Cal education secretary urged to step down over remarks to child

LOS ANGELES (AP) — California Education Secretary Richard Riordan is facing calls for his ouster, and others for forgiveness, after he told a child at a library her name meant “stupid dirty girl.” The remark also posed a political quandary for the man who appointed him, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. …

The conversation, videotaped by KEYT-TV, took place Thursday at a promotional event for summer reading at Santa Barbara’s central library. The girl, 6-year-old Isis D’Luciano, asked Riordan if he knew that her name meant “Egyptian goddess.”

Riordan replied, “It means stupid dirty girl.”

After nervous laughter in the room, the girl again told Riordan the meaning of her name.

“Hey, that’s nifty,” he said.

A day later, Riordan issued a statement that said he “teased” the girl. “I immediately apologized to her and I want to do so again for the misunderstanding,” Riordan said. …

The girl’s mother, Trinity Lila of Goleta, said her daughter was fine and she considered the issue over.
“Obviously it hurt her feelings but she didn’t take it personally. She knew he was wrong and she let it go,” Lila said. “I’m not going to sue them for therapy bills.”

“He’s already apologized repeatedly,” Lila added. Although Riordan’s office has tried to contact her, “I don’t see what else is to be done.”

At a time when Schwarzenegger has been trying to push his budget through the Legislature — it’s already more than a week overdue — the Riordan controversy has been an unwelcome distraction. A group of civil rights organizations, including the NAACP, planned to protest Riordan’s remarks at the Capitol Thursday.

But the organizer, state Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally, D-Los Angeles, canceled it after an apparent mix-up over the girl’s racial background.

Dymally was quoted in the San Jose Mercury News Thursday saying the child was “a little African-American girl. Would he (Riordan) have done that to a white girl?”

The girl is Caucasian, with blond hair.

OK, who thought Mama Trinity was going to turn out to be the most ape-shit person in the story? Show of hands? Aren’t we pleasantly surprised? And who else thinks Dymally and the civil rights groups just revealed their own hidden racism?

Yeah, me too.