Prescience
A state legislator in Colorado who disseminated an email with an essay criticizing the "moral poverty" of residents who stayed in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina was forced to apologize for the essay on the floor of the state house after being denounced as a racist by his colleagues, according to the Denver Post.
Rep. Jim Welker apologized for sending the essay by the conservative black minister, Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, which said in part that it was "primarily immoral, welfare-pampered blacks that stayed behind and waited for the government to bail them out" during Katrina's aftermath. Welker apologized for what he said was offensive, inappropriate and degrading material.
His colleagues in the state house denounced Welker as a racist and a bigot when word got out about the email. "Maybe he should go to Sears and see what size sheets and hoods they have," Democratic Sen. Peter Groff said of Welker.
Coincidentally, Welker earlier had sent out an email about the origins of political correctness, which offered a link to an essay describing how, "for the first time in our history, Americans have to be fearful of what they say, of what they write, and of what they think. They have to be afraid of using the wrong word, a word denounced as offensive or insensitive, or racist, sexist, or homophobic."
