Teresa Heinz Kerry: I'm an 'African American'

[ericdee]

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/2/24/121520.shtml


Teresa Heinz Kerry: I'm an 'African American'

First lady wannabe Teresa Heinz Kerry sometimes describes herself as an
"African American," even though she grew up amidst segregated privilege in
colonial Mozambique.

"My roots are African," she told a reporter in 1995. "The birds I remember,
the fruits I ate, the trees I climbed, they're African."

Throughout the 1990s, Heinz Kerry referred to herself as "African American,"
the Baltimore Sun revealed on Tuesday. And when her use of the term set off
a firestorm of controversy in 1993, she defended the claim.

"African-hyphen-American belongs to blacks," Heinz Kerry's spokesman told
reporters, insisting that it was proper for his boss to call herself African
American as long as no hyphen was used or intended.

The one-time Republican's depiction of herself as African rankles some who
knew Heinz Kerry in the days when her father ran a medical clinic in
Mozambique.

Some say the wealthy "African American" has snubbed blacks in her homeland,
because she has done next to nothing with her vast Heinz Foods fortune to
improve living conditions there.

"We are proud she is a daughter of the land," Neo Simbine, 75, a retired
black nurse who worked with Heinz Kerry's father, told the Sun. "But you
have to live what you say. If she really loves Mozambique and has lots of
money, why doesn't she build us a hospital?"

Heinz Kerry's fortune is equal to nearly a quarter of Mozambique's annual
Gross Domestic Product.

But aside from a contribution to her homeland's Save the Children Fund, the
woman who repeatedly invokes her Mozambican roots has limited her
generosity.

A spokeswoman for the Heinz Foundation said the prospective first lady would
give more if she were more confident the money would be managed properly.



Don't kid yourself, Demoncats and Republicans alike think this woman has a bolt loose. We also know that if she were still a Republican, we'd be hearing non-stop about how this elitist rich white woman who lived in a segregated country for 25 years (and with black servants), was nothing more than a capitalist racist.

Make no mistake about it, if she wasn't the media darling's wife, the dreaded "R" word would have been printed in association with with her name a 10,000 times by now.