Environment Minister Sylvan Richards has declined to respond to criticism over his controversial “blackety black” remarks in the House of Assembly on Friday.But Home Affairs Minister Michael Fahy yesterday reiterated his defence of his colleague saying the Opposition Progressive Labour Party took the remarks out of context.Echoing comments he made in the Senate chamber on Monday, Senator Fahy said the PLP was being “disingenuous” and had used offensive and racially charged language in the past.“Mr Richards is an upstanding member of the community and taking one line from a long speech is desperate,” he said.“It is disingenuous at best for the PLP to take something out of context — where was Senator Rabain’s disgust when deplorable language like house ‘n-word’ and field ‘n-word’ were used by a Minister in his government?“Where was his outrage when other such phrases were used over the last 14 years?“If they want us to revisit those comments we can — or we can think about Cup Match and the meaning of Cup Match.”In a speech in the House of Assembly on Friday, Mr Richards sought to highlight what he said had been the Progressive Labour Party’s economic failures by comparing the PLP’s tenure as Government with the plot line of road movie “Thelma and Louise”, and appeared to dismiss claims by the Opposition party that it was more naturally aligned with the struggle for racial justice.“You want to live in the past and talk about 1960, and slavery and emancipation. Yeah, I went to (historically black) Howard University, I know all about that stuff. I can talk that black black, blackety black stuff all day too, you know. I can talk it.”At Monday’s Senate hearing, Sen Rabain harshly criticised Mr Richards’ speech as trivialising the civil rights struggle.Contacted for his reaction to the criticism, a Government spokesman said he would not comment.