printWhat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said about President Barack Obama is not remotely wrong, or racist.
Reid commended Obama to the authors of the forthcoming book Game Change as a highly electable, “light-skinned” African American, “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”
Indelicate language, but certainly not racist.
Now let’s hear Republicans say as much—and then demand that their candidates be given the same intellectually honesty treatment when they fall short on racial etiquette. Even more magnanimous and impressive: demand Reid resign for his health-care putsch, not for his inartful remarks about Obama.
Here is my version of the Reid Remarks:
The election of Obama is no racial milestone; it’s not that whites have come to their senses. But rather that African Americans have finally done what’s right (to paraphrase the childish, churlish prose of one Rev. Lowery). For the first time in a long time, the black community has put forward a candidate of caliber; a candidate the American people were only too willing to consider for the highest office in the land.
Until Barack, the black community had disgorged the likes of Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton. Be he black, brown, yellow or red (Rev. Lowery’s classification)—no sane American would elect those two phonies to serve on their local PTA board, much less in the Oval Office.
Update I (Jan. 12): Reid displays “soft condescension,” says the reader below. Fine. But I don’t understand the, “Where is Reid coming from,” and the, “Why did he feel the need to articulate this truth.” Or “Why would it surprise him that a black man speaks non-ebonics (‘white’)?”
If the statement Reid made about obama’s uniqueness among the black community’s political leaders is true—why should it not be articulated? Obama’s diction and demeanor are indeed uncommon among black leaders, academics, etc. Is there something wrong about saying so?
Harry was expressing an objective reality. He forgot, for a moment, to be the two-faced player he usually is. How ironic that the one time the man (Reid) speaks the truth, he is crucified for it.
Update II (Jan. 12): LOTT’S LOT.
Republicans seeking Sen. Harry Reid’s resignation as majority leader over racial remarks he made about Barack Obama say yes — that Reid should be held to the same standard as former GOP Sen. Trent Lott, whose own racial gaffes cost him the Senate leadership in 2002
From “Lancing the Lott”:
“Only seasoned and cynical opportunists could suggest that it was for segregation that Lott was pining, when he praised Strom Thurmond’s 1948 party platform at the octogenarian’s 100th birthday bash.”
“In 1948, Americans didn’t want the government to be involved in general, Frank Newport of the Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing told an unreceptive Jerry Nachman of MSNBC. When asked, the majority polled insisted, for instance, that issues revolving around employer ‘discrimination’ be left to employers and the states. The same goes for the adjudication of lynching. Nothing in the poll suggests an approval of the crime. Rather, Americans were emphatic about keeping the federal government out of state affairs.”
“When Strom Thurmond went up against Harry S. Truman and Thomas E. Dewey in 1948, it was about states’ rights. Dixiecrats was the derogatory name the Media Ministry gave to what was really the States Rights Democratic Party. Considering that the Constitution consigns law enforcement to state and local governments, the position the Dixiecrats took was hardly subversive.”
If he were 100% white he would not have been a credible candidate. No real experience, leftist-radical friends, no substance in campaign – he was elected because of race.
You mean, because Mr. Reid said that the president did not use “Eubonics” unless he wanted to, Mr. Reid is a ‘Racist’? WOW!
EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it – Barack Obama’s got Negro blood! No sh*t, Batman!
The whole obsession with race reminds me of the famous play Showboat.
The sheriff is coming to arrest Steven Baker and Julie LaVerne for miscegenation and Steven Baker takes a knife, cuts Julie’s finger, and drinks some of her blood. When the sheriff arrives to arrest them, Baker says that he has Negro blood in him and everyone swears to it. The sheriff turns to this old hand, Windy McClain, whom he trusts and Windy says “I’m tellin’ you, that thar’ white man’s got Negro blood in ‘im”.
Naturally, Steven and Julie have to leave the Showboat because they can’t have black and white actors on the same stage together. Meanwhile, Magnolia Hawks does a number in blackface on the very same Showboat.
All of which is to show the evolution of “political correctness” about race from one nonsensical idea to another. In the 1951 version of Showboat, it was too politically incorrect to cast Lena Horne in the role of a sexy light skinned “black” singer (Julie).
Maybe I’m cynical but the novelty of Obama seems to have worn rather thin.
What Reid said taken apart is objectively true (e.g. light skinned and doesn’t speak with a Jesse Jackson affect). The problem is: Where is Reid coming from that he would even need to point these things out??
Why would it surprise him that a black man speaks non-ebonics (“white”)? What is his experience with blacks that he’d find it remarkable that Barry speaks non-negro? Also, where is Reid coming from that Barry being “light skinned” improves his viability as a Presidential candidate?
(I’ll bet there are tons of ‘redneck teabagging racists’ who’d love to see Allen West become more prominent on the national scene. West is not “light skinned” and libertarians and conservatives could care less).
So, it isn’t exactly what Reid said — statements that are objectively true — but why he felt the need to articulate it. And the same can be said for Biden’s comments about Indians (Dunkin Donuts) and his comment about Obama (well spoken, clean, etc.). I’d also reference Barbara Boxer’s encounter with the Chamber of Commerce gentleman.
Not racist? Fine. But there should be a more specific word for the soft condescension of the American left.
Once upon a time, there was a Republican who remarked that the two races could not live together in a condition of political and social equality, and therefore, “… inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, …” I am not a member of that Republican’s cult, but all this foolishness over Reid’s remarks should merely show, to anyone who hadn’t noticed before, that blacks are now in the superior position. Of course, anyone who hasn’t noticed that before is in dire need of a brain transplant.
That Reid. He of all people should know one can speak with neither logic nor truth when talking race.
I have been severely chastised for saying such racially charged things as “Blacks are generally faster than whites”. I don’t know much but I know football. Maybe good football teams are 60 to 70 percent black because of prayer and fasting. Reid played into his own trap and I hope the professional race victims burn him for it.