Posted on 01/13/2010 7:03:24 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Bravo for President Obama. Obama took the high-road giving our Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid the benefit of the doubt, playing down the race card. Reid says our President, then Senator, made it this far as a light skinned black who could speak so well.
Why would our President be offended, he believes what the Senate Majority Leader says-and it is true: Obama is well spoken, he is light skinned. This month, I reckon, he is thick skinned too. Yet, however, kind and gracious it is to forgive someone in using a "poor choice of words", one should be mindful of the character revelation these poor choice of words unveil. For it is not our President, and his race, or his dialect, but also, the dignity and integrity of a people at the heart of Reid's opinion.
The most troubling aspect of our Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's statement that then-Sen. Barack Obama would likely find success as a candidate because he was "a light-skinned" African-American "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one," is his use of the word Negro. We know from previous statements that Reid must understand that the word Negro in identifying today's black Americans is a primitive and somewhat offensive term. Just six months ago Reid himself cited a talk show host as racist in linking Franklin Raines to President Obama saying, "...The only connection people could bring up about Raines and Barack Obama is they are both African-American, other than that there is nothing." Suddenly African-American is appropriate? Why not say "Negro" then Mr. Reid? Mr. Reid certainly knows why not.
It is not, Negro, for the same reason Michelle Kwan is not Oriental. It is not Negro, for the same reason that Prime Minister Hotoyama is not a Jap. It is not Negro, for the same reason, your Jewish neighbor is not a Jew. Reid knows as well as we all do that identifying with certain markers can underscore and imply way more than a person's ethnicity and character. The word Negro though accepted by blacks was used at an ugly and divisive time in this country. Negro is old-school and linked to a world that was still abusive and derogatory towards blacks. Negros were second-class citizens, largely undereducated, and vastly oppressed. Harry Reid certainly knows this and therefore knows better than to use the word Negro, at least publicly.
So what is this "Negro dialect" Mr. Reid speaks of? It is a dialect of an oppressed and uneducated people. A dialect of suffering and struggle. It is a dialect that President Obama would naturally be able to turn on and off like a faucet just as it appears that Harry Reid can as well in deciding when and when not to use racially titillating lingo. Thus, in confidant company, Obama and black Americans are Negro. Publicly, blacks are elevated to the gentrified African-American. Why, thankya good-suh massa Reid.
As far as the assertion that it would be important for a successful black Presidential candidate speak properly, Harry Reid makes a valid point. Many black Americans would be remiss to support an inarticulate representative of their race. Only, Reid suggests there are times when speaking with a Negro dialect (as only a true Negro would) might be useful.
In all the ways Mr. Reid could have complimented our President on becoming the first African-American President he choose to look beyond his character and go straight for divisive, archaic stereotypes. Mr. Reid did have a "poor choice of words", but, it was a lack of words that he did not use in defining our President. In praising then Senator Obama, Mr. Reid made not one mention of character, experience, wisdom, or intelligence, only Negro dialect and the hue of his skin. Someone recently reminded me of a quote my grandmother used to say and it is perfect for this. "A new broom knows how to clean up the mess; an old broom knows where to find the dirt." Yessuh, massa Reid, you an ol', duhty broom.
-- Lisa Fritsch is a writer and radio talk show host in Austin, Texas.
it is Spanish for “Black”?
I like American Thinker articles but this one is off base. This writer is so “sensitive” that she should be surrounded with cotton batting for fear of an owie getting her.
Good grief!
In a country where we will soon have to speak Spanish to succeed she believes that “Negro” is not to be uttered?
We all need to get beyond this tendency to give power to words that the words should not have.
LOL! GMTA!
Is it still The United Negro College Fund, or has that been revamped?
Why are they making such an issue over this? The guy is old. Thats what his generation called them. Thats what they wanted to be called.
So..what are we calling them this year? Black? African American? What?
I am white..I was born white..I grew up white, when people asked I said white..and I still say white. Is it our fault that their race cant make up their minds. And then we have to worry if one of their prior names is insulting? Ridiculous.
Imagine if George W. Bush had said of Colin Powell: “He is an intelligent and attractive light-skinned negro, and he doesn’t talk like he is from the ghetto.”
Can you just imagine the outcry?
“Bravo for President Obama. Obama took the high-road giving our Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid the benefit of the doubt, playing down the race card.”
Given what Obama said about Trent Lott when he was being smeared I think it is pretty clear that taking the “high road” -in this instance- is nothing more than the two-legs-better sort of hypocrisy we’ve come to expect from this man and his ilk.
Some people are willing to make themselves look stupid in order to make Reid look bad.
Blah, blah, blah.
It is NOT African-American. It is simply AMERICAN. As long as people in this country want to be a hyphenated American they can sit in the back of the bus. IMO
Samuel L Jackson said it best:
The television versions use “Negro” but I can’t find any of those.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM3yOWrkpKo
Obama lacks all four and Reid remains an idiot.
Negro was the accepted term until about 1968, when the term “black” became prominent. Then “Negro” fell into disuse. But Negro was never a slur.
Then, about 1988, Jesse Jackson gave a speech in which he suggested that “African-American” was a good description, and that term caught on. But, black and African-American have been used interchangeably over the past 20+ years.
In 1909, when the NAACP was formed, the term “colored” was accepted and not considered a slur. The “C” in NAACP stands for “colored”.
If you go back and listen to speeches from the past and read speeches from the civil rights movement, you will hear Dr. King, President Johnson, and others, talk about the “Negro people”. That was the accepted term.
Language evolves. If you look up the word “gay” in a dictionary from 1960, there will not be anything about homosexual in the definition.
What the hell is she talking about? Are we talking about the same man that went to a Black Liberation Theology Church with Rev Wright for 20 years? Are we so seriously delusional and PC that we chastising a white man talking about a black man who has Eric Holder running interference for the Black Panthers? A man as racial as it comes and we are supposed to be all hot and bothered about the white 'racist' We are making it easy for the Marxist and nation destroyers.
For the sake of Public Efficiency and the Common Good, I propose the “DieHard The Hunter Federal Sticks-and-Stones Law”.
Whereas it is Illegal for any word in any language whatsoever to give offense to anybody — be it a person, body corporate, or any other group howsoever constituted;
Moreover, it is illegal for anybody — be it a person, body corporate, or any other group howsoever constituted — to take offense at any word in any language whatsoever.
Violations to be punishable by not more than three years less a day in Federal Gaol, and or a fine not to exceed one million ($1,000,000) United States Dollars.
+++
This simple, commonsense law has advantages that are both obvious as well as very subtle. So much needless litigation and cost would be pared from our legal systems if only we could apply the age-old principle taught to us by our Mums before we entered Kindergarten:
“Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me.”
By LAW, if I had my way.
I am familiar with every word they have been called...both slurs and nonslurs. I just dont see negro being such a big deal..even if he said colored..so what. Until they make up their minds who they are, anything goes. Its to the point where people dont know how to list their race on forms.
Made no mention. I'm just nitpicking.
That shouldn't be too surprising considering the fact that Obama's mother was a white woman.
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