When Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., told a friendly crowd that some of his fellow members of Congress associated with the Tea Party wanted him lynched, he didn’t actually mean it, he told the Washington Examiner today.
Carson’s remarks at a Congressional Black Caucus job fair had clearly attributed murderous desires to unnamed conservative colleagues, with the explicit racial emphasis as he invoked Jim Crow laws:
This afternoon, the Examiner caught up with Carson and asked him which of his colleagues in Congress wanted to see him “hanging on a tree.” Carson said that he was only figuratively accusing his colleagues of Jim Crow racism and homicidal ideation. “That wasn’t the intent, ” Carson said. “I was speaking figuratively but I was speaking to a mentality that I see that seeks to hurt poor working class people across the racial spectrum.”
