ANCHORAGE:  The Anchorage NAACP is calling on Alaska Republican Party Chairman Peter Goldberg to retract comments about slavery made at a party meeting on Saturday.  A speaker at the meeting said, “African Americans on public assistance are subject to a new-age form of slavery.”

These comments followed a speech by Dan Sullivan, who previously created national controversy and condemnation by comparing unions to slavery.

“It has been two days and the Alaska Republican Party still hasn’t retracted its offensive comments about slavery,” said Wanda Laws, President of the Anchorage NAACP.  “A retraction is overdue. Furthermore, it is particularly disturbing to use this metaphor in light of our Country’s history of slavery in relation to African Americans.”

Laws noted the irony of the party’s comments, in light of expansive corporate welfare and pet project spending by leading Republicans, such as the publicly-funded tennis courts promoted by Dan Sullivan in a secret earmark.

“This comment is doubly offensive since the vast majority of money spent on ‘public assistance’ is actually private corporate welfare for obscene projects like Dan Sullivan’s tennis courts or the legislature’s new ‘Taj Mahawker’ office building,” Laws added. 

“Rather than slander working Alaskans the party should stop its offensive rhetoric and focus on real issues. It is ironic that the Alaska GOP sees nothing immoral about supporting corporate welfare without offering policies to help hard working Alaskans. If they did they would find their continued obsession with slavery extremely misguided. These types of inflammatory and insensitive comments has no place in any political discourse”

  alasak, meeting, naacp, peter goldberg, remarks, slavery, unions