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2009-11-21

2009-11-18

2009-11-05

Agriculture

Lifestyles

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 12:00 PM

Otto’s ‘redneck’ humor video shows insensitivity

Race relations

Racism was at the heart of a trial featured in a play at the Franklin County Courthouse this weekend, when ACT Ottawa performed a stage version of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Racism also was proffered by some as the reason behind Franklin County’s state Rep. Bill Otto’s recent “Redneck Rap” on YouTube. Otto’s video spends a good deal of time skewering President Obama before he turns to talking of possum, the other dark meat. He says he was making fun of his own redneck heritage.

Otto’s intentions may have been innocent enough, but wouldn’t it make sense for him to think a little harder before he leaps into such endeavors?

Not only does he look like a goof, it reflects on other Kansans and Franklin County residents, too.

Blacks make up about 2.5 percent of the county’s population, according to the latest census. But blacks have lived in the area for more 150 years.

And significant contributions to our society and history have been made.

In the late 1860s, a huge upsurge in the black population occurred in Kansas, near the end of the post-Civil War reconstruction era, in a migration known as the “Exoduster” movement, in which freed southern blacks came to Kansas seeking deliverance from southern racism. Separate but equal churches, schools and more were evident and accepted.

Locally, Elijah Tinnon is one of the best known black men who came to Kansas in this time. He fought,with some success, to integrate Ottawa schools in 1881, more than 75 years before the noted Brown v. Topeka Board of Education case that changed American education.

Eventually, though, “Jim Crow” attitudes prevailed.

The Franklin County Historical Society has information on the immigration efforts in its “People — African American” files.

One would think that, despite the complications of predmoniantly racist attitudes for so many decades, that with such a progressive background as we have in our area — and the more enlightened attitudes of today — that those elected to represent us would be express themselves with more sensitivity and a little less “Redneck” humor.

If Otto feels the need to express himself so flamboyantly on video, perhaps he could produce a positive one encouraging positive race relations, too.

— Jeanny Sharp,

editor and publisher