Italian Demagogue Offers Poor Excuse for Racist Slur

     Cecile Kyenge is Italy's first national government minister who is black, and it seems that much of Italy is passing through a a phase a bit reminiscent of the United States during the mid-1950's.  Kyenge was born in the Congo and moved to Italy 30 years ago.  A key Italian politician has called her a "dirty black monkey," and another big wig said she looks like an orangutan.  Another said that Kyenge wanted to "force tribal conditions" on Italy and create a "bongo bongo" government, adding that "Africa has not produced great genes."  At a recent rally, someone threw a banana at her.

     More recently, a deputy mayor named Cristiano (yes, the name means Christian) Za Garibaldi said that he was "unlikely to meet her" because he doesn't "hang out at night on the Retilineo di Ceriale," a road noted for prostitutes, many of whom were black.   Za Garibaldi hasn't explained how he came by this bit of trivia about the street in question.

     Now for the excuse: Za Garibaldi admitted that the remark was "in bad taste and offensive," but then he gave the excuse that he was under stress from having to pay Italy's high taxes.  If stress does that sort of thing to him, we can take some consolation that he's not a New York City cab driver.  (To see the cab driver story and read the cabby's excuse, click here.)