Gingrich faces tough questions at black church

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich faced tough questions Saturday about his past statements on race and class, making a rare appearance by a Republican primary candidate before a black church — an audience unlikely to vote in South Carolina's Jan. 21 contest.

Standing behind the lectern at Jones Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church, Gingrich was peppered with questions about his assertion that poor children lack work ethic and his criticism of President Barack Obama as a "food-stamp president."

Gingrich may get credit for spending nearly an hour in front of a largely unsupportive crowd. But the event is unlikely to help him win many votes in South Carolina's primary, a contest Gingrich himself has said will be make-or-break for his campaign.

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Blacks made up just 2 percent of those who voted in South Carolina's 2008 Republican primary, according to exit polls.

While the give and take between Gingrich and more than 50 people in the audience was largely respectful, some in the crowd had sharp questions for the former House Speaker. Many centered on Gingrich's remark last month that poor children as young as nine should work at least part time cleaning their schools in order to learn about work.

Gingrich said his comments were misconstrued.

"What I was saying was, in the poorest neighborhoods, if we can find a way to help young people earn some money, we might actually be able to keep the dropout rate down and give people an incentive to come to school," he said.

The explanation little satisfied some in the crowd, including a woman who said Gingrich's words came across "so negatively, like we're not doing everything for our young people."

Gingrich was also asked if he stood by his assertion that Obama is a "food stamp president", a line the Georgia Republican uses often during stump speeches. He responded with a simple, "Yes."

Gingrich is grasping for campaign life in South Carolina after disappointing fourth place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire. Success for Gingrich in the South's first primary will depend largely on his ability to draw support from the state's conservative and evangelical voters.

That made Saturday's appearance at a black church all the more head-scratching, particularly because it was Gingrich's only public appearance of the day in South Carolina.

But Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond said the appearance was a good use of the candidate's time.

"If you're going to lead America, you have to be willing to lead all of America," he said.

The often-combative Gingrich did try to strike a conciliatory tone at times, promising "a very serious outreach to Democrats" in Washington if he were elected president. And he said the forum was appropriately being held around the holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.

"This would be what he would have liked," Gingrich said of the late civil rights leader.

Following the question and answer session, church members prayed over Gingrich and his wife, Callista. The couple then joined the crowd in the church basement for dinner.

[P0STING_AWAY]

by logicnothuff January 15, 2012 1:41 PM EST
Hmmmm, last I saw, Newt was talking about the greatness of the US Constitution and how to ensure the nation's governance is conducted based on the Constitution. He also was part of the Congress of 1994-2000 which shut down Bill Clinton's homosexual military and Hillary Clinton's socialized medicine. So, he looks like a quality guy!!
============================================================
To a cockroach like you, a moldy piece of cheese looks
like a "quality snack".

[alinrodneyvil]

Is't a Newt a type of lizard? Gingrich is just another name for pig.

[bobnjersey]

["If you're going to lead America, you have to be willing to lead all of America," he said.]
--------------------------------------
which is why he's not suited to the presidency ... as he has no idea how 'the other half' lives.

off to tiffany's ... where he'll get his wife another fine piece of glitter.

[RealiteBites]

I hope he faces tough questions everywhere - what a jerk for saying what he did!

[omnibus66]

"If you're going to lead America, you have to be willing to lead all of America," he said.

Lying about and denigrating a significant portion of a population is not leadership. This ignoramus' arrogance is beyond belief.

[involved_indi]

At least he had the courage to speak before a challenging audience. I've never seen Obama speak before anyone that the DNC hadn't planted or at least was in 100% control of. Besides, many black churches in the south have organized programs showing members and the black community how to qualify for and best use federal entitlement programs. To have someone suggest that getting a perpetual handout from the government is holding them back is radical thinking.

[BWB2020]

@logicnothuff

So Bush set up some tokens to soften his image, so what?

Rice and Powell, for example aided and abetted the war criminal in committing genocide, based on the same kinds of lies used against "black" Americans ever since the subject of the abolition of slavery, but now turned against Semites in the middle East.

They obviously missed the point of Harriet B. Stowe's book "Uncle Tom's Cabin" where, in the end, Tom, in exchange for his lifetime of loyalty, was sold three times, and beaten to death by his last "master".

I personally won't be surprised when a similar fate is visited upon them, it is their own choice, and their own fault.

Check any statistics regarding equal pay for equal work, equal promotion for equal seniority, access to business capital, insurance rates for equal circumstance, equal credit rating for equal credit history, police brutality statistics, gerrymandering, (or as the baggers now call it "redistricting"), then try that line about how Bush made anything actually better for "black" people, other than the few direct beneficiaries of the "sat by the door" appointments.

@nearl451

Who says we need any such teaching?

You?

Lizard-boy?

Let me see you, after you have been laid off from your job, and unable to find decent paying work after years of trying, when you arrive at the conclusion that you are more a drain on the family than an asset, where each meal you eat is that much less food for your children.

When you arrive at the point where it is better to let your loved ones do without your burden, and choose to leave, that they might eat, then go read some bagger, given a job just because of his or her lack of suntan, call you "lazy" and "irresponsible".

"Black" families, both single, and both-parent households have always had to work harder and be more responsible than our "white" counterparts in order to survive 400 years of the worst that "whites" can dish out.

This concept of "perpetual victimhood" that baggers keep spewing is nothing more than a refusal to accept the inevitability that we will continue to call out, and resist their continued attempts to keep the disparities in place.

James Brown once sang, "I don't want nobody to give me nothing, open up the door, and I'll get it myself". If you and your ilk quit supporting those who continue to block the doors, as implied in my response to logicnothuff, you will find out very quickly that we don't want your handouts, and don't even want your hand, that we can and will build our own economy.

I don't presume to speak for all, but there are a fair amount of us who have lived long enough to know that racists will never be able to accept the fact that we are just as human as they, and so have no wish to continue pursuing the false dream that was envisioned by Dr. King, especially if it means abandoning the bit of self-identity and unique cultural bonding which we have been able to create for ourselves, just to "be more like" the vermin who have treated us with such hatred for four centuries, and who show no signs of ever evolving to a more enlightened state.

[nearl451]

Although, my word "teaching" was a sarcastic jab at huff's sense of superiority (hence the quotes), you seem to be in a teaching mode yourself.

You didn't read me promoting anything you have projected onto my comment. You may not speak for all, but right now seem to be speaking to someone else, not I. What other connotations have you assumed in my simple refutal of huff (and Gingrich)?

And BTW: Stay out of my conversation with others. They don't pertain to you.

[BWB2020]

@nearl451

I will be the first to admit that I am incorrect, should you show me my error.

But I read, apparently implied in your comment, a sentiment that I find all to often in comments even by those professing to be "progressive", in that they invariably speak of racism in the past tense, as if the cancer was no longer a malady dragging American society backwards, just because the "powers that be" saw fit to allow a brown-skinned president for the first time in our history.

It was clear in your reference to racism as part the feudalistic nature of an earlier America, but was noticeably absent in any reference to the remainder of that feudalism that still poisons society today.

We don't need to remember the "old days" of lynchings, water cannons and police dogs to feel the weight of oppression still on our backs to date, as I described to the other poster, one has only to look at the stats, as well as any of a number of videos showing such occurrences even now.

In fact, I believe that, should you give ear to anyone speaking on the subject, from Louis Farrakhan all the way to Dave Chappelle, you will find that what they speak on is not the "old" racism that "used" to exist, but that which still does exist, and which the media has allowed to be portrayed as something "in the past", thereby dismissing all those who still call it out to battle it as "stuck in the past', or "unable to let go" of this so-called past, or "using victimhood" when in fact we are still victims, and therefore duty-bound to call it out and seek redress.

As for "revenge" I have yet to hear anyone calling for such, even the old Back Panther movement never called for revenge, but only self defense, self education, and self reliance.

[BWB2020]

@newtgingrich

How'd ya guess?

@logicnothuff

Well, I suppose if you believe that advocating war against Semites, simply because they are Arabs isn't racist, advocating systemic harassment against Latinos, and ignoring the causes of the disparity between "blacks" and "whites" simply trying to dismiss it as "laziness", whining about the Chinese, who simply play the numbers game better than you, and allowing such ASPD-afflicted miscreants as Ron Paul, Gingrich, Pat Robertson, David duke, Rush, Beck, and the rest if the idiots of such ilk to claim to be the voice of your agenda, without a peep of disclaimer from your party isn't racist, then I can see your point.

However, since all the above do exist, and are symptomatic of a hard-wired predisposition to racism, your point is non-existent.

@slownewsday2012

I seem to remember more than one occasion where I challenged you to prove a single posting of mine as being racist, you haven't even once been up to the challenge.

Go play in the wading pool, you're in over your head here.

[BWB2020]

"...What I was saying was, in the poorest neighborhoods, if we can find a way to help young people earn some money, we might actually be able to keep the dropout rate down and give people an incentive to come to school..."

But what he implies is that their parents, who might be the janitors at those schools, should lose the only legal means available to them to put food on the kids table, so that their own underage kids can replace them at substandard wages.

So Lizard spew, what happens to those parents, whose jobs would be lost to below living-wage labor from their own children, eh?

Oh yeah, the GOP final solution, just let them die off, because they are "lazy".

[tryreading]

Exactly. I'm sure this idea does sound logical to him, as he has no idea what the lives of the poor are really like. Poor children, as with all children, should have an incentive to go to school for the sake of learning and bettering themselves, not so they can have a $5/hr job. I have no issue with children having jobs or learning to earn what they have. I encourage it with my own kids. But they should have "kid" jobs (shoveling, babysitting, etc.) not taking the jobs of their parents or their friends' parents.

[DebbieCorona]

I commend Newt for going to face an obvious crowd that dislike him. I would dare for Romeny to face the same crowd. LDS didn't allow blacks in until the 1970's.

[kbbpll]

Candidate Blowhard's campaign will be saved by the black vote!