Is it possible for the debate over education funding to get more convoluted?  If so, a white lawmaker who used race to try to scare people into voting against an education funding initiative is to blame.

Rep. Lester “Bubba” Carpenter, who lives in the northern Mississippi town of Burnsville, issued an apology hours after a cameraman posted a video online of a speech Carpenter made at a Tishomingo County Republican meeting.

“If 42 passes in its form, a judge in Hinds County, Mississippi — predominantly black, it’s going to be a black judge — they’re going to tell us where the state education money goes,” Carpenter said in the speech Saturday.

Several prominent Republicans rightly called his comments inappropriate. Carpenter also apologized, saying “I am deeply sorry for the comments I recently made. They were inappropriate, and I was completely out of line. There is no excuse for what I said. Please forgive me.”

“The comments of Rep. Carpenter were completely inappropriate,” House Speaker Philip Gunn, a Republican, said in the joint statement with Carpenter. “His comments do not reflect the attitude of the Republican Party or the leadership of the House.”

Here’s the problem. His comments likely do not reflect the attitude of the leadership, but they probably do reflect the attitudes of some Republicans. There is a real fear that a judge will take funding from rich, a predominantly white school districts and give it to poor, black districts.  It has become an “us” and “them” approach that will only further divide our state and hurt our children.

But the “one judge in Hinds County” argument is weak. A judge would only be involved in the process if a lawsuit over school funding was filed. Even then, any ruling by a chancery judge in Hinds County would end up in the state Supreme Court. There, a panel of judges would potentially decide the issue.

There is enough confusion and consternation surrounding this issue without race being ignorantly thrown in the mix. Shame on Carpenter — and anyone who seeks to frame the issue in those terms.