Some weeks it’s difficult to find the most outrageous thing. Other times, the story just writes itself. This week it was the latter, as Kristie Puckett Williams, the ACLU of North Carolina’s lobbyist, went on a rant to end all rants. It seems her mission was to do as much damage to the racist structure known as “professionalism” as she could. And if that was her goal, she did a great job. The ACLU of N.C. must have thought so too, because they backed her right to say what she said under their name.
The story began when Williams bemoaned the fact that the Parents’ Bill of Rights was being voted on at 7 p.m., because it was “the cloak of night.” Conservative radio host Pete Kaliner pushed back and said, actually, that’s fairly common for all kinds of legislative business, from town councils all the way to the U.S. Congress.
It all seemed like fairly normal social media debate over a bill, until Williams felt disrespected by Kaliner telling her to “stop being stupid” over the timing. Then apparently something snapped in her. Williams threw every possible insult she could muster at Kaliner. She called him racist, homophobic, ugly as hell, and then began to get into some graphic details about different sexual things he could perform on body parts she likely doesn’t have. For screen shots of this, you can read Carolina Journal’s coverage of this very important topic, here. If you don’t want to read the comments (probably smart), just imagine the worst thing a middle school boy might write on a bathroom wall and you’re getting close.
Carolina Journal reached out to the ACLU of N.C. to see if they were aware of the sexual rant, and they were. Their statement, though, made clear that it wasn’t a big deal to them. Somehow “Statements made by employees of the ACLU of North Carolina do not reflect the opinions or policies of our organization.”
That was a real headscratcher for a lot of people. Imagine if businesses and organizations generally lived by that rule, like if you pulled up to McDonalds, and the person at the cash register told you to perform the acts Williams told Kaliner to perform. Would their statements really not represent McDonald’s in any way? Maybe the standards aren’t as high at the ACLU.
But it didn’t end there — not by a long shot. Then a supporter of Williams told Pete it was “on sight,” which is slang for, if I see you, I’m going to attack. Williams commented that Kaliner likely didn’t know what that meant but he was about to find out — basically encouraging her friend to attack him.
Kaliner covered the topic on his radio show.
But none of the attention and shock from others seemed to make Williams second-guess her approach even a little. When yours truly suggested it was at the very least unprofessional, and that if a male lobbyist had said those kinds of things to a female media personality, it would probably be going a little differently, she said that being “professional” is just a white supremacist dog whistle.
A lot of this is pretty hilarious, because it seems many on the left and right are living in two totally different worlds with two totally different sets of rules. They can say and do whatever they want, and conservatives are often just left saying, “Please be professional.” But it’s also a bit sad for the same reasons.
And Williams and her friends are not letting up on Kaliner, suggesting that he, who like Williams lives in the Charlotte area, has to “come outside” at some point, at which point, I guess it’s “on sight.” Seems like a decent window into what life would be like if all their lobbying to abolish police and prisons is successful.
