Illinois' NOW president calls for Jones' resignation after 'Uncle Tom' remark
(Mark Bieganski/For the Sun-Times/AP)
DENVER — The chief of Illinois’ National Organization for Women chapter today called on Barack Obama’s “political godfather” to resign immediately from the Illinois state Senate for calling an African-American Hillary Clinton delegate an “Uncle Tom.”
“That was a pretty horrible comment,” said Illinois NOW president Bonnie Grabenhofer, also a Clinton delegate, who issued the demand for Senate President Emil Jones’ resignation.
Feminists who make up the Illinois Clinton delegate contingent at the Democratic National Convention were outraged to learn of today’s exclusive Chicago Sun-Times report about Clinton delegate Delmarie Cobb’s accusation that Jones directed the racially loaded slur at her.
The flap comes at a particularly sensitive time for the Obama campaign, which is slumping in national polls and has struggled to bring Clinton delegates across the country into the fold.
“I’ve never heard anything as awful or as sexist or as racist as to call her that for supporting Hillary,” said Clinton delegate Gay Bruhn, another NOW member in Illinois who called for a public apology from Jones.
The Senate president added today to his version of what happened, saying he called Cobb a “doubting Thomas,” not an “Uncle Tom” in a Saturday night exchange in the lobby of the Denver hotel where the Illinois delegation is staying. Jones did not offer up that explanation when confronted by the Sun-Times late Sunday.
“She walked away, and I said, ‘All you doubting Thomases got to get on board.’”
Jones said Cobb turned around and demanded to know what he called her.
“I said, ‘No, that’s not so.’ And I thought, you know, it was all over with, you know? She caught the last word of what I said. You know, people make mistakes,” Jones said.
Jones, who plans to retire from his Senate post in January, made clear he has no intentions of stepping down early or apologizing to Cobb and the Clinton delegation.
“I cannot apologize for one misinterpreting what I said. That’s all I can say,” Jones said.
Told of Jones’ explanation, Cobb scoffed today and stuck by her version of the encounter.
“He knows what he said to me. He knows he called me an Uncle Tom. He’s trying to backtrack now. There’s playful jousting, and there’s stepping over the line,” she said. “He stepped over the line.”
As the embarrassing episode rippled through the Illinois delegation here, Mayor Daley, weighed in and suggested Jones simply misspoke.
“I think it’s a misuse of words. There’s no ‘Uncle Toms,’ anybody supporting Hillary, Obama. It’s just a mischoice of words,” the mayor said.
The Sun-Times was first to report today on the racially charged flap, which was witnessed by two Chicago aldermen who backed up Cobb’s account.
“Last night, I was called an ‘Uncle Tom’ by Emil Jones in the lobby of the hotel, right in front of [Ald.] Freddrenna Lyle and [Ald.] Leslie Hairston and [Ald.] Latasha Thomas,” Cobb told the Sun-Times on Sunday. “I walked over to him and asked him, 'What did you just call me?”
Lyle, alderman of the South Side’s 6th Ward, said she was standing with Jones when the conversation took place in the hotel lobby, but she dismissed it as Jones engaging in harmless banter with someone he knows, although Lyle said she told him, “Emil, that’s bad even for you.”
Another of the aldermen who was standing in the lobby added, “He said it in jest.”
Cobb is a Chicago political consultant who has played prominent roles in the presidential campaigns of the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Bill Bradley. She is a member of Clinton’s Illinois Steering Committee. She said she is still paying the price in the African-American community for her support of Clinton.
“If people are still making digs at the Hillary Clinton people because we supported her, that is not going to bring us on board. It makes us feel as though we're outsiders, and we're Democrats,Ó Cobb said. ÒThe litmus test for being black is [seen as] supporting Barack.Ó
Cobb said she saw Clinton supporters walking into an Illinois delegation meeting at the Marlowe Restaurant on Sunday and being handed Obama buttons, only to put the buttons in their pockets. That prompted the greeters to say, “You can tell the Hillary Clinton people, they never take the buttons.”
Speaking outside Denver's Palm Restaurant late Sunday, Jones said he never called her the name.
“I emphatically deny it," he said. “I told her I never said that. She may have misunderstood.”
Told that Lyle heard him call Cobb the name, Jones said, “That was not. That was not. That's all I have to say.”
Cobb said the confrontation started when she and Jones, who is also African-American, were talking about an earlier conversation they had at the Bud Billiken Parade in Chicago. “One day, you’ll be on the right side,” Cobb said Jones told her. She told him she was on the right side. She said Jones pointed at his Obama hat and said, “No, this is the right side,” she said.
“Then he came up behind me. He said ‘Thirty-five thousand people went to Springfield [to support Obama on Saturday],’” she said. “I said, ‘Then 35,000 people drank the Kool-Aid.,’ He said, ‘Barack is a clean-cut guy. He never liked gutter politics, that’s why the Clintons did so-and-so. ...'’ I said, ‘I don’t want to get into this. So I went over to the elevator, and he said, ‘Uncle Tom!’ Then he grabbed me and hugged me and started laughing. I said, ‘What did you say?’ I turned to Freddrenna Lyle, and I said, ‘What did he say?’ She wouldn't say anything, That’s when I said some bad things to him.”
Taking a final shot at Jones, Cobb said, “Calling me an ‘Uncle Tom’ is beyond the pale, especially considering where he is [close] with Mayor Daley and with [Gov.] Blagojevich, I am hardly the Uncle Tom here.”
Jones announced his retirement as state Senate president last week and, following an increasingly popular Chicago tradition, had his son Emil Jones III installed as the nominee to succeed him for his south suburban and South Side Senate seat. A separate battle is brewing among veteran Senate Democrats for Jones' leadership gavel.
Another strong Clinton supporter, J.B. Pritzker, who was one of the former first lady's national co-chairmen, said he expected just about all of Clinton's delegates to follow her request and — after casting their votes for her — fully support Obama.
Contributing: Lynn Sweet