Sen. Sheldon Whitehousse (D-RI) on Wednesday apologized for failing to acknowledge the lack of diversity of an exclusive beach club in Newport, Rhode Island, amid furor over his remarks last week that seemed to confirm a local reporter’s characterization of the club as “all-white.”
People talk about folks being “Epsteined”
W/r/t Whitehouse…let’s not “Franken” this guy
If Whitehouse leaving his exclusive club would change policing in this country, I’d be at his house protesting until he left it. If he leaves the club, will it end systemic racism, housing discrimination or disparities in loans or sentencing?
If the media looked at club memberships of the rest of the Senators, I’m certain they will find others with memberships to clubs that absolutely have discriminatory membership policies- especially for those Senators that voted against the Jan 6th Commission and for filibustering S1 and other legislation on the floor right now.
BTW, voting for making Juneteenth a federal holiday doesn’t do anything to deal with voter suppression, police brutality or (ironically) anti-lynching legislation.
“Democrats In Diversity Disarray!”
Yeah, it’s Dems who have a diversity problem…
Some of the members do sport deep tans.
One thing I learned when I moved to the Northeast- most beaches are not public property. If you don’t live in town (or neighborhood), you have to pay to go to the beach, or have to be a guest of residents to go on the beach. When I live, there’s literally a rope that divides the public beach connected to a state park, and the private beach for the residents of of a neighborhood. Even as a town resident, I can’t use the neighborhood beach! Many of these beaches have beach or boat clubs.
This outrage is a serious nothing burger.
The only thing scandalous about this affair is Whitehouse being held accountable for the club’s lack of diversity.
African Americans account for 7% of the population of Rhode Island. Not a big population to draw sailing enthusiasts from.
The real scandal is that the person who engineered this drive by hasn’t been pilloried.
Speaking of Franken, Al is on tour this summer and fall. It’s billed as “The Only Former U.S. Senator Currently on Tour Tour”.
I’d first check the diversity of all their places of worship.
Satanic cults are noteworthy for being all inclusive.
Satan: “A soul is a soul.”
This is a stupid non-story. People need to chill with these shaming campaigns.
Actually, that would disqualify most of the GQP right off the bat.
Exactly. And Whitehouse, jeez, even his name screams non-diversity, should resign from the Senate immediately for something or other.
As opposed to just saying there’s no discrimination, and look at that lying traitorous fuck McConnell and his associations.
Until I had a chance to sit and read the article, I was very confused on this Biden scandal.
Actually GQP already made a deal with the devil, he’s just collecting their bodies, they had already given Satan their souls.
And now for a good gottcha:
Well said. I’m sure whitehouse’s club is happy to accept any pleasant person with the means to summer in Newport (which hasn’t been known for its affordable housing since the Vanderbilts had a small summer place).
While exclusionary informal business networks contribute to the lack of diversity in senior management roles and ability for black businesses to win new clients, in this case the root problem seems to be not enough black people who are rich enough to join a yacht club. There are other policies we need to promote to fix that.
Jeez, I thought the title meant White House.
ME too!
would Sen. Whitehouse be too much in the headline?
We went to the Newport Jazz Fest a couple of years ago, and yeah, you need hella means to live in Newport (proper) with a decent-sized boat. BTW, there are a ton of yacht and boat clubs around Newport and the Rhode Island coast.
ABSOLUTELY! Again, I see this as a non-issue, and I don’t think he needs to apologize for being a member. I think we have much bigger issues to tackle, and the GOP is standing in the way. If they want to jump on this, they should be prepared to have their resistance to vote on real issues thrown in their faces.