Kathleen Parker: op-ed columnist, bigot, racist

Kathleen Parker's photo on her op-ed columns is finally updated to reflect the tenor of her commentary

Reading op-ed columnist Kathleen Parker’s May 19, 2008, column titled “Voters look for ‘full-blooded American” reminded me of the infamous 1935 Nuremberg Laws enacted in Nazi Germany. These laws effectively “denaturalized” German citizens if their racial purity didn’t include four grandparents of “German blood.” German Jews whose families had lived in Germany for centuries were instantly turned into a lesser class of humans in the beginning of the downward spiral which led towards the Holocaust. Persons with one or two Jewish grandparents were called Mischlings, crossbreeds of "mixed blood," even if they were practicing Catholics or Protestants. Six years later they were exterminated along with millions of Jews.

Ms. Parker opines that the presidential campaign and attitudes of West Virginia voters who rejected Barack Obama can be explained by “blood equity” (whatever that means), “heritage” (a decades old euphemism for Southern Jim Crowe racial segregation policies) and “commitment to hard won American values” (which is a fantasy made up by right wing bigots to create divisions among Americans of every race, religion, and national origin).

The column is disgusting even without regard to its Nazi historical antecedents. As a Jew who is a “real American” (at least as the United States Constitution defines citizenship) I can hardly express my disappointment in the Albany Herald for printing this kind of brazen bigotry.