Don'nt vote for whitey Jew 'Cohen and Jews hate Jesus' cohen should'nt represent Black area
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1968710/posts Anti-Defamation League condemns flyer's message about Cohen
Memphis Commercial Appeal ^ | 2/11/8 | Bartholomew Sullivan
Posted on 02/11/2008 2:28:20 PM PST by SmithL
WASHINGTON — The Anti-Defamation League on Monday condemned a flyer circulating in Memphis and elsewhere that says U.S. Rep. "Steve Cohen and the Jews Hate Jesus," saying it "attempts to incite tension" between African-Americans and Jews.
The flyer, which provides the name and telephone number of Rev. George Brooks of Murfreesboro, Tenn., has been in circulation since at least last Thursday. Brooks on Monday took responsibility for the flyer, saying, "I sent that out."
The flyer, which Cohen said he received at his law office in Memphis last week, reads in part: "Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen and the JEWS HATE Jesus. So Memphis Christians must unite and support ONE Black Christian to represent Memphis in the United States Congress in 2008. Simply because this Congressional district is predominantly black…
"It is the responsibility of the black leaders of Memphis to see to it that one and ONLY one black Christian faces this opponent of Christ and Christianity in the 2008 election."
Brooks said he sent the flyer out because the 9th Congressional District is "about 90-something percent black. That's the reason."
Cohen, a Memphis Democrat, said last week that he had talked with Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., a leading opponent of hate speech and bigotry, and others, after the flyer was faxed to his office. The Commercial Appeal was seeking information on Brooks, and seeking to reach him to confirm he was behind the missive, before the ADL went public with its condemnation Monday.
Cohen is facing a challenge by Pinnacle Airlines labor lawyer Nikki Tinker, an African-American, in the Aug. 5 Democratic Primary. Three others have picked up petitions to stand as candidates in that contest, Shelby County Election Commission records show./p>
Tinker did not immediately respond to a reporter's call on Monday but her Washington-based spokesman, Cornell Belcher, said Tinker's campaign was not involved in the flyer.
"Oh, my God, are you kidding me? Are you even calling me asking that?" asked Belcher. "This is an absurd question. Of course we wouldn't have anything to do with that. I don't even know what you're talking about but, no, we would have nothing to do with that."
Belcher said Monday was the "first we've even heard of it," adding, "no one would approve of that sort of thing."
The Anti-Defamation League, which fights anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry, released a statement in Atlanta condemning the flyer on Monday.
"The flyer is contemptible for a number of reasons," its southeast regional director, Bill Nigut, said. "It makes an outrageously false claim about Jews’ attitudes toward Jesus, and it attempts to drive a potentially dangerous wedge and incite tensions between African-Americans and Jews in Memphis."
The incident is not the first of the campaign in which Cohen opponents have maintained that a white man cannot adequately represent the interests of the predominantly black Ninth Congressional District.
Last August, the Black Baptist Ministerial Association took Cohen to task for his support of the Hate Crimes bill vote he'd cast months earlier. When he was given an audience before the group, one minister, Robert Poindexter of Mt. Moriah Baptist Church, asserted, "He's not black and he can't represent me."
Cohen, a former state senator, was one of three white candidates in a 15-candidate field when he won the Democratic Party primary in 2006.