Revisiting Mary Kelleher's Call For Accountability Regarding Star-Telegram's Bud Kennedy's Sexist Remarks

Last month, July 23 to be precise, TRWD Board Director Mary Kelleher emailed a press release verbalizing her disgust at Fort Worth Star-Telegram food critic, Bud Kennedy's, sexist remark directed at her, on Facebook, regarding her election to the TRWD board with a record number of votes.

The Bud Kennedy statement to which umbrage was taken is "Kelleher was the only challenger elected last time and only because she was the only woman on a ballot with 7 men."

I do not know how many people actually read the Kelleher press release. It was sent as an email attachment, with the body of the email blank, with the email attachment a document in Google docx format, which required knowing how to open such a document in order to read it. I suspect many who received the press release never read it.

A few days after I blogged about this issue someone named Anonymous made a blog comment to a related blogging, commenting in part...

"At the same time, the world is still waiting for Elbert Elmer "Bud" Kennedy to publicly apologize or step down. *grin*".

Elbert Elmer?

A few days ago someone asked me what the big deal was regarding Bud Kennedy's "Kelleher was the only challenger elected last time and only because she was the only woman on a ballot with 7 men" statement.

I explained to the "someone"  in question that this statement is a totally wrong-headed thing to say because  it  reduces Mary Kelleher's only attribute which got her elected to being her gender. Not her positions on issues, not her standing and reputation in the community, not her dogged campaign.

I then asked the "someone" in question to consider if Mary Kelleher was African-American and Bud Kennedy said the only reason she got elected was she was the only black on a ballot with 7 whites.

Or if Mary Kelleher was of the Jewish faith and Bud Kennedy said the only reason she got elected was because she was the only Jew on a ballot with 7 Baptists.

Or if Mary Kelleher were a lesbian and Bud Kennedy said the only reason she got elected was because she was the only lesbian on a ballot with 7 straight candidates.

Or if Mary Kelleher were a man and Bud Kennedy said the only reason he got elected was because he was the only man on a ballot with 7 female candidates.

Or if Mary Kelleher was the daughter of Kay Granger and Bud Kennedy said the only reason she got elected was because she was the only Granger on a ballot with 7 non-Grangers.

Okay, I'm not sure that the last example makes the point, but I am sure you get the drift, as in Bud Kennedy was way out of line to suggest that "Kelleher was the only challenger elected last time and only because she was the only woman on a ballot with 7 men."