a bill to put them into public places.

It was hysterical.

He really IS that stupid.



OK, no I don't really give him the benefit of the doubt.




But he IS that stupid.

I call bull shit, I am a shade younger than him, lived near the south and even I know what the second half of that phrase is....same as mother...... code words code words bigotry with a smile.

he's a southerner and very well knows the term uppity n*****. all these repukes know how to do is lie.