Activist to protest lawmaker’s video

A Topeka activist says he will stage a protest Monday against state Rep. Bill Otto for his “RedNeck Rap” video that the lawmaker posted on YouTube, and which has been criticized as racist.

Sonny Scroggins said the video was distasteful, and said Otto’s reference to opossum as the other dark meat was a reference to President Barack Obama.

Otto, a Republican from the southeast Kansas town of LeRoy, has said that it was meant as a joke about his hillbilly heritage. In the video, he criticizes Obama in a song while wearing a hand-printed hat that reads: “OPOSSUM the other Dark Meat.”

But Scroggins didn’t buy that explanation. “No forward thinking or open-minded citizen believes this lame explanation,” he said.

Scroggins said it’s OK to disagree with politicians, but “conversations between our elected officials on both sides of the aisle should be held in a courteous and respectful manner rather than a rude, uncompromising and antagonistic free-for-all war of words.”

Scroggins will hold his protest at 11 a.m. outside the Statehouse.

Scroggins, a Topeka activist, has launched a number of protests and vigils over the years, and was a leading advocate for Kansas ridding its public pension system of holdings in Sudan.