Everyone is talking about Harry Reid's "negro" remark. I'm loathe to add to the firestorm, if only because this is one of those debates where people soon discover that there are only about four or five things to say, and everyone recycles those four or five things endlessly.
But I am reminded of something I once heard which may provide an interesting way to regard this matter. A number of years ago, a lecturer named John Judge opined that the word "racism" always implies a use (or potential use) of power. In his view, this "power" factor negated then-current talk about "reverse racism": There could be no such thing in America, he said, because black people were not represented in the power structure.
I think the distinction he was trying to make runs like this: If you say "I don't like Asians," you're merely a bigot. If you say "I won't rent to Asians," you're a racist.
If this argument is correct -- and I've never been fully persuaded -- then should we say that Reid's remarks were racist, or bigoted?
Or just stupid?
16 comments:
It seems like a manufactured uproar to me. Wasn't Reid merely talking about electability, independent of his own feelings? If he'd said "Southern conservative men have traditionally been reluctant to vote for women," would that be sexist--or merely a statement of statistically verifiable fact?
Given the trivial nature of campaigns, discussing what makes someone an appealing or unappealing candidate for the broad electorate is not only reasonable, it's realistic.
Dennis Kucinich was marginalized for his height and his ears as much as for his policies. If I acknowledge that Kucinich would have a hard time getting elected president, that doesn't mean that I personally wouldn't vote for him. Hell, I did--and I wish everyone else did too, instead of the light-skinned, dialect-free Negro who bamboozled us.
Someone at the confluence posted Sharpton's opinion on Reid and Clinton.
Sharpton, speaking on Fox News, defended Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid over a passage in the book in which he said Obama doesn’t have a “Negro dialect” unless he wants one. But the reverend would not give Clinton such a pass for his remark.
“I think that’s far more disturbing because this is someone seeking to stop Mr. Obama’s campaign and making a direct reference — I don’t know the context in which he said it — but that is far more disturbing to me than even the comments that were made by Mr. Reid,” Sharpton said.
Sharpton and other civil rights leaders last took on Clinton during the Democratic presidential primaries, after the former president compared Obama’s win in the South Carolina contest to Jesse Jackson’s victories in the state two decades earlier. Sharpton brought up the South Carolina flare-up Monday in discussing the “coffee” remark.
“If someone said that he would have been getting us coffee like that in the context they said he said it, that would be very offensive to me, and I would definitely take Mr. Clinton on as I did in South Carolina,” Sharpton said.
He said Clinton has not yet called him over the report, “So I guess I’ll have to make the call.”
This is the way its been expressed to me, that makes the most sense.
People can't be racist, only actions.
Actions can't be bigotted, only people.
That's why no one can be "a" racist, they can only act in a racist manner.
"Racist, bigotted"--or how about: simply true?
An interesting question, Joseph, but I'm not sure the distinction is all that important to me. While I'm not ready to say he should resign over the remarks, I was shocked to find out an elected Democrat made them (yes, I realize that says something about my own prejudices, as Democrats are obviously just as capable of being bigoted/racist as Republicans). I was cringing the entire time I was reading the stories yesterday. I still am.
I think Reid was neither, in those remarks. I think he was simply being a political nerd, speaking of demographics in an insider, non-personal way.
Also, please note that Reid pointed out that Fraudbama didn't have an accent *unless he wanted to.* Reid was acknowledging that Obama certainly did want to at times, and in fact did, in the most offensive manner, adopt a fake Southern black preacher accent when it suited him to do so.
To me, that shows Obama's own racism--- that, or his utter contempt for constituents or voters of any stripe.
Barry's fake Southern preacher accent always was excruciating for me (a Southerner) to endure, because it was so poorly executed. And when people to this day call him a good orator or eloquent, when he's not even good at reading Alexrove's or Jon "the Groper" Favreau's words off a teleprompter with a pisspoor faux Southern accent, it just raises my hackles.
But the fact remains...Obama adopted the Negro Preacher accent when he thought it benefited him. It wasn't his. What do you call that? Racist? Opportunistic?
It was super glaring when Jon Stewart recently ran a series on Fraudbama's campaign lies regarding C-Span, because by now Obama has largely dropped the fake accent, and the difference really stands out when you watch the old campaign clips.
Here we are, still asking the wrong questions. Worrying about Reid when the question should be is Obama a bigot, racist, or soulless opportunist?
It's a pattern in his life. It's no different from when Obama was laughed out of the communities he tried to "organize" and they told him it would help if he was actually a member of the community. That's when he just up and coldly picked a church.
All the wrong questions were asked then, too. People were polarized on whether Barry was a Muslim or not. The facts alone warranted questions that were never asked. Obama himself said that Wright "brought him to Jesus."
Oh, really. Why did no one ask him, "What were you before? A Muslim? Or, as your entire history seems to indicate, a soulless opportunist without even the spine to claim being an agnostic or atheist if that is how you really roll."
Neither.
The last prominent Democrat to utter such allegedly horribly racist words about Obama was... Joe Biden, the current VP picked by Obama. (Describing Obama as "clean and articulate" were Biden's flashpoint choice of words.)
Both Biden and Reid committed 'Washington' gaffes, in which the truth was perhaps accidentally spoken.
But both their points are valid, even if they used attackable or arguably racially insensitive formulations.
I personally believe (not out of my own prejudice I hope, but out of my belief about the country) that it is indeed entirely true that a darker complected black man would have significant trouble getting elected president, and even so fine a man as John Lewis would have trouble talking 'southern' as he does, sounding like he has cotton in his cheeks ala Brando's Godfather technique. So, yes, how dark the color, and how traditional the diction, probably are factors in the American electorate.
XI
I vote stupid.
When it comes to race in america, the truth is the most dangerous thing to say. To answer your question, for Reid, love him or hate him, a seasoned politician, it was really stupid. He's already lost his seat anyway, he should go out in flames and tell us what he really thinks!
XI - I do not buy into the meme that Biden's "clean and articulate" comment was or is racist. Would it be racist if he said that about a white candidate? If that statement is not racist with a white candidate then it is not racist when used with Obama.
I am not a fan of Reid and I don't know if he is a bigot or a racist, but I do think his remark was only a statement of political facts. I also read somewhere that Reid was one of the people that early on encouraged Obama to run in 2008, mainly as a viable candidate against Hillary Clinton (she was considered to be the front runner then and many including Reid were not sure she could win the general election).
I also don't think Bill Clinton's remark was racist. I think he meant that Obama was untill then an unknown and too insignificant to do more than bring coffee.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/in-reids-comments-hints-of-obamas-own-words/
Here both the NYTimes and Zerobama himself admit that the fraud poured on the fake accent when it suited him.
And, Clinton's coffee remark was the opposite of racist. He wasn't commenting on Obama's race, but on his inexperience and his junior status. Fetching coffee is not a known racist reference, it's a known reference to office politics and pecking order and seniority. If anything, traditionally women have been sent to fetch coffee.
Out, only when the stealthcare bill is "done".
Reid's formerly private racial remarks to two jackass "reporters" are troubling when viewed in context of his measure of "electability," and his misuse of restricted power to try to bring about a desired outcome.
Specifically, Reid's explanation for what made Obama electable (light-skinned and ability to speak negro at-will), strongly suggests why he believed at the time that Jesse Jackson, Jr. Danny Davis, and Emil Jones were not electable (dark-skinned and speaks negro compulsively) and therefore unsuitable for appointment to Obama’s vacant senate seat.
Remember, Reid interefered in Illinois state business by making it clear that he did not want any one of these three black men sitting in his Senate; instead, Reid told Gov. Blago that he wanted either Tammy Duckworth or AG Lisa Madigan.
Therefore, it is here--the intersection of Reid’s own words and his dirty deeds--that he betrays his surreptitious racism.
Later, when Blago punked Reid by appointing Roland Burris, Reid's opposition grew stronger and more irrational to the point of evoking images of an early 1960s Governor Wallace blocking the doorway of a building at the University of Alabama to prevent black students from entering under court order. It would not have been a pretty sight to behold in 2009 at the U.S. Senate.
When all was said and done, Reid ended up looking like a fool. He expended enormous energy and myth-making to subvert then Governor Blogo's constitutional right and obligation to fill the vacant senate seat. Perhaps Reid felt Burris wasn’t “electable,” either.
Fafnir,
WOW that is some kind of fire under your ass brother!
Can your venom pierce Steele?
Roberta, my point wasn't that either remarks were racist, but rather the reverse of that.
That is why I used the phrase 'allegedly horribly racist'-- people said that, but I don't agree.
However, your criterion is mistaken. That nobody would say it of a white person, because it makes no sense as to a racial stereotype of whites, doesn't make it a race-free remark when said of blacks, for whom it is indeed a racial stereotype.
'Clean and articulate'? Nobody would say it of a white person politician because there is no presumption that many of them are normally dirty and inarticulate. If you see the difference.
XI
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