-By Warner Todd Huston
A Jefferson County, Alabama man got a shock after he emailed a local State Representative when instead of a form reply, or a short, meaningless message, the state representative sent him a vile rant filled with taunts and race-tinged epithets.
When Jefferson County resident Eddie Maxwell sent an email to Alabama’s House members urging them to reject any new gun control measures, State Rep. Joe Mitchell (D, Mobile) responded with a virulent personal attack.
Using his official state government email account, Rep. Mitchell sent back a tirade that raised eyebrows across the Yellowhammer State this week. In the email, Mitchell essentially called Mr. Maxwell a slave owner, and followed that with a string of name-calling and threats of violence against him and those like him.
“Your folk never used all this sheit to protect my folk from your slave-holding, murdering, adulterous, baby-raping, incestuous, snaggle-toothed, backward-a**ed, inbreed, imported criminal-minded kin folk,” Rep, Mitchell wrote in the return email. [Spelling as in original]
Mitchell went on to rant that he will use Maxwell’s message to show why his constituents should “stock up on spare parts, munitions and the like,” in an obvious allusion to using the Second Amendment to protect themselves from white people like Maxwell.
It should be noted that emailer Maxwell is just a private citizen and Mitchell is the one in a position of power.
Maxwell told local media that he was “surprised at the racial tones” at the politician’s email reply.
Maxwell also noted that this was his first reply from the State Rep. and that he’d never had any contact directly with Rep. Mitchell in the past.
After the exchange became public, at least two Alabama House members emailed Maxwell to apologize for their colleague and to tell him they supported his pro-Second Amendment stance.
“It just makes me more determined that we the people need to stay involved,” Maxwell said in a telephone interview with Alabama Media Group. “It’s up to us as citizens to watch our government.”
Maxwell also stated that he feels that Rep. Mitchell needs to answer for his tirade. “I think (Mitchell) needs to be called in to face his actions. I think he at least needs to be questioned about it.”
Initially, Rep. Mitchell refused to comment about the virulent email exchange, but later he told the media he has nothing to apologize for.
Rep. Mitchell claims he supports gun rights saying, “if my kin folk 400 years ago had guns, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” He also said that, “anything that I have said that was taken as racist is a misconception.”
“If I put myself in their place I can see the context, but how many times has anyone put themselves in my place?” Mitchell asked. “I don’t have an apology, I just ask (Maxwell) to come up and look at the wall I have to face every day and know that everybody on that wall had slaves and benefited from it.”
As seen in this exchange and in his subsequent comments, despite his claims he isn’t all about about race, Rep. Mitchell is the only one constantly bringing race into the discussion.
Mitchell provided the media with copies of the emails he sent and received.
From: Eddie Maxwell
Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2013 10:54 PM
To: (all members of state legislature)
Subject: Gun Control and our Constitutions
Can the officers of our state government change our constitution when the change is forbidden by the people? The Supreme Court of Alabama has ruled that it cannot in an opinion dealing with another matter where change is forbidden. You have sworn to support our constitution. You have defined a violation of an oath in an official proceeding as a class C felony (C.O.A. Section 13A-10-101 Perjury in the first degree).
Do not violate your oath of office by introducing additional gun control bills or by allowing those already enacted to remain in the body of our laws.
*****
From: Representative Joseph Mitchell
Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2013 11:59 PM
To: Eddie Maxwell
cc: (all members)
Subject: Re: Gun Control and our Constitutions
Hey man. You have used the word ‘except’ when I think you mean somethin’ else.
Hey man. Your folk never used all this sheit to protect my folk from your slave-holding, murdering, adulterous, baby-raping, incestuous, snaggle-toothed, backward-a**ed, inbreed, imported criminal-minded kin folk. You can keep sending me stuff like you have however because it helps me explain to my constituents why they should protect that 2nd amendment thing AFTER we finish stocking up on spare parts, munitions and the like.
Bring it. As one of my friends in the Alabama Senate suggested – “BRING IT!!!!”
JOSEPHm, a prepper (’70-’13)
Mobile County
*****
From: Eddie Maxwell
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2013 2:23 PM
To: Representative Joseph Mitchell
cc: (all members)
Subject: Re: Gun Control and our Constitutions
Rep. Mitchell and other members of the Legislature of Alabama,
That’s not the type of reply I expect to receive from a state legislator. The lack of response to your racist comments from your fellow members speaks volumes about the state of our legislature as a whole.
I’m not a racist and I find your reply to be especially offensive considering the position you hold.
My parents and grandparents taught me to love God and my fellow man as myself. My father was threatened by members of his church back in 1954 for inviting a black family to attend the church he pastored.
My father-in-law was threatened when he hired a young negro man to work in his shop back in 1968 in a community where several neighbors were members of the Ku Klux Klan. He didn’t allow those threats to keep him from treating people of all races equally.
In 1969, I was a draftee in the US Army and bunked with a young negro man named Earl Shinholster at Fort Benning. Earl later became a prominent leader of the NAACP back home in Georgia after serving with me in the Army. When I received numerous racist threats from negroes who knew I lived near Birmingham, Earl warned me of the knives they carried and cautioned me to be more careful around them. Earl had been watching me and he had come to know and respect me for my Christian values. Earl and I became friends and he helped me get through some tough times there.
Racism is not exclusive to my own people. I learned that before 1955. It is just as ugly now as it was then, regardless of the race of the person who is consumed by it.
I love my country and my state, and I vowed to support and defend our constitutions. I expect you and all of our representative to do the same.
Sincerely,
Eddie Maxwell
*****
From: Patricia Todd
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2013 4:41 PM
To: Eddie Maxwell
Cc: (all members)
Subject: Re: Gun Control and our Constitutions
Mr. Maxwell:
I am Patricia Todd, a member of the house. I just received this chain of emails and wanted to let you know that I am with you on the gun issue and am saddened by the tone of my colleagues email. All of us have suffered from the racism of the past and I thank you for your civic and thoughtful response.
We all have different life experience that shapes our values. I pray that we can all respect, and, celebrate, our differences. That is what make America the greatest country on earth, scars and all.
This member hears you loud and clear.
From: Representative Joseph Mitchell
Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2013 5:09 PM
*****
To: Eddie Maxwell
cc: (all members)
Subject: Re: Gun Control and our Constitutions
Eddie. I grew up in Albany Ga. I was a military brat for most of my youth. Air Jump Master and DI USMC. Because I preference my issues with the values that I learned in ‘the heat of battle’ during the mid-fifties through the ‘70’s and into today might tell you what and who I am. I find no need to define it or explain it to you because you can identify with the threats of reprisals against your folk for helping somebody of African Descent. I know ol’ Ft. Benning and Columbus like the palm of my hand.
Where were you during the Albany Movement? Oh…. You shoulda been there. I am certain that your experiences through how your kin folk ‘helped’ colored folk would have helped us a lot when we were bombed in Albany, Leesburg, Newton and Sylvester.
I apologize for the restless nights your folk endured out of fear of the Klan. At least as they stood on the sidewalk watching my cousins and me get beat up by some of your neighbors they were able to push you out into the street to physically intervene. They did do that didn’t they? Oh …. Well, I rear where you were one of the first to integrate the all-colored school to prove your parents point.
Do you that your fathers ‘black’ friend was unable to get FHA benefits? Knowing about those knives and stuff were of benefit but did you know that colored military typically carried knives to protect themselves from folk who looked like your father? Historically, violence on Black folk was committed by White folk. It’s a fact but is it ‘racist?’ It is ‘racial.’ I had seven uncles and three aunts who served in three different ‘encounters. My father was Regular Army.
Eddie, a person without the power to exercise a threat cannot be a racist because he or she will be eliminated. A person who can, by merely stepping back on the sidewalk’ ore being quiet can support racism and benefit from the ‘first hired,’ affirmative action, preferential treatment fostered by systemic racism and bigotry.
It is unlikely that I, through sharing my many experiences on the receiving end, will convince you of your errors. For that matter, you will never convince me that our discomforts were comparable. Let the next generations resolve this continuing story.
Lock and load.
jmitchell
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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