REP. O’BRIEN: Well she wasn’t black, she wasn’t Asian, and she had the olive complexion.

Dude, my neighbor is illegal.

Hell, I think half my family is illegal…

Dammit, then so am I.
Where’s my darned keffiyeh?

Come to think of it, I’m actually the only white family in this 100+ unit apartment complex. And there are only a couple of black families. A couple of Asian families.

Wait a second, most Indian people are olive-complected and not black or Asian. Does this make them illegal, too?!?

Makes me want to yell “you idiot, she has brown skin. No one is the color of an olive.” The young woman could have been Native American. Let’s see Rep. O’Brien top that.

She could’ve been an Inuit… from Sarah Palin’s Alaska™

The Thugs have gathered what’s left of the old confederacy. A living museum.

Apparently they’re attracted to hatred and money.

On a more serious note, how is it that an elected official is allowed to make statements like this in the chamber of a state government without repercussions?

If I said something like this at work I’d lose my job.

Well, it is Kansas after all.

Yes, but you can be fired at any time, not just on one special day every few years.

I haz a sad :(

I think olive-skinned folks are terrific. Now, olives themselves, I’m not so crazy about. I always give mine to my wife…

Who’s illegal here, gringo?

Rep. O’Brian should come down to nearly neighbor state NM. We’re all illegal here!

Aloha, Eli…! Cenk discussed this on his show today… He had a green olive and a black olive, juxataposed on either side of him and asked; ‘Do I look like I’m Olive complexioned…?’ ;-)

Our new Republican Governor (who Rep. O’Brian wouldn’t let into Kansas) reversed long-standing sanctuary status, law can now ask immigration status. Her friends just introduced a bill requiring photo ID to vote.

That, and she is gutting environmental rules, abolishing boards and trying to undo NM Film industry subsidies (jobs, anyone?).

Guess we are in Kansas, anymore!

My mother was part Native American (not what they called it) and had beautiful “olive skin”, as they say. I dare that dingbat to call my mother illegal. Sounds like the Rep thinks she has some sort of super-natural powers.

Aloha, CTut…!

You should have seen this post before I listened to the audio clip with that additional background about the lack of ID. I was marveling at O’Brien’s amazing Sherlock Holmes deductive skills.

For sure, maybe she should be up there with the FBI or other special people.

When I see women with that beautiful brown skin I am so envious. Just plain vanilla looks sorta washed out.

Or helping INS round up people for deportation.

Wow, me too. And I am pasty white and cook in very little sun (that I am now paying for.)

Sounds like her thing, doesn’t it?

*heh* You’d be mighty envious in these here parts, M’dear…! ;-)

CTuttle,

In Hawaii, my friends called me ‘shark bait.’ I’m sure you get the ref. When I first got there, I remember asking a Samoan friend at school what’s a ‘haole’ (I pronounced it: ‘hole’), and he said, ‘You.’ I surfed on his back at Sandy Beach. Many laffs, good times.

Next time ya see him, call him a ‘Soli’(Sooo-lay)…! ;-)

RevBev,

Good grief, I am paying the price, too. I am Irish blue-white. Never meant for the tropical sun. I loved it too much, I’m afraid, and now I pay the price. I never tanned, only burned and freckled. Yikes. In San Francisco when I go out, even on gorgeous days, I gotta be fairly covered from the sun. Not happy about that.

From the first link:

…O’Brien counters that she’s been told she’s “got olive complexion” and that she’s not going to apologize until she’s “had time to think.”

IN, 5,4,3,2,1: “You guys, I was kidding.”

Somehow the Republithugs seem to be regressing and upping the proverbial ante on their stupidity. Where will this visceral hatred stop? Just with “illegals”? What other group of “undesirable” Americans will the right try to actively kick out of this country?

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ELI!! You do the bestest of stories.
Oh, good grief. Some one got a needle and thread for that woman?
That’s not violent, is it?
When I wanted to apply for financial aid for college, in the 70′s, I was the only white chick in the room. So what? Sad to say, it’s not a new issue.

DEMI!!

Honey!!!! (Dude – hee hee)
PS – Thanks for the glazed fruit.

I read the story about this today. The lady strikes me as someone who hangs at the country club.

O’Brien comes from an area in rural Kansas outside Kansas City KS, and the constituents of her district are very, very pale in complexion (pdf). Interestingly, the county next door, in which the community college her son attends, is a place where the local residents are . . . how shall we put this? . . . more olive-like in their pigmentation (pdf).

Unbelievable, even for Kansas.

No — no rich country clubs in her district. She’s in a very white, rather poor rural district, far from the country club set. It also sees itself as far from the race problems of urban areas like KCK to the east and Topeka to the west.

Well, this is Bleeding Kansas… Has she got her redlegs on? Prolly thinks she’s a jawhawker and all “olives” are mere mortals.

Here’s my somewhat impertinent take: people who yap about people of color reaping the benefits that our society has to offer are people who have a hard time believing that people of color can achieve anything on their own merits. Racists, in other words. The people who yap loudest are themselves low-performance slackers with bloated senses of entitlement.

I notice on her website that she is buddies with Kris Kobach.

ELI!
No wonder Republicans think Obama isn’t a citizen. He has a black olive complexion.

MARGARET!

Exactly.

Another macaca moment? Maybe. Unless Kansans are becoming proudly Oklahoman these days.

Oddly enough, the ThinkProgress photo caption appears to agree with you…

LMAO! That went right past me earlier. Good catch.

olive yer bitches Arby long to us.

On a more serious note, how is it that an elected official is allowed to make statements like this in the chamber of a state government without repercussions?

Governement officials generally have blanket liability for what they say in official forums on official business. Interestingly, the same applies to citizens who appear before legislative bodies during public comment on the issue being discussed.

If you go to the UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico, which I recommend doing, you will see that all the alien dolls for sale in the gift shop have green complexions. More kelly green than olive green, but there you go. Scary. Illegal.

well,

then there’s the comments on immigration from our side, as bob sumerby would remind us.

take this recent post by fdl editor rayne:

http://my.firedoglake.com/rayne/2011/02/13/kentucky-employers-claim-they-cant-find-workers-must-hire-illegal-immigrants/#comments

pay special attention to the comments.

This is the second bat-crazy comment/thought/fight for legislation I have heard from Kansas in 2 days.

Surrender Dorthy!

Now! Before it is too late!

Aside from the fact that the term “olive-skinned” is somewhat hard to quantify, isn’t it the common descriptive term of most people of Mediterranean origin or descent? Southern Spain, Southern France, Italy, Greece, Turkish, Cypriot, Lebanese, Israeli, Egyptian, Moroccan, Algerian, etc?

And isn’t it often used in a positive manner? I recall more than a few Jewish girls on JDATE (back in the days when I used it) referring to themselves as “olive-complected” – I know I did. Its what happens when people of whitish origin get more sun than the Northern European whitish people get.

So, is this an indication of things to come?

First they came for the Black people,
Then they came for the Hispanic people,
Then they came for the Southern Europeans
Then they came for the Israelis
Then they came for the Anglo-Saxons with too much Saxon
Then they came for the Anglos who spent too much time south of the Channel and got a tan in Southern France…

(that was sarcasm, in case anyone has a flamethrower ready to fire first and think later…)

I was at a party once when someone there mentioned that they had a problem with indian casinoes. She felt that it was unfair that native americans could run their own casinoes and others in the community couldn’t. She complained that the native americans in the area were taking money away from hard-working (white) americans and not giving anything back to the community (never mind the school scholarships, beautification projects and wonderful library our local tribe gave our community).

Because I am native american, my husband is fairly sensitive to this topic. He responded that, in addition to tribal sovereignty allowing for these exceptions, the US government’s history of dealing with native peoples should also be considered. The government has, at various times, broken multiple treaties, taken indian land, marched indians at gunpoint halfway across the continent in the middle of winter, gave indians smallpox-infected blankets in the hopes that the problem would take care of itself, and abducted their children. Perhaps a few reparations for this treatment shouldn’t be considered unreasonable.

“Why should we feel responsible for that? They weren’t technically americans yet”, was her response.

Sigh.

the little bit of pimento sticking out of the top of somebody’s head is a surer sign, but is only present in a subset of olives.

The green olives are extraterrestrial.

Deport Boehner!