He’s no racist, claims Mississippi lawmaker Gene Alday, but his own statements black people in about his hometown say otherwise.
The state representative is under fire over statements he made in the Clarion Ledger about the town of Walls, a small community in Desoto County, where he claims “all the blacks are getting food stamps and what I call ‘welfare crazy checks.’ They don’t work.”
Then, digging himself a little deeper, Alday recalled a time he went to the emergency room and, “I liked to died. I laid in there for hours because they (blacks) were in there being treated for gunshots.”
Now Mississippi Republicans are distancing themselves for Alday, condemning his comments while he cries he was taken out of context.
“I am definitely not a racist, at all,” Alday told Mississippi News Now. “Because, I mean, I get along with everybody. And I’ve spent a lot of time helping people.”
Alday blamed Clarion-Ledger reporter Jerry Mitchell for quoting his remarks out of context.
“The interview, he just took me out of context,” Alday said. “He asked for one thing and started asking another thing.”
Alday elaborated in a followup story with the Clarion-Ledger.
“[Mitchell] asked me a question back to when I was in law enforcement,” Alday said. “I have a way of talking and saying, ‘take this off the record.'”
Alday also said he had no problem with African-Americans.
“Yes, it’s true that most of the blacks in my hometown are on welfare,” Alday told the newspaper. “But they’re good people. I don’t have anything against anybody. I’m a straight-up guy. In my little town they had little civil rights walks and I was with them. I’m with everybody.”
(H/T Huffington Post)
