Legislator Fights Charges Of Racial Insensitivity: My Black Friends Taught Me To Smoke Meat | ThinkProgress

Last August, Colorado State Sen. Vicki Marble (R) delivered a long monologue suggesting that the reason for poverty among certain minority groups was that they eat too much chicken and barbecue. In an interview Monday, she defended her controversial remarks against “sensitivities” and notied [sic] that her “black friends in Texas” taught her how to smoke meat.

In her new comments this week, Marble told the Colorado Statesman that the people can be too sensitive to minority groups:

MARBLE: We can’t force them to stop doing what they choose to do, but to give them the information. These are our families and our neighbors in the black community… Honestly, I learned how to smoke meat from my black friends down in Texas because they lived with me… and stayed at my house… Did we talk about cooking? Yes. The whole time.

Marble ironically concluded her comments by criticizing racial stereotyping. “If there’s sensitivities, that’s the way it is. People aren’t all the same. You don’t just cookie-cutter them out and say, ‘You have to listen to this’. But it would be nice to have an honest conversation to help educate them on what is actually happening and to prevent that with diet and exercise.”

Legislator Fights Charges Of Racial Insensitivity: My Black Friends Taught Me To Smoke Meat | ThinkProgress