Straight from the you-gotta-be-kidding-me files, a Valley civil rights advocate is calling on Congressional candidate Ben Quayle to apologize -- or at least explain -- his comment that one of his opponents, Vernon Parker, a black guy, could become a "national poster boy" for Democrats.
As we explained earlier, Parker feels the word "boy" is racist, and the Reverend Jarrett Maupin, of the Inner-City Democracy Empowerment Agency, seems to agree.
"Ben Quayle needs to treat [Parker] like a contemporary and stop relegating him to something less than a man," Maupin tells New Times.
In case you missed it, Quayle said because of Parker's ethics issues -- particularly being found by the Small Business Bureau to have lied to get government contracts for minority-owned-businesses -- he would "quickly become the national poster boy for the Democratic Party" when it comes to unethical politicians.
If that comment is being construed as racist, we'd love to know how Parker feels about his brown-bashing BFF, Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Maupin says Quayle "should have been smarter" and needs to apologize or at least explain what he meant by the comment.
"The Quayle campaign needs to get the closest Negro they got to make a statement about how he feels about African-Americans," Maupin says.
"National poster boy," or "Negro" -- sounds like the perfect time for a quick game of "which one's racist."
Maupin says should Quayle not apologize, he and his supporters will "become involved" in the campaign.
We called Quayle's campaign to see if any apology was in the works but nobody got back to us.
On that note, we'll leave you with a less-than-HD-quality clip from South Park. Enjoy.
