The Glade 4.0

WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid apologized on Saturday for saying Barack Obama should seek—and could win—the White House because Obama was a "light skinned" African-American "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

Does anyone else not find this a bit creepy? Reid's comment was made in private, someone just recorded or wrote it down and is spitting it back out now.

Second, who didn't think that Obama was a hopeless candidate in early/mid-2008 because he was black? Reid was being more optimistic than most with his comments here at that time.

Does anyone else not find this a bit creepy? Reid's comment was made in private, someone just recorded or wrote it down and is spitting it back out now. Second, who didn't think that Obama was a hopeless candidate in early/mid-2008 because he was black? Reid was being more optimistic than most with his comments here at that time.

Khross thought he was hopeless even after he was elected. *shrug*. It wasn't until after the man was inaugurated that Khross finally admitted he had a shot at the oval office.

Reid is tanking in the polls here in Nevada. Its very likely he's out on his *** after this year's election.

That reminds me, Jerry Doyle is gonna be here in Tucson on Wednesday. I'm gonna try to get down to the bookstore and meet him. I'm gonna ask him how they heck you guys keep re-electing Reid. I'm interested in his answer.

Sure, it's depressing that Democrats have a Senate majority leader who thinks it's acceptable to use the term "Negro dialect," even in private, off-the-record conversation. It's not just that the term "Negro" was retired about 40 years ago; it's also the notion that there is any one "dialect" spoken by Americans of African descent.

But 70-year-old Harry Reid's gaffe -- he immediately apologized once it was revealed in John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's gossipy "Game Change," and Obama warmly accepted the apology -- has attained near-scandal proportion, pumped up by the right, the shallow MSM as well as a little bit too much debate among Democrats. I dug myself into a hole on this question on Twitter; it can't be debated in 140 characters, so let me try to dig out -- or dig deeper -- with a little more room here.

First of all, I'll share what Reid is quoted as saying. Tangent: I think Heileman and Halperin have probably written an absorbing book (the John Edwards chapter is amazing, and stomach-turning), but if they get dinged for anything, it will be for using a lot of unnamed sources, as well as quoting controversial statements, sometimes firsthand, sometimes with less direct knowledge, in odd sentence fragments. Here's the Reid section:

"[Reid's] encouragement of Obama was unequivocal. He 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," as he said privately. Reid was convinced, in fact, that Obama's race would help him more than hurt him in a bid for the Democratic nomination."

It does feel a little silly to be debating objectionable sentence fragments, although a fuller quote of Reid's remarks might get him in deeper, but there we are.

For Republicans to jump on Reid is both predictable and disgusting. The foolish Michael "Honest Injun" Steele is suggesting that Reid must resign. I think Steele funneled his own book fee to Harper to get them to release "Game Change" this weekend, so the Sunday shows wouldn't be obsessing over whether and when Steele will resign or be pushed out of his post as RNC chair, for gaffing and overspending his way to shame.

I'm glad to know Steele doesn't believe there is any kind of black dialect. I guess that's why he titled his blog "What up?," told the "Today" show in no uncertain terms "brotha's still here" and said the Republican Party had to use hip-hop to reach black voters. No stereotyping there!

Meanwhile, Steele and Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl are shrieking "double standard," comparing Reid's comments to the stunning 2002 musings of former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, who had to resign after he said the country would have been better off if it had elected Dixiecrat segregationist Strom Thurmond president in 1948. Oh sure: One guy is talking, perhaps inelegantly, about why he's wholeheartedly supporting our first black president; the other is wishing the country had elected a racist. That's exactly the same thing!

But I was a little bit bothered to jump on Twitter today, where my world is very liberal and colorful, and hear some Democrats still trashing Reid for his misstatement. You can read the whole thread here. One person suggested that Reid had no business discussing the issue of whether being light-skinned is an advantage for African-Americans, when that issue is in fact regularly debated in the black community. If we're ever going to have our long-delayed conversation about race, white people are going to have to be able to participate even on issues that black people have considered their own. I can't count the number of conversations I had in 2008, with savvy political observers of every race, talking about the advantages of Obama being light-skinned and biracial.

Seriously, does anyone really think it's coincidence that our first black president is a biracial man who came from Hawaii by way of Harvard (with a little political rough and tumble in Chicago)? If my thinking that means I can't be Senate majority leader ... well, that's OK. I didn't want that job anyway.

Others took issue with the notion of a "Negro dialect," and while the term "Negro" is passé and the idea that there's one dialect spoken by all African-Americans is ridiculous, it's also silly to suggest that there are no words, idioms, sayings or speech patterns common to some or even many African-Americans. During the 1980s, I covered the efforts of some black educators in Oakland, Calif., to get Ebonics designated a language so low-income African-American kids could get English as a second language funding. During the 2008 campaign people noted that not only Obama but Hillary Clinton (with, um, maybe less justification) sounded quite different speaking before black audiences and white ones. Obama is culturally bilingual, and again, if we're supposed to deny that was an advantage for him, we're being willfully blind to the realities of politics.

Having a black president means that issues that some black people think can only be discussed in their community are going to come out in the open. For better, or worse, and in this case, I think better. Harry Reid expressed his thoughts inelegantly, he understands that now, and perhaps we'll retire the term, and the idea of, "Negro dialect." But if progressive racial-justice Democrats don't think politicians of every race size up the field in terms of competitive advantage -- and sadly, even today, accord advantage to African-Americans who put white folks at ease, speak "white" or "standard" English, and even, yes, look "less non-white" -- we're kidding ourselves.

Besides: We have much bigger problems, as a party and as a nation, than the reasons a powerful 70-year-old white politician endorsed Barack Obama for president. Let's get serious here.

Objectively I think this doesnt amount to much other than stupidity, however, it's very funny watching people like Al Sharpton and the Democratic Black Caucus rush to Reids aid.

‘His apology does not take away the sting of his divisive words…‘ - Barbara Boxer

‘I can tell you if a Democratic leader said such a thing, they would not be allowed to keep their position,’ - Mary Landrieu

‘What he said was insensitive as hell; it’s very offensive,’ … ‘Race is serious stuff. It’s not something you kid about.’ - Joe Biden

‘…the GOP must decide whether Lott ‘represents the views of the majority of Republicans in the Senate and in our country.‘ - Hillary Clinton

‘We need political leaders who are healers, not dividers,’ … ‘I hope that Senator Lott’s apology will translate into action and that he will advance policies that bring us together as a nation rather than pull us apart.‘ - Dick Durbin

Reid needs to step down. I would love for the Republicans to continue their trend of speaking out against such statements by going after the people that passed around "Barak the Magic Negro", the Tea Party movement for their racist signage, and people like Tancredo, Buchannan, Limbaugh, and others, that regularly cross these lines.

19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

‘What he said was insensitive as hell; it’s very offensive,’ … ‘Race is serious stuff. It’s not something you kid about.’ - Joe Biden

First of all, Harry Reid didn't cross any lines. While I disagree with his politics, and find him to be largely deplorable, there is no problem with either his language or his thoughts here. The problem only arises when people conflate racial language with racist language. There is a huge difference. Racial is descriptive, racist is comparitively derogatory. Reid's usage was the first. He made an astute political observation, making use of societal trends. He did not make a comparitive statement condeming one race over another on racial grounds.

I don't really care that he shot his mouth off and said what he said, it's just the hippocracy that most of Washington is using considering this issue. As Rynar said: the weaponized racism. How the Democrats in washington and elsewhere wanted to paint their opponents as racist in order to gain political advantange, but then turn around and "poo poo pshaw" when one of their own makes a little gaffe

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.