Crystal_Cotti's Blog

This past Friday during our weekly "Austin in Focus Segment" one of my guests referred to the city of Mustang Ridge as a "Redneck Fiefdom".  This comment  was in response to a question about Charles Laws' use of a racial slur to describe a proposed immigrant detention center in an official meeting agenda.

Fox 7 received several negative calls regarding the fiefdom comment. And justifiably so. Categorizing an entire town for the poor judgment of one resident is not only unfair, it's wrong for the same reasons the initial racial slur was wrong. Both are demeaning and dehumanizing. Many will argue the word w#%back is worse than redneck. But does that really matter? Calling someone a redneck because they used a racial slur is like using violence to protest an abortion clinic.

Until we learn to resist grouping each other into meaningless categories and look past  stereotypes, we'll never see an end to racial, cultural and ethnic tension.

I'd like to offer a sincere apology to anyone who heard the fiefdom comment and took offense.