Hate in the Mainstream

"Might be a racist joke but it's still funny."
— Subject line of a Feb. 24 mass E-mail, sent by Burke County (N.C.) School Board member ROB HAIRFIELD, that contained an epithet-laden racist joke and racist photo illustrations and resulted in the board censuring Hairfield

"The U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce is effectively an organization that is interested in … Mexico's export of drugs and illegal aliens to the United States."
—LOU DOBBS, on the March 11 edition of CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight," in defamatory comments for which he later offered a rare apology

"Those crazies in Montana who say, 'We're going to kill ATF agents because the U.N.'s going to take over' — well, they're beginning to have a case."
— FOX News contributor DICK MORRIS criticizing President Obama's policies during the March 31 edition of FOX's "Your World with Neil Cavuto"

"Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese … do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that's easier for Americans to deal with?"
— Texas state Rep. BETTY BROWN (R-Terrell), in an exchange with Organization of Chinese Americans representative Ramey Ko during an April 7 House Elections Committee hearing on voter identity legislation

"I was attempting to explain that unlike Sen. Schumer, I believe in traditional values, like we used to see on 'The Andy Griffith Show.' … I don't have any issue with Jews or Jewish people or whatever the politically correct term they wish to be identified as."
— Arkansas state Sen. KIM HENDREN (R-Gravette), "apologizing" on April 14 for calling U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) "that Jew" after Schumer described conservative Republicans as "hard right."

"[W]e know that that young man was killed in the commitment of robbery. It wasn't because he was gay. … [I]t's really a hoax that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills."
— U.S. Rep. VIRGINIA FOXX (R-N.C.), in an April 29 speech on the House floor against a proposed federal hate crimes law known as the Matthew Shepard Act, suggesting that police, prosecutors, witnesses and jurors were all wrong about Shepard's murder

"Poor, without skills, without language, not shar[ing] our culture, not shar[ing] our hygiene. ... It's millions of leeches from a primitive country, come here to leech off you and, with it, they are ruining the schools, the hospitals, and a lot of life in America."
— JAY SEVERIN, during the April 30 edition of his talk radio show on Boston's WTKK-FM, characterizing Mexican immigrants in a tirade that resulted in his indefinite suspension

"There goes the neighborhood."
— Subject line of a mass E-mail depicting a watermelon patch outside the White House that was forwarded by North Carolina Alcoholic Beverage Commission Chairman DOUGLAS A. FOX, who also wrote "how true" but was forced to resign May 5

Quotes on this page were compiled from media accounts, web pages, e-mail groups and Media Matters for America, a website that monitors the far right.