{"id":8390,"date":"2014-03-19T23:07:06","date_gmt":"2014-03-20T03:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/?p=8390"},"modified":"2014-03-19T23:07:06","modified_gmt":"2014-03-20T03:07:06","slug":"the-latest-race-card-trick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/03\/19\/the-latest-race-card-trick\/","title":{"rendered":"The Latest (Race) Card Trick"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here we go again. Ugh.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The basic story (with a lot of unanswered questions) is at the Register & Bee website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The better story is at the Norfolk Virginia-Pilot’s website<\/a>. (Don’t ask me why a Norfolk newspaper has a better story on a Danville incident.)<\/p>\n

So that happened. As you can see from my comments at the Register & Bee article, I think it’s a pile of horsecrap. I know Frank Ruff and I know that he’s not racist in any way. I truly believe him when he said that he had no racial intent on using the phrase “tar baby”.<\/p>\n

If these stories are true, I’m most ashamed of Sherman Saunders for bailing out of the meeting if he was “racially offended”. I don’t seem to remember him bailing out on previous Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors Tim Barber during the speech when he spoke against foreign-owned businesses not being welcomed in this region. To me, that’s a hell of lot more offensive then a Br’er Rabbit reference. I’m only slightly pissed at John Gilstrap for getting quoted in the article. My comment would have been something like “Oh, who the hell cares? Let’s talk about why we had the meeting in the first place.” As for Danville Public Schools Superintendent Ed Newsome’s opinion on this matter… I couldn’t care less. I guess the Register & Bee had to get an easy statement from some “Important Black Person”, and that’s a shame.\u00a0 That being said, at least they didn’t try to get the usual local race pimp suspects to weigh in on it.<\/p>\n

Speaking of race pimps though, our good friend State Senator Don McEachin weighed in with his unsolicited commentary on Frank Ruff’s phrasing…<\/p>\n

“…For Senator Ruff to use an expression widely known as a racial slur was shocking, insensitive and extremely disappointing. Instead of contributing to the merits of this discussion, he resorts to old time racial epithets and dog whistles…”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thank you, Senator Racecard.<\/p>\n

I would say that I hope this ridiculous incident dies quickly, but I have to quote something from one of the commenters over at Blue Virginia<\/a>…<\/p>\n

Frank Ruff unfortunately accurately represents a sizable number of his constituents along south side Virginia. Ignorant, intolerant and racist. Anything coming from Washington is seen as a Yankee plot to take from hard working white folk and give to those “others”. It is a primary reason why south side Virginia is in an ever tightening spiral of economic decline. Faced with declining income, declining population and declining employment. Until all the angry old white guys die off it will probably NOT GET ANY BETTER!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Isn’t that lovely? So Frank Ruff has apologized for something he didn’t even know he had to apologize for. Good, he’s learned his lesson. No offense meant, no offense should be taken. Yeah, it was a politically incorrect thing to say and was stupid, but I’m hoping this so-called controversy is already over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here we go again. Ugh.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[58,20,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-danville","category-newscentral","category-opinioncentral","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-2bk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4740,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/07\/20\/the-register-bee-stops-a-trainwreck\/","url_meta":{"origin":8390,"position":0},"title":"The Register & Bee stops a trainwreck.","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"July 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"But there's plenty more around if you look carefully... The Danville Register & Bee's website offers people the chance to comment on most articles posted. However, certain \"people\" have turned the comment feature into an unmoderated free-for-all. It gets hilarious yet troubling quite often. Well, we all know the story\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13184,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/07\/02\/southsidecentral-always-there-to-help\/","url_meta":{"origin":8390,"position":1},"title":"SouthsideCentral: Always there to help!","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"July 2, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"SouthsideCentral is always glad to help the Danville Register & Bee (and other media sources) out with stories that they wouldn't have known about without us. Hahahahaha! At 1:50 PM today, we published an article about the idiotic rumor that the Danville Public Schools had removed plaques of the American\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "MediaCentral"","block_context":{"text":"MediaCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/mediacentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/EFuOQ2N.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/EFuOQ2N.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/EFuOQ2N.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":13043,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/06\/16\/rottenreporting-the-10000000-mistake\/","url_meta":{"origin":8390,"position":2},"title":"UPDATED: RottenReporting: The $10,000,000 Mistake","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"June 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"UPDATE: The Register & Bee corrected the article within two hours of this article being published. Behold the power of SouthsideCentral. I did my best to avoid writing this edition of RottenReporting, but the Register & Bee wouldn't modify their story. Register & Bee reporter Vicky Cruz watched drones fly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "RottenReporting"","block_context":{"text":"RottenReporting","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/featurescentral\/rottenreporting\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"sclogo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/sclogo.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6025,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/12\/24\/heres-another-shot-at-the-danville-teapartiers\/","url_meta":{"origin":8390,"position":3},"title":"Here’s another shot at the Danville teapartiers.","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"December 24, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This Register & Bee editorial says exactly what we've been thinking... Danville Tea Party needs more local focus This echoes what I said before, eh?","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11494,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/12\/10\/were-glad-to-assign-stories-for-the-register-bee\/","url_meta":{"origin":8390,"position":4},"title":"We’re glad to assign stories for the Register & Bee!","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"December 10, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"SouthsideCentral seems to be a \"sneak preview\" of some Register & Bee stories. Back on December 3rd, SouthsideCentral published a RandomThoughts column. One of our RandomThoughts was... Surprise, surprise. Look what's in today's newspaper... Now ain't that a coincidence? 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Get ready to cringe when you read this disaster.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "RottenReporting"","block_context":{"text":"RottenReporting","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/featurescentral\/rottenreporting\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/JrqaqlJ.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/JrqaqlJ.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/JrqaqlJ.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8390"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8393,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8390\/revisions\/8393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}