Making Fun Of NJ Accent Is Racist, Says Trump Aide

From Busted Tees: The "Jersey Girls Ain't Trash/Trash Gets Picked Up" offering

After being embroiled in the Moammar Gadfhafi-Bedouin tent affair last month, now the Trump Organization is wading into European waters with its latest spat: An employee is taking offense at a Scottish lawmaker's reference to "Noo Joysee"!! Seriously, Trump's development director claims the comments were racist.

According to the Telegraph, the Trump Organization and Scottish officials have been squabbling over Trump's plans for a golf resort in Aberdeen, Scotland. Apparently a council member, Sam Coull, sent a letter on official council letterhead to a Trump employee, "Only a few weeks ago, your [development director George] Sorial was reported in The Scotsman newspaper as describing myself and three colleagues as scoundrels. ’Scoundrel’ may be a term of endearment in Noo Joysee and scoundrels very probably abound the streets and tower blocks there. But I have never met your Mr Sorial."

Sorial then got upset: "He made fun of my New Jersey accent. I can respect that he disagrees with what we are doing but when you start making comments which I believe to be racist, I think you have stepped over the line." And PS: Sorial is a British citizen, "I was born in the UK, I have a British passport - I'm as British as he is, and he doesn't have any right to make fun of my accent. I think the fact that he did it on government paper is an abuse of power. There is never any excuse for a racist attack like that." But Coull says he was just being "flippant" and points out he's not upset about being called a scoundrel.

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By Jen Chung in News on October 6, 2009 3:00 PM

Comments [rss]

jaycjay

What's the big deal? You can't have a simple conversation in Jersey these days without somebody bringing up the fact that scoundrels abound in the tower blocks.

longacre

What does Francis Begbie have to say about this?

BongoBoy

IF IT'S NAE SCOTTISH IT'S CRAP!

NannyState

Golf resorts are racist.

ak

Especially those in Noo Joysee.

ides_of_march

The term "racist" is tossed around like confetti these days.

Racism is what you're guilty of anytime you happen to say something a liberal doesn't agree with or want to hear.

Soggy

Hm, refer to bellsandasiren's explanation above. Too bad, you really had an original idea going there.

Splicer

New Jersey is a race? I'd say a mutation but certainly not a separate race.

Wza

youz guyz...i tells ya...

jjazznola

Grow up girls!

blackwhole

Is "stupid" used the same there as it is here?

bellsandasiren

Soriel called it a racist attack because he's British, and that's actually the common, accepted usage of the word there. "Racism" in their usage means what we'd use "prejudice" to mean over here -- derogatory actions or statements made against a person from a different cultural or ethnic group. Not necessarily a racial statement.

nicemarmot

Yep. Whenever English and Scots fight each other they call it "racial." To be fair, it's easier to tell a Scot from an Englishman than it is a Hutu from a Tutsi. (The Hutus and the Tutsis can't tell the difference either.)