Just now there's a lot of flack flying about some remarks of Harry Reid's, quoted in a book called Game Change. Mr. Reid opined that Barack Obama had a good chance to become President because he was "light-skinned" and "did not speak with a Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one."
Ever since I heard this, I've been wondering what all the hoo-ha was about. Harry Reid is an extremely skilled practical politician and I thought his assessment of Barack Obama's potential was spot on; he was even proven right when Obama ran and won. What's going on, of course, is another round of our, um, conflicted attitude toward race. I've been considering a post on the issue, until I read my San Francisco Chronicle this morning and discovered that Jon Carroll, as he often does, had just written it for me. I refer you, therefore, to Mr. Carroll's latest column, "The badly expressed wisdom of Harry Reid," identified on the SFGate.com web site as "Find the racist." It's well worth reading. (If you follow this link in a day or two and can't see it, it's the January 14 column.)
I read the column, too, and was moved to respond to it, but hadn't yet gotten around to it.
ReplyDeleteHe mentioned some nasty little ditty that Rush Limbaugh had sung on his radio show, and that really made the case. Conservatives can summon up Jim Crow and Aunt Jemima in the spirit of humor, but let a Democrat do it and everyone's up in arms.
I felt that Condee Rice was the saddest excuse for a Secretary of State we may have ever had. Which just goes to show you that even African Americans can have their hearts in the wrong place.