Talk:Bettie Cook Scott

Allegations of racial slurs against 2018 Democratic primary opponent

Several sources have reported on Bettie Cook Scott's alleged use of racial slurs against her primary opponent, namely that she referred to Stephanie Chang as a "ching-chong" or "ching-chang".

• Detroit Metro Times
• The Hill
• Detroit Free Press

I believe that this information is noteworthy and deserving of inclusion, and is not "non essential" or a "clear smear attempt".

--EerieIratxoak (talk) 06:33, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. It is well-covered per WP:VERIFY and it meets the criteria of WP:BLP for inclusion. It seems that this article is targeted by an IP user (who is nothing more than a clear vandal, considering their edit history here and here) or users. --Cold Season (talk) 11:56, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Nobody appears to dispute the use of alliteration to mock Michigan Senator Chang's last name. This does not mean the opinion that the mockery was racist is universally accepted. Representative Scott apologizes, but this doesn't mean she had racist intent. At least half of this article is devoted to this election day gaffe. This is against policy WP:UNDUE.Truthtests (talk) 20:29, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

The words in question have very strong racist connotations, and her intent seems very clear (even if she dodges responsibility in follow-up). "Just a rhyme on her name" seems incredibly unlikely when coupled with her comments to Chang's campaign volunteer and more generally about "immigrants from China", and it's as irrelevant as if someone made a similar 'rhyme' about a black candidate whose name ended in -ger. If you feel that the article is imbalanced, you're welcome to add more content about her other achievements, but I think the short paragraphs (about 340 words including weasel verbiage) only seem long because the rest of the article is a stub. Mockingbus (talk) 19:59, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

I don't see anything here indicating that Scott conceded making other comments beyond her being new to the area, which could mean the district. The remaining comments appear to be witnessed by Chang's husband. He would not be a neutral or unbiased source.Truthtests (talk) 22:19, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

To address your edit log comment: whether she was "making fun of the way a name sounds" or not, she was doing so in an explicitly racial way, regardless of her intent. But let's address these other ideas: The Michigan Department of Civil Rights said they received "widespread reports" of her behavior - I'll add that citation into the text.

But we don't need that, just the already-cited sources (emphasis added):

At another precinct, in Detroit's East English Village, Scott was overheard telling a voter, "Thanks for voting for me, you don't need to vote for that ching-chang." That comment was relayed to Metro Times by Kalaya Long, a volunteer with Voices of Women to Win. ... She's also said to have called one of Chang's campaign volunteers an “immigrant,” saying “you don’t belong here” and “I want you out of my country.”

If Scott was only making fun of Chang's name, she was doing an extraordinarily poor job of conveying that intent. Mockingbus (talk) 04:48, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

OK. I changed "charged" to "insensitive". This separates intent from effect. Even if she didn't intend to sound racist, she still did. This shows insensitivity. I no longer challenge the neutrality but still find there to be undue coverage of this one incident.Truthtests (talk) 22:54, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

The claim that it is against WP:UNDUE isn't applicable here, as much of the news coverage about Cook Scott is related to that incident and therefore the incident is very prominent per that policy. Secondly, the claim that it is against WP:UNDUE as "at least half of this article is devoted to this election day gaffe" is invalid, because the section about the incident isn't even that long and... the only reason it can be said that the section is "half of this article" is because the rest of article is undeveloped (that is in proportion to the sources available) and not because there is too much weight to the incident. I therefore agree with User:Mockingbus assessment earlier. --Cold Season (talk) 01:59, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

"Insensitive" seems like reasonable (if mild) phrasing. I'll agree to that.Mockingbus (talk) 05:54, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

References