Schwarzenegger aide Margaret Fortune, flanked by Pastor Cedric Shelby and Sacramento NAACP President Betty Williams, came under fire at St. Andrews African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Posted on 10/18/2006 8:02:54 AM PDT by SmithL
Several dozen Sacramento-area African American leaders, expecting to meet with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday, instead had a high-voltage exchange with the staff member sent in the governor's place.
The event, designed to allow local pastors and leaders to question both gubernatorial candidates, turned into an emotional confrontation with Margaret Fortune, an African American educator from Sacramento.
Fortune, an assistant secretary of education under Democratic Gov. Gray Davis and now senior adviser to Schwarzenegger, was quickly reduced to tears.
The gathering at St. Andrews African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Sacramento was organized by the nonpartisan group Associated Ministers Empowering The Neighborhood, or AMEN, representing 40 pastors with 10,000 congregants.
"We've been disrespected too long," fumed Pastor Cedric Shelby, president of the group, at Schwarzenegger's absence. "We'll be disrespected time and time again until we send a message that we're not going to take this anymore."
Schwarzenegger's Democratic challenger, state Treasurer Phil Angelides, did show up and took the opportunity to attack the governor.
Angelides charged that Schwarzenegger once supported South Africa's apartheid policies. Angelides claimed that while he was helping black candidates get elected during the 1970s and '80s, Schwarzenegger "was allegedly defending apartheid in South Africa."
According to the Angelides campaign, the allegation was based on media interviews with an African American bodybuilder buddy of Schwarzenegger's, Rick Wayne, who recalled a young Schwarzenegger making pro-apartheid remarks.
Wayne also said, however, that he does not believe Schwarzenegger is racist.
In a call to The Bee, Katie Levinson, communications director for Schwarzenegger's re-election campaign, called the allegation dirty politics.
"Phil Angelides is a candidate behind by double digits in the polls, his campaign is desperate and flailing, and today's attack is baseless and further evidence he will say and do anything to try and gain traction," Levinson said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Can't we all just get along?
African American???
I wonder when she moved here from Africa????????
I wonder what country in Africa she is from?
I wonder when she will get her citizenship and become an AMERICAN!?!?!??
...sounds like some big fat whining ego's need to be massaged.
Or until your community makes a concerted effort to do something worthy of respect instead of pointing the finger of blame at big, bad Whitey, blaming racism, slavery, etc for all your shortcomings and hanging out waiting for reparations windfalls..
Or, perhaps she's a Zimbabwean-American. It's difficult to say without more information.
Says it all...
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
What's with this....Arnoh showing disrespect to a group of black preachers who called him every name in the book and really expect him to kiss their pinky fingers? Screw them and the horse they rode in. They showed their "true colors" by their actions, so who really cares what they think? I sure don't.
So they retaliate to "disrepect" by making a woman who is trying to work with them cry.
Some Christians they are (NOT).
There is NO excuse for this treatment of her. NONE. And they moan about being "disrepected"?
Disgraceful, pompous bastards.
* Rick Wayne is apparently from St. Lucia, a Caribbean island
"Disrespect" is not a verb.
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