 Students want apology for First Lady's suicide bomber comment Quote: Students want apology for First Lady's suicide bomber comment
By Ray Henry, Associated Press Writer | February 4, 2008
PROVIDENCE, R.I. --A group of Southeast Asian youth said Monday they want an apology from Gov. Don Carcieri's wife for comparing teenagers who criticized her husband to suicide bombers.
The Providence Youth Student Movement also plans to write a letter asking First Lady Sue Carcieri and her husband to meet with them, said Jane Wang, a staff member for the group, which tries to develop leadership skills among Asian youth.
Carcieri made the remark Jan. 22 to a columnist for The Providence Journal in response to students who had called the governor's decision to lay off three Southeast Asian-language interpreters "racist." The interpreters, who worked in the Department of Human Services, lost their jobs amid layoffs aimed at closing an estimated $560 million state deficit.
"First of all, I think they have mentors who are much older than them who are training them up. You know -- how those terrorists have kids blow up, you know, Benazir Bhutto and so forth? You think the kids thought of it? I don't think so," Carcieri was quoted as saying.
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December, although there has been no indication children were involved.
When asked why the governor did not try to talk with the students, Sue Carcieri said they should not get to speak with her husband because it would be "rewarding bad behavior."
Jeff Neal, a spokesman for the governor, said Sue Carcieri did not mean to imply a connection between people who oppose her husband's layoff plan and Bhutto's assassins. He said the First Lady was objecting to people who accuse her husband of bigotry or racism. The Carcieris do not plan to meet with the teenagers, Neal said.
Wang said Rhode Island's First Lady should not attack students for speaking their mind. Wang said members of the youth group feared the interpreter layoffs would marginalize the state's Asian community.
"Youth who speak out about civic society are criminalized as terrorists," Wang said. "That remark also insinuates that they're mindless, they're puppets."
The Rhode Island Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal civil rights complaint claiming the interpreter layoffs violates a 1997 legal settlement that required the Department of Human Services to improve its interpreter services. 
© Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
| Well, Mrs. Carcieri?
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