`Field Hand' Comment Rattles GOP

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TAMPA - Still reeling from former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's fall from grace this month, Republicans in Tampa are trying to keep racial tensions from boiling to the surface.

Some already have. One member of the county's Republican executive committee called a black committee member a ``field hand'' after last week's party elections.

Eric Brown, president of the Tampa Bay Black Republican Club, sought an executive post with the Hillsborough County GOP. He was part of a slate of candidates hoping to sweep out longtime Chairwoman Margie Kincaid and the rest of the executive board.

But after nearly two hours of heated debate during the meeting Dec. 17, Brown was ruled ineligible to run because he had changed precincts and had not filed the proper paperwork.

The next day, committee member Joe Fiasco Jr. left the following message on Brown's voice mail:

``I called to tell you that your conduct last night was very unbecoming,'' Fiasco said. ``It was discussed by the senior members of the committee and we have decided that your manners were that of a field hand. We will oppose you and everything you do from now on.''

Brown said he was shocked, especially because of the scrutiny over Lott's comments that seemed to endorse segregation.

``To him, there were only two field hands in the room that night - me and Joe Robinson,'' Brown said.

-- Anonymous, December 28, 2002

Answers

Robinson, a city council candidate who is vice president of the Black Republican Club, initially was upset over the comment. But he later criticized Brown for ``stirring up the pot.''

Brown also told Kincaid about the phone call, but she dismissed it as ``much ado about nothing.''

``I was a farm hand during the Depression,'' she said. ``I didn't think it was a racial slur. I think they ought to just let it go.''

Fiasco and his wife, Nancy, said Brown was blowing the comment out of proportion. He said his use of ``field hand'' meant someone uneducated and uncivilized.

``Look it up in the dictionary,'' he said. ``There's nothing racist about it. He doesn't even speak the English language. He's just trying to make a big thing out of nothing. There's nothing wrong with what was said.''

Fiasco, when told that Webster's New World College Dictionary defines ``field hand'' as ``a plantation slave who worked in the fields,'' said he uses an older dictionary that doesn't contain that definition.

Fiasco did apologize to Brown, who still is considering filing a formal complaint about the comment.

``If he doesn't, I will,'' said Al Higginbotham, another committee member who challenged Kincaid for the chairmanship. ``That comment is racist, and there's no two ways about it. This attitude is beyond its time. There's no room for it at any level of either party.''

Brown, who co-chaired Gov. Jeb Bush's re-election committee in Hillsborough, said he hopes to run for a leadership post in the future.

-- Anonymous, December 28, 2002


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