Monday, January 11, 2010

MISSING THE POINT

I think that Harry Reid's racially insensitive words towards then Senator Obama are being portrayed in a way that is missing the point. He said that President Obama was electable, basically, because he is a light-skinned black man who didn't speak with a "negro dialect" unless he wanted to.

Reid quickly apologized to Obama. The right is crying that he should have to step down from being Senate Majority Leader because of the racist comment. It's a double standard issue. I get that. Many black people are standing up for Harry Reid, forgiving him for the comments because he has proven over and over that he cares for black people, i.e., he's brought home lots of goodies to areas with a large African American population.

I see so many things wrong with this picture. The part of his comments that are offensive to me are not that they are pointed at Obama. It's that he is suggesting that a dark black man who sounds like a black man could not be elected. That is racist.

In most articles I've seen on this, they don't show the whole quote. It's just about describing Obama as light skinned and without a negro dialect. That's just a description, and I have no beef with that. The repulsive thing is the connection that because of that fact, he was electable, with the implication that if he were not light skinned and w/o a black dialect, he would not be.

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