Saturday Night Card Game (Time To Rejigger The Race Card)

Posted by William A. Jacobson Saturday, October 9, 2010 at 06:00pm 36 Comments

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This is the latest in a series on the use of the race card for political gain:

Here we go again.

I have posted before about the idiocy of playing the race card not based on the words actually used, but based upon the sound of the words, “>“Jew Hear The One About The Black Ho?” (Added: Also see my posts, Is “Gobbledygook” Racist?, Is Rhode Island’s Name Racist? and Black Friday)

But, the jig is up. Or rather, the jigger is up.

Because, as posted by Anne at Backyard Conservative, Democrats in Illinois are in an uproar because Republican Senate nominee Mark Kirk used the word “jigger” in connection with expressing concern about election fraud.

Jigger sounds like that other word, so Kirk is being accused of racial insensitivity. As reported by the local ABC station (emphasis mine):

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kirk is drawing some criticism for a remark he made to fellow Republicans about the upcoming election.

Kirk did not know he was being taped and certainly did not expect the recording to end up on YouTube. Now, Democrats are demanding that Kirk explain himself and apologize to African-American voters.

The Kirk campaign confirms the congressman was secretly taped this week while telling state Republican leaders about his hiring of a voter integrity squad to concentrate on four regions that happen to be areas populated by large numbers of African-Americans who vote heavily Democratic.

“These are lawyers and other people that will be deployed in key, vulnerable precincts, for example, South and West sides of Chicago, Rockford, Metro East, where the other side might be tempted to jigger the numbers somewhat“.

“For him to insinuate that there is some vote fraud going on in these communities is just an insult to the hundreds and hundreds of people who serve as election judges on elections. I find it disgraceful and insulting,” said Ald. Freddrenna Lyle.

Lyle, a Democratic Committee member and an Alexi Giannoulias supporter, and others were offended by Kirk’s use of the verb “jigger” when talking about regions heavily populated by black voters.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary says “jigger” does mean “to alter, re-arrange, or manipulate” and has been used by many politicians to describe election fraud.

“The problem I had is that it sounds so much like another word,” Rev. Albert Tyson said.

http://cdn.abclocal.go.com/static/flash/embeddedPlayer/swf/otvEmLoader.swf?version=&station=wls&section=&mediaId=7714801&cdnRoot=http://cdn.abclocal.go.com&webRoot=http://abclocal.go.com&configPath=/util/&site=

This does remind me of when another famous Illinois politician used the word jigger in reference to a black man being suspected of committing a crime:

What’s been reported though is that the guy forgot his keys, jimmied his way to get into the house. There was a report called in to the police station that there might be a burglary taking place. So far, so good, right? I mean, if I was trying to jigger into — well, I guess this is my house now, so…(LAUGHTER)… it probably wouldn’t happen. But let’s say my old house in Chicago. (LAUGHTER)

What is it about Illinois and the racial insensitivity of its politicians?

Maybe it’s time for them to “rejigger” their verbiage. I mean, if even Time magazine (image via Instapundit) uses the word “rejigger,” it wouldn’t cause a problem, would it?