Blood and butts: Sarah, Paul and Cathie

Author’s note: This gets a tad personal. I love both Maine and New York City, and my Jewish identity remains strong.

Sounds like a new folk-singing trio: Sarah, Paul and Cathie. At best, they are the anti-Peter, Paul and Mary.

In the space of a few days, the Jewish people, African-Americans and just about every other ethnic group were insulted, respectively, by a former Alaska governor, the new governor of Maine and the new chancellor of New York City’s schools.

You may recall that the former Alaska governor - do I really need to spell out who she is? - accused her critics of committing a “blood libel” when they tied violent rhetoric to the shooting rampage in Tucson that left six dead and seriously injured U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Some Jews, including this writer, gave her the benefit of the doubt that she was not aware of the “blood libel’s” anti-Semitic roots.

Palin was given a second chance to explain herself, but she dug her hole deeper when she was interviewed Monday night, Jan. 18, by Sarah-friendly Sean Hannity of Fox News. Her words: “Blood libel obviously means being falsely accused of having blood on your hands and in this case…that’s exactly what was going on,” as quoted in USA Today.

Blood libel authoritatively, not obviously, means being falsely accused of having blood in one’s matzah for the Jewish holiday of Passover. From medieval times onward, Christians accused Jews of killing Christian children and using their blood to make matzah, which is unleavened bread. Palin might have learned of this, but she was still dense enough to universalize this accusation.

As the Martin Luther King Jr. commemoration approached, leaders of the N.A.A.C.P. in Maine complained to The Portland Press Herald that Gov. Paul LePage turned down several invitations from them, prompting them to worry if he cared about their concerns. African-Americans comprise 1.2 percent of the 1.3 million people who live in Maine, and the N.A.A.C.P. is no radical organization; the organization has been criticized as too passive.

As The New York Times reported, LePage claimed he had scheduling conflicts on the King holiday, Monday, July 17, saying, “The fact of the matter is there’s only so many hours in a day, so many hours in a week, and so much that you can do.”

When a reporter for WGME-TV asked about the apparent pattern of his slights to the group, LePage responded, “Tell them to kiss my butt. If they want to play the race card, come to dinner; my son will talk to them.” LePage has an adopted son from Jamaica.

LePage worsened the situation when his spokesman, Dan Demeritt, released this statement: “This is about a special interest group taking issue with the governor for not making time for them and the governor dismissing their complaints in the direct manner people have come to expect from Paul LePage.”

Scheduling conflicts are understandable, but LePage could have delegated someone to meet with N.A.A.C.P. leaders. For that matter, there are departments that deal with issues of concern to the N.A.A.C.P., so he could have directed a department head to undertake the detail work on those issues.

Which brings us to Waterville, Me., 200 miles north of Boston. It was home to former Sens. George Mitchell and the late Edmund Muskie, both highly respected Democrats. LePage was mayor of Waterville before being elected governor last November with 38 percent of the vote, as a Republican. The two other major candidates, both moderate to liberal politicians, received a combined total of 56 percent of the vote. The second highest vote-getter received 37 percent of the votes.

If Maine had runoff elections, LePage would still be mayor of Waterville and the N.A.A.C.P. would probably have been treated with respect by the runoff winner.

LePage took steps to make up for his crude conduct. He promised to meet with N.A.A.C.P. leaders in the future and attended a commemoration breakfast for King in Waterville on Jan. 17. It should go without saying that the N.A.A.C.P. did not deserve this abuse in the first place.

Cathie Black, the new schools chancellor for New York City, wondered aloud at a task force meeting on overcrowding: “Could we just have birth control for a while? It would really help us.”

Those already familiar with Black might concede she is new and was thrust into the job with no experience in education. She attended Catholic schools in the Midwest and her children went to a boarding school…in Connecticut. Mayor Michael Bloomberg was assailed for appointing her; Bloomy was first elected mayor as a Republican and later switched to independent.

Yet one hardly needs experience in the educational field to avoid making grossly insensitive remarks. Common sense would go a long way in that direction.

In a New York Daily News account, Councilman Charles Barron, a Brooklyn Democrat, suggested the obvious - that her joke has racist overtones. The school population teems with children of many races, religions and nationalities, and some of these groups are known for producing large families. We’re not sitting in judgment of any reputed patterns. However, here is a high-income white woman weighing in on the sexual habits of the unwashed native population.

Councilwoman Letitia James, also a Brooklyn Democrat, noted, “It implies that the birth rate is the only contributor to the overcrowding in schools; not the lack of funding for public school education and the continual closure of schools.”

Natalie Ravitz, a spokeswoman for Black, told the News, “She regrets if she left a different impression by making an off-handed joke in the course of that conversation.”

If it is any consolation, Black need not apologize to Orthodox Jews. They usually send their sizeable broods to private Yeshiva schools.