Harry Reid, the media, and double standards
January 11, 2010 11:11 am ET by Jamison Foser
Earlier this morning on MSNBC, Norah O'Donnell picked up the GOP spin about "double-standards," asking Rev. Al Sharpton what the reaction would be if a Republican had made the comments Sen. Harry Reid is reported to have made about Barack Obama being "light-skinned" and lacking a "Negro dialect."
But as The American Prospect's Adam Serwer pointed out this morning, while Reid's choice of words was unfortunate, the substance of Reid's purported comments was not particularly unusual:
The raw political calculation Reid made here was also one Americans of all races were making. I always knew that someday it would be embarrassing that the press spent 2007 and 2008 hosting panels of white people discussing the political implications of Obama's racial authenticity -- or lack thereof -- but I never imagined that we'd all decide to pretend it never happened.
Indeed, throughout 2007, the question of whether Obama was "black enough" -- or "too black" -- was a common one among the news media. If MSNBC is interested in the topic of double-standards, they should devote some air-time to examining what their own colleagues were saying at the time Reid purportedly made his comments. And they should devote a segment or two to the fact that MSNBC employs Pat Buchanan, and gave him a platform from which to marvel that Barack Obama is "not what you would expect from a black guy from the South Side of Chicago."
UPDATE: MSNBC anchor Tamron Hall is now discussing Reid's comments in the context of the broader conversation that was happening in the media in 2006/2007, for which she deserves credit.
More interesting perhaps, is the fact that, once again, the media has introduced race into the national conversation just as the health care reform effort heats up. I hope this is just a coincidence.
Democratic opponents will not be so kind. Maybe it is good politics for them. This is just another political opportunity to do what they do, which is to swing at every pitch, even when it is in the dirt. How many jokes can one squeeze out of "teachable moment + baseball bat"?
But he evidently thinks "Negro" is still a word we should be using, and it's distressing that someone so important to our nation's governance is so out of touch with our culture.
"What troubles me about the Reid comments is that I can't help but assume that he does not have a single black American in his life that he is genuinely close to. Because if he did, I find it hard to believe that such a gaffe would be possible."
But that is quite likely so in Reid's case. He is from a place where the African American community is not large, and he is a member of a church (LDS) where it's even smaller. In any event, it was, as Goff, puts it, a gaffe. Furthermore, it's one that has resulted in a quick and appropriate apology, which was just as quickly accepted.
I'm frankly surprised, dork, that you are so willing to accept the entire litany of racially-charged statements by Glenn Beck as being not racist, but you seem eager to claim racism of Reid. Reid isn't one percent the racist that Beck is, and Beck (since he won't apologize) isn't one percent the man that Reid is.
I think his comment is racially insensitive, which is different. That is the EXACT SAME thing that I have said about many of Beck's comments, that I DON'T think they are racist, but racially insensitive. There's a difference.
So why is it inconceivable for there to be a white culture?
I know what I, as a black person consider to be black culture---our church services, our food, our ways of speaking to each other, our entertainment and such.
My question for you is, why do you seem to think that there can NOT be a white culture? I mean, can everybody have a culture except for white people?
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/178385/thy_myth_of_white_culture.html?cat=9
I don't think "white culture" HAS to be a codeword for "white supremacy." Sorry, but I think there are certain things that could be considered "white culture."
If this make me a fool to you, so be it, because I would rather be a fool than accept your simplistic, white vs. black worldview.
But it does say alot about how YOU think and refuse to face facts, that was not black history i was outlining for you it was American history thanks again for proving my point of your ignorance of it. I didn't call you fool(funny you choose that word) I said ignorant, ignorance can be corrected with education, but I'll accept your self-characterization,because not only do you admit your ignorance you wallow in it and celebrate it, the actions of a fool a buffoon a clown. So therefore I'll take your comments to be nothing more than what they are , comedy; the mussings of a clown, with no basis in anything but your ignorance and the appropiate weight of 0 except for those entertained by buffoonery. You named yourself appropiately Dork and you prove it with every post and I'am not your bro'.
How about how you completely discount the examples of black culture I gave, because they weren't "real" enough for you, I guess.
I was talking about the not-so-dark aspects of our culture.
Tell me, were the examples I posted of black culture false? Or, as I suspect, they were wrong because they weren't what YOU would have posted?
If you have nothing new to offer in this exchange I consider our conversation over Dork.
There are plenty of things that white people TEND to do, that other peoples, Latino and blacks, don't typically do. There's nothing sinister about it, in my opinion.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/178385/thy_myth_of_white_culture.html?cat=9
Do you know who the Tuskeegee 626 were? Just curious? I mention it because some people just can't believe that the government would carryout experiments on it's citizens but just to save time they were 626 black men that were intentionally injected with Syphillus by the government to see how syphillus progresses in humans. Not to justify's Wrights comments(I didn't hear the speech)but to give a reason as to why he might feel the way he does.
In THIS day and age, I think of white culture" in an apple pie, overtly patriotic, snow-boarding type of stereotypical way.
Sure, those are generalizations, but they are stereo types about white people. I'm sure you can think of a few stereotypes about white people too.
Beck w/ Couric - Won't Answer "White Culture" Question
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6VHBEFh4BQ
Fine, dork, but do you think Reid is himself racist? If you do, then why (since, according to you, his comment wasn't racist)? If you don't, then why did you intimate that you thought he was ("If Reid is not racist, then he's a moron.")?
"..."I want to say this about my state: when Strom Thurmond ran for President, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."
This is an excerpt I gathered from the Daily Show of a speech Strom Thurmond gave in 1948 as he ran for president on the segregationist ticket:
"What I want to tell you...Ladies and gentlemen...that there's not enough troops in the Army...to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the N---er race into our theaters,into our swimming pools,into our homes and into our churches."----Strom Thurmond
From George Allens "macaca" comments to Michael Steeles "honest injun" the republicans always excuse and deny their racism and I find it very telling and phony that they are so shocked and dare to compare Lott's and Reids comment.
We already know k1dork is a moron.