Thursday, December 15, 2011

Abdul Makes Sexist Slur Against Kennedy And Nobody Notices

I'm not sure what Melina Kennedy did to Abdul Hakim-Shabazz to get on his bad side, but he's had it out for her pretty much since the day he slipped into town from Springfield, Illinois. His attacks against her when she ran for county prosecutor were sometimes over the top. He falsely accused her of letting her law license lapse when she went actually took it to inactive status after giving birth to her twins. He used his former IndyUndercover blog to publish all sorts of venomous attacks against her, which typically began by referring to her as "Meliar", implying that she was not capable of telling the truth. During her unsuccessful mayoral campaign this year, he similarly attacked her relentlessly. After being fired from his radio talk show, Abdul has taken up a monthly column for the Indianapolis Star for which he's paid about $20. His latest column, mislabeled "Forget battle scars, move on," contains a particularly sexist slur against Kennedy. He writes:

As much as I knew she would lose on the issues, I didn't take into account just how impersonable Kennedy was as a candidate. The analogy I used was that she reminded me of the girl you dated in college who was miserable at a party. While you had a good time, she was there with her arms folded, ready to go home. She never connected with the voters.
I guess I'm not surprised to see Abdul talk down about Melina in that fashion given his past expressions about her. It's in keeping with his general view of women. I am a bit surprised though that this less than subtle sexist slur made it by Dennis Ryerson's politically correct editors. I'm even more surprised that no Democrats have apparently saw fit to comment on it or bother coming to Melina's defense. I can't claim to know Melina well, but Abdul's characterization of her as some miserable stick in the mud who would make a bad date could not be further from the truth based on my personal observations of her. I've always found her to be a very professional and personable person who is very good at remembering people's names. Judging her performance as a candidate by how she would perform on a date seems beneath appropriate civil discourse for your paid columnists, even if you are only paying him $20.

5 comments:

  1. Melina is actually very personable one on one. Any like you said, she does remember your name and greets you in a very friendly manner (and almost all of my interactions with her were prior to her running for office).

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  2. Kennedy lost on the issues? Her problem was she didn't want to take Ballard on on the issues. She never went after Ballard for the Pacers deal, the parking meter deal, the Broad Ripple parking garage, and all the other giveaways. She had tons of ammunition to fire against Ballard and didn't do it.

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  3. No disagreement there, Paul, but that wasn't the point of my post.

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  4. Abdul has so trivialized himself with his unfounded claims that not many people pay any attention to him anymore.

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  5. Sorry, Gary, I was responding in your thread to Abdul's other ridiculous statement.

    I'm not sure anyone is particularly surprised by his sexist comment. But to do it in print, that's a surprise.

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