Just in case y’all wanted to talk here about the thing they’re going on and on about on TV and in the more conventional regions of the blogosphere, I provide this post about the rather bland, yet anachronistically off-key, thing that Sen. Harry Reid said about Obama. To quote from the book that caused the tempest:
He [Reid] was wowed by Obama’s oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama — a ‘light-skinned’ African American ‘with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one…
And just for comparison, here’s what Joe Biden — who, if you will recall, went on to become vice president of these United States — said in a similar vein and context. He said that Barack Obama was …
the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy…
If you’ll recall, I stuck up for Joe at the time, in passing, because we all understood what he meant and he was right.
Seems to me that what Sen. Reid said was even less offensive than with the veep said, to the extent that either comment can be said to be offensive at all — which of course depends on your perspective.
Yeah, I get it — black folks can talk about the differences that skin tone make. Garrett Morris and Julian Bond could make an outrageous joke about it in the mid 1970s, and America laughed its keister off. I mean, white folks looked around nervously to make sure nobody saw them laughing at it, but they laughed. But more than three decades later, white politicians still have to be more careful than Caesar’s wife.
But Reid wasn’t making a wildly insensitive joke. He was remarking upon a well-established bit of conventional wisdom that holds that one of the manifestations of this country’s madness over race is that lighter-skinned non-whites are more acceptable to whites — and sometimes, to members of their own demographic group — than darker-skinned people. Sad, but at least arguably true.
As for “negro” — I missed when it became racist to use that word. It’s weird, and archaic. And I suppose it you really wanted to stretch, you could say it displays a willingness to distance oneself from black folks. But the worst you’d think it would engender would be an incredulous, “What did grandpa just say?” We are well one our way to “black” being seen as just as off, and I suppose I should brace myself for being called a racist for using it. But the thing is, I don’t like to refer to a person’s race at all (you know how white folks like to avoid the subject), so if I’m forced to because of the subject matter, I prefer to dispense with it in one quick syllable rather than seven, which to me seems like dwelling on the subject to an excessive degree. By the way, I’m old enough to remember when I resisted saying “black” — preferring “negro,” if I had to use a racial description — because I didn’t like the implication of extreme polarization that “black” and “white” suggested. (Besides, “black” people usually aren’t actually black, and “white” people are generally kinda pink.) But I eventually got used to it.
Anyway, I can’t believe I just spent this many words on something that is another one of those stupid things they talk about on 24/7 TV “news” to avoid talking about anything important. To the extent that Mr. Reid offended anyone (and I’m sure some were sincerely offended, because the human capacity to perceive offense is considerable), he should be sorry. And I believe he is on record as being that. It didn’t bother Obama. So that’s that.
Oh, one more thing — and Kathryn, forgive me for this bit of insensitivity on my part toward non-Southerners — but you know what that remark sounded like to me? It sounds like something some guy from a part of the country where there aren’t many black people would say. Only a guy from Nevada or some such could be so tone-deaf.
So. It’s acceptable to suggest that a well-spoken black man is an anomaly. It’s ok to say we’re ready for a black president, as long as he’s almost white. Come on. It’s racism in both instances, and I can’t believe you’re excusing it.
And are we left to assume that this was the ONLY time Harry Reid ever used the term Negro? Just happened to occur that one time?
Replace Reid’s name with anyone from the Republican party and the teleprompters at CNN and MSNBC would have melted. Olberman would have named that person “Worst Person of The Millenium”… Maddow would have snarked herself to death. And Chris Matthews would have tingling up and down both arms and legs.
Reid should resign not for this gaffe but for being the a horrible leader. Luckily, it looks like the people who voted him in have finally developed buyer’s remorse and will be sending him home in shame in November.
Golly, KP, if you put it that way, I feel kinda bad.
But the thing is, I see Reid’s comment as being about the nation, not about Obama. And Joe Biden was accurately describing what set Obama apart from others who had sought the office.
What they are trying to grope for in both cases is the mid-60s “TV Negro.” If you’re old enough, you know what I mean: the black actors who could play small parts on television shows in those days as long as they were very middle class and clean and well-dressed and met Caucasian standards of fashion and beauty and sounded white. Think Sidney Poitier. America was trying to show how tolerant it was, but that tolerance only extended to blacks who were practically indistinguishable from whites. At about this same time, Amos ‘n’ Andy reruns disappeared from the airwaves.
The biggest black actor on TV at the time was Bill Cosby, and the character he played on “I Spy” seemed culturally indistinguishable from his co-star Robert Culp (as white a white guy as you’re likely to find). It was a time when we all embraced a colorblindness that held that we’re all the same essentially, and Cosby and Culp embodied that ethic. That attitude had a big impact on me, and caused me to think that’s the way the world should be. But I am mindful that that attitude flourished in an atmosphere in which everything was on white terms, within a white framework.
When entertainers like Flip Wilson and Richard Pryor came along later in the decade, it was jarring, because suddenly you had black entertainers whose shtick was exhibiting distinctly black cultural characteristics.
But I digress. My point is that I think Biden and Reid were both trying to say that Obama running for the presidency was a lot like those non-threatening blacks on TV during the “colorblind” era I just described.
Now, having said that… I looked at much the same phenomenon and described it differently. To me, Obama’s race wasn’t an issue because Obama wasn’t black. He was half-white, raised by whites in an atmosphere where being black, or half-black, had little meaning — Hawaii. NONE of his ancestors were brought to this country as slaves. He was just completely outside the American narrative on race.
All of which causes me to view all of the ways people react to him AS an alleged black man — from Jim Clyburn to Joe Biden — with a certain bemusement. When I look at Obama and consider his background, I see him as having more in common with ME than with the average black American, a thought that I explored at some length in that piece I wrote late in the campaign, “Barack Like Me.”
The thing that really strikes me about the Reid and Biden comments is that their analysis is so ham-handed and superficial, and so poorly expressed. But I don’t see either comment as in any way malignant. People should be able to talk about race, in good faith, as honestly and openly as they can. It’s ridiculous for there to be all of this hoo-rah when they try, however awkwardly.
Doug, I think you’re right that people would react differently if a Republican said “Negro.” Not because there’s anything wrong with the word, but because being so anachronistic, it would underline the already presumed chasm of communication and understanding between Republicans (your standard-issue Republicans, meaning the overwhelming majority who are white) and blacks. The word would be more clearly seen as a stiff-arm, as a ten-foot pole intended to remove the speaker from the reality of life as lived by black folks in this century. Such is the way that race plays into party politics.
But when a white liberal who you know wants and needs black support and therefore has to care about clearly communicating with that support, it’s just weird. It just makes you go, Huh? What did he say? It does me, anyway.
I mean, do you think for a minute that a Democratic leader in Congress would want to push blacks away from him? If you understand how things work, you would not expect that. But if a Republican does it, nobody sees it as remarkable.
> I mean, do you think for a minute
> that a Democratic leader in
> Congress would want to push blacks
> away from him?
I personally (with no basis beyond my gut telling me so) don’t think Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi care one bit what black Americans think. Neither one of them depends on that segment of our country to get elected. That’s all they care about – winning their seat and grabbing the perks that go with it.
Black voters didn’t elect Obama either. Obama could have lost both North Carolina and Virginia and still won easily. I don’t think political consultants on either side care either way about the black community.
Context is everything. Reid was praising Obama with old-fashioned language, but was also expressing a political reality.
“Negro dialect”? Can we talk?
Michael Steele’s GOP blog was called WHAT UP? Michelle Bachman does shoutouts to Steele saying, “You de man!”
Everything, literally everything, is a weapon in the hands of the Party of No. Do not expect reasonable, civilized behavior. The GOP has declared war on the elected government.
KP–He didn’t say it was an anomaly. He just spoke the truth, however ham-handedly phrased. If he had said that Obama did not avail himself of ebonics, would that have sounded better? Ebonics is a term embraced by some African American Studies people, especially when desperately seeking funding. Joan Walsh of Salon.com, inter alia, noted that the black community itself has long discussed the advantages of light skin color (and straighter hair). Why, she says, should the topic not be open to all, regardless of skin color? How are we ever going to get to a post-racial society if a white person cannot say what a black person does. [and I doubt many black people would have endorsed Trent Lott’s stance favoring segregationist Strom’s 1948 candidacy for President.] All Reid said was that Obama had an advantage over previous potential black candidates because he sounded “white” and wasn’t all that “black” skinned. That is the truth–not the whole truth, nor did Reid say it was. More people will vote for Sidney Poitier than Tracy Morgan or Eddie Murphy.
I voted for Obama because I liked what he stood for — a new, middle way that could move us forward. It was nice that he is half-African American, but I did not vote for him because he is. I would not have voted for an African American candidate or any shade or speech pattern unless he or she had a position I preferred over other candidates of whatever color or dialect. Unfortunately, many people are not of a similar mind, it seems.
Well, ok, so Reid was talking about the nation. I’m not saying his observation is wrong — it’s probably right on target. Many of us probably wouldn’t embrace an African-American for president unless we could hardly tell him from white. Does that not make us racist? What I’m saying is that he shouldn’t have said it, because people in positions of authority have a duty to do better than reflect our worst instincts.
Biden’s comment is a whole ‘nother thing. The first articulate, bright, and clean black man to run for president? Really?
I’m all for honest discussions about race, but it’s certainly not ridiculous to call people out when they say things about race that betray their prejudices.
People who cover and work in politics know this — voters tend to vote for the candidate most like them. In Obama’s case, it’s not so much race as it is an America that has moved beyond race as a primary issue. Many, many Americans are now “hapa,” or at least understand the Star Trek value of strength in diversity. And I’m speaking as a Scots-Irish-Welsh-German-English chap with black relatives.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
United Negro College Fund
Name the Republican politico that said, “‘I don’t want to buy the black vote; I just want to rent it for a day.”
Name the Republican senator that said, ““You’d find these potentates from down in Africa, you know, rather than eating each other, they’d just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva.”
Name the Republican senator that said, “”You cannot go to a 7-11 or Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian Accent.”
For you haoles out there, here’s what Burl meant by “hapa.”