Monday, May 07, 2007

Rep Biondi, NJ, Should Turn "Adversity" into "Opportunity".

The  ANNOTICO Report

 

Rep Biondi, NJ, Should Enlist Offended Blacks vs Italian Defamation and Slurs

Peter J. Biondi a Republican member of the New Jersey General Assembly (16th district ) since 1998. He has served as the Republican Conference Leader since 2006 and was the Assembly's Assistant Republican Leader from 2002-2003.  

Mr. Biondi forwarded Emails in December and February that were supposedly considered "racially offensive",  against blacks,  one that Jesse Jackson was the target of.  Biondi was perfuse in his apologies to the Ministers and Leaders of the Black Community, who responded I believe thoughtfully, by stating, "We have not asked him to step down. We asked him to step up,",  and "We don't intend to kill the messenger. We intended to kill the message."

It is politically correct to "apologize", BUT, I wonder how many of us INCLUDING  Blacks could undergo an examination of their forwarded jokes, or any communications, that did not "make fun of"  WHITES as "Rednecks, White Trash, Hillbillies, Okies, Trailer Trash," and in the case of ITALIANS "Wop, Dago, Guinea, Mafia, Spaghetti Benders, Meat Ball Suckers' .

But, more important, any Italian American who ever makes a misstep of this nature, to ANY GROUP, should turn "Adversity" into "Opportunity" !!!!!!

(1) First apologize, THEN, point out he understands how they feel, since He as an Italian American is one of the few Targets of Bigotry that are Tolerated.

(2) He would impart to them that defamatory, degrading, and distorted negative images of Italian Americans "flood" the Movies, TV, and Newspapers, with "impunity". They are hurtful to him personally, and have a harmful effect on the esteem of his children.

(3) Do they Not also think that is wrong? Will THEY join with him to Mutually condemn ALL Defamation, Degradation, and Disparagement?    Anti Black AND Anti Italian ??????

In this case, If not, Then tell them AT LEAST they could better utilize their Efforts and get a greater Return, and rather than "mobilizing" to repair the "so called" damage of his foul language written in private  to a few friends,  IF THEY focused on "Rappers" and their message of Niggers, Ho's, Misogyny, (explain it to them), and Violence that sells hundreds of Millions of Records, and POISONS  Millions of Minds !!!!!!  

 

Thanks to The Alfano Digest

Legislator Meets with Black Clergy over 'Jokes'

New Jersey Star Ledger                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

By Dunstan McNichol and Ralph Ortega                                                                                                                                                                                          

Thursday, May 03, 2007

 

Stepping up efforts to control the political damage from revelations he circulated two racially offensive jokes by e-mail last winter, Assemblyman Peter Biondi spoke with Rev. Jesse Jackson in Chicago and met privately with representatives of the Black Ministers' Council of New Jersey for about an hour last night.

After the meeting in Franklin Township, the Rev. DeForest B. Soaries, senior pastor of the church and former Secretary of State, said the ministers had won promises from Biondi (R-Somerset) to apologize to the full Assembly and use his influence as a lawmaker to work against racism and lobby for social issues important to the ministers.

"We could have asked him to step down. We asked him to step up," Soaries said, adding he does not think the ministers have the political clout in Biondi's Somerset County district to cost him his Assembly seat in the upcoming elections.

"We didn't intend to kill the messenger. We intended to kill the message," added Rev. Eddie Aikens, pastor of Sharon Baptist Church in New Brunswick.

Five ministers attended the one-hour meeting at the First Baptist Church of Lincoln Garden, and two more, including Rev. Reginald Jackson of the Black Ministers' Council of New Jersey, participated by phone.

It capped the second day Biondi has spent defending his credentials for racial tolerance after an anonymous mailing that included copies of the two ribald and racist jokes the assemblyman had received by e-mail and forwarded to friends in the Hillsborough political community in December and February.

Hours before his meeting with the ministers, Biondi had spoken by telephone with Rev. Jesse Jackson, the subject of one of the jokes the Assemblyman had passed along.

"I offered a personal apology," Biondi, the second-ranking Republican in the state Assembly, said of his 4 p.m. call to Jackson. "I said it was just unacceptable. I take full responsibility."

Jackson, in a conference call his office arranged for reporters, left it to the Legislature to take appropriate action.

"I just hope there will be some kind of ethical standard, so when this type of degradation occurs there will be sufficient response to deter it," Jackson said.

Jackson suggested the matter should be considered by the Legislature's ethics committee.

"A group of his peers would be in the best position to determine whether it was an accident or a pattern," added Jackson. He contrasted Biondi's situation with the outcry and eventual firing of radio host Don Imus last month after disparaging remarks about the Rutgers University women's basketball team.

"In the case of Imus, this was not a slip of the lip, this was a pattern," he said.

Biondi, who has been an Assemblyman for nine years, is a member of the Legislature's Joint Committee on Ethical Standards, which is scheduled to meet in Trenton on unrelated matters today.

Biondi reached out to Jackson and other prominent black leaders yesterday.

"I'm taking it very seriously," he said. "Anyone that knows me knows that's not me."

Soaries' church, which features a main sanctuary that seats 2,000, is a landmark in the community. While the ministers met with Biondi in private, members of the congregation participating in the various activities under way throughout the church expressed disgust at the Assemblyman's actions.

"It's a shame," said Ernestine Winfrey, 68, a minister and grandmother. "People can spend time and money to spread that filth, and they don't have the time and money to spread the good things."

Jackson said he hoped to meet with Biondi sometime in the future "to clear the air at the personal level."

Jackson, who is founder and president of the Chicago-based Rainbow PUSH Coalition, said he was puzzled why a New Jersey assemblyman he had never met would pass along a joke about him.

"I'm just startled why I would be the object of a degrading joke," he said.

 

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