Obama Delegate Quits After Campaign Finds Remarks to Neighbor Kids to be ‘Unacceptable’
Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski (Photo Courtesy of: Daily Herald)
A Barack Obama supporter has given up her role as a pledged delegate after the campaign found “unacceptable” her description of her neighbor’s children as “monkeys,” which she says she called them because they were climbing in trees.
Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski, an a Hispanic trustee for the Village of Carpentersville, Ill., was accused of racism following the interaction with her African-American neighbors.
“Given the incident, she is stepping down and will be replaced as delegate,” Ben Labolt, a spokesman for the Obama campaign told FOXNews.com, calling Sliwinski’s remarks “unacceptable.”
The campaign discussed the incident with Ramirez-Sliwinski, who decided to step aside as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in August, Labolt said.
Police issued a $75 citation for disorderly conduct on Saturday to Ramirez-Sliwinski , Carpentersville Police Cmdr. Michael Kilbourne told FOXNews.com.
“This is like a parking ticket,” Kilbourne said. “She was not arrested, she was not fingerprinted.”
Police officers were dispatched to Sparrow Road for a neighbor dispute, Kilbourne said.
Ramirez-Sliwinski told the kids to stop playing in her next-door neighbor’s tree because she was worried they would fall out of the tree and hurt themselves, Kilbourne said.
Dametta Stewart, a parent of one of the kids, alleges that Ramirez-Sliwinski came outside and told the kids to “quit playing in the tree like monkeys,” according to the police report. Stewart told police she was upset and felt the comment was racist since her children are African-American, Kilbourne said.
Ramirez-Sliwinski told officers that she didn’t believe the comment was racist and that she calls her own grandkids monkeys.
Ramirez-Sliwinski told the local Daily Herald, based in Arlington Heights, Ill., that her remarks were not racist despite ill feelings between the neighbors.
“Technically, I don’t consider it a mistake because that’s not what I meant,” Ramirez-Sliwinski told the newspaper. “They’re children. They’re climbing in a tree. What would you think?”
Ramirez-Sliwinski said she likely won’t run for re-election as a trustee after her term expires in April 2009.
This story is ridiculous and this is tearing our country apart. It is no longer safe to say anything because it just might get you a fine. Can we please get someone in the Whitehouse that has backbone and will not allow this ridiculous garbage to occur. I am tired of the negativity that surrounds our country. This is the best place to live in the World. People do not appreciate our country and I am tired of that. I pay taxes, I work everyday, and if someone is playing in a tree and I feel that they might get hurt I will let them know about it. I will be sure to be politically correct or I might get fined. This is a joke.
People need to get a grip and stop being so over-sensitive! That this comment would be “racially motivated” is asinine! Look at it logically: Monkeys (most people think of Chimpanzees when they hear the word) are roughly human-shaped and child-sized and are the best known animal to climb around and play around in the trees. That’s what they do… So when a bunch of children are climbing up into a tree and jumping around and playing in a similar fashion it’s reasonable that that is the image that would come to mind - regardless of the color of skin. It has nothing to do with perceived racial insensitivity and the “assumed attitude” of anyone NOT black in America and everything to do with children being children and do what children (and animals) do - playing, in this case in a tree (like the well known animals that find trees to be such darn fun to frolic in).
If we, as a nation, are ever to get past the racial issue (it’s sadly misrepresented by that term, as we’re all ONE race - human) we need to get over the hang-ups caused be the “they hate us” mentality that cause a side or another to automatically assume and accuse any other of being “racist” just on the belief that anything done that could only be seen as offensive when twisted and skewed by these warped sense of identity is done for the reasons that these archaic and dangerous ways of thinking assume they are. In other words - lets give people the benefit of the doubt, lets stop assuming that the person you see with differing tones of skin around you hate you because you’re different from them and that they are “out to get you.” We’ll all be a lot better off for it - even if all it does is temper little incidents like this from occurring (and hopefully it’d keep them from becoming “scandals” and worthy of any (much less national) news.)!
Are you kidding me! We have people dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, gas prices are $4.oo a gallon in some places, people are losing their jobs and their homes, health care has become a priviledge, and a bunch of kids acting like monkeys in a tree is news worthy! You can be assured that if they HAD fallen out of the tree and been sriously hurt, the mother of the “monkey” children would have been more than ready to sue the owners of the tree they fell out of! Grow up people and get a clue. By the way, my children are white and when they act like monkeys or dorks or whatever, I tell them so. I guess I must be a racist. But my doctor is black and I won’t let anyone else take care of me, so maybe, just maybe I’ll be ok!!!
If anyone should have been given a ticket, it should have been the mother of those kids! Why wasn’t she watching them? They could have fallen and broken their neck! What an ungrateful hag! At least her neighbor was looking out for them. Lot of good it did!
How stupid is that!!! Since when did calling a kid climbing a tree a “monkey” become a racial remark. Get a grip people. Shame on Obama for not defusing an innocent situation.
This is just nuts. I have a huge family and some are white and some black some Mexican and one from Pakistan. Calling a child a monkey is a playful term and not a racist remark. Sounds like the kids mom has the problem. Maybe she doesnt like Hispanic people. How would she like her calling the police to backfire and let people think shes a racist. GROW UP PEOPLE. Not everything is about race so stop making it that way.
Just the fact that people are so narrow minded is amazing to me. I suppose the ONLY reason she was calling them “monkeys” is because they were black children. I suppose there’s no way, no reason, she could have been calling them “monkeys” because they were swinging in the tree. I am a white woman with white children (15 & 17) and other children visit our home frequently. When they act like monkeys I tell them they look like a bunch of monkeys. When the leave their rooms a mess I tell them they are pigs! I guess it’s a good thing that as a white woman I’ve not been reported to the authorities as being racist to my children or the other children (young adults) visiting our home. Not everything said needs to be twisted to meet the desires of those individuals such as Dametta Stewart whom insist on making everything about race. Sometimes it REALLY IS as simple as it seems.
How stupid can we get? Either we ALL get Politically Correct - which means we call children, children or by their given names and not nick names and not kids (baby goats) or kiddos or rugrats or curtin climbers or little monkeys or fart blossoms or stinkers or grand-babbies or grandkids - and conform to Geo. Orwell’s 1984 (Not for me) or we show some common sense!
Get a grip folks.
I think it’s time to leave this country. This is one of the most ridiculous stories I have read. Perhaps I’ll move to a nice tropical island and live out my days away from all this propaganda.