Scott Applewhite/AP

David Corn of Mother Jones broke the story about Mitt Romney’s 47 percent comments and he’s back with more embarrasing statements in an audio of another Romney fundraiser in Irvine, California on March 27. This time Ann Romney took her turn sticking her foot in her mouth.

You  know—the ship’s going over the waterfall, it’s almost there. And we  look what’s happening in Greece, and we look what’s happening around the  world, we look what’s happening internationally. This is a frightening  world, and we need a grown-up, and we need someone that understands the  economy. So I’m glad…Mitt is grown up to you all.

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This might be passed off as just another example of Ann Romney being clueless as to how offensive calling a black man “not a grown-up” or in other words “boy” really is but as Mother Jones points out, it’s not the first time she’s used this particular slur. In an interview with Candy Crowley of CNN back in August she said,

  “I’m not a political pundit so I’m not going to be able to really answer that,” Romney said about the GOP’s gender gap. “But I will tell you what I’m hearing from women across the country right now….I’m hearing from so many women that may not have considered voting for a Republican before that said, it’s time for the grown-up to come, the man that’s going to…take this very seriously and take the future of our children very seriously.”

I think Ann Romney fully realizes what a racial dog whistle she’s using and has actually refined the blunter message that Republican Kentucky Congressman Geoff Davis conveyed back in 2008 when he used the word “boy” in reference to then Senator Barack Obama. And the congressman was rightfully called out for resorting to such sleazy tactics by CNN contributor Roland S. Martin.  He points out that there was a reason the men in the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike led by Martin Luther King Jr. wore signs that proclaimed, “I Am A Man!” As Mr. Martin explains about using the term “boy” to describe an adult black male, ” it’s the ultimate sign of disrespect, and is often more offensive than calling them the N-word.”

As a member of the Mormon faith you would think that Ann Romney would be especially wary of using racially insensitive language given the shameful record her church has on that issue. After all, when she joined as a teenager in 1966, the Mormons were still twelve years away from allowing blacks into the priesthood and the superiority of whites was an accepted doctrine. The mainstream press has so far shied away from pushing the Romneys to explain why they never questioned their church’s repugnant views on this subject but if Ann Romney persists in referring to the President of the United States as a child, maybe that will finally change.

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