“Reid, assessing Barack Obama’s chances in 2008, cited the fact that the candidate was a ‘light-skinned‘ African-American ‘with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.‘ Those ill-advised comments, to Mark Halperin and John Heilemann for their new book, ‘Game Change,’ produced an immediate apology by Reid to the president. That was followed immediately by presidential forgiveness: ‘As far as I am concerned, the book is closed.’” — [ READ MORE ]

As Barack Obama quickly realized the book is not closed, Senator’s Reid’s inartful words have sparked hundreds of editorials, and now it’s my turn to vent.

First let’s consider the messenger, Reid isn’t a conservative with a racist streak, he’s a liberal Democrat who was an early supporter of Obama.

Let’s not forget that Reid has an apparently incurable case of “foot-in-mouth disease“, he’s made many bizarre statements. Remember Reid’s quip about the smelly tourists coming into the Capitol”?

Finally at 70-years-old the senator from Nevada isn’t as mentally agile as he was in his younger days.

In other words Reid is no Pat Buchanan, let’s cut the man some slack.

Now let’s consider the message: Obama is a light-skinned African-American with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one. As a writer and as a fan of the absurd, I think Reid’s statement is a masterpiece.

Reid may be the first person in recorded history to refer to a black man as an “African American” and as a “Negro” in the same sentence. Reid the consummate politician refers to Obama as an African American, but a second later Reid the doddering old fool uses the archaic word “Negro.”

Reid’s comments were honest and truthful, Obama is a light-skinned African American. The implication that a light-skinned black would have a better chance than a dark-skinned black of winning the presidency is also true. If Obama were as black-skinned as a typical African, he would still be community organizer in Chicago.

The claim that the Harvard Law School-educated Obama doesn’t sound like a homeboy from da hood is spot on. I love Reid’s qualifier that Obama doesn’t have a Negro dialect “unless he wanted to have one.” When Obama is interviewed on TV he sounds like a law school professor, but during the campaign when he was speaking to a predominantly black audience, Obama affected the cadences of a black Baptist preacher. It should be noted that Hillary Clinton the candidate did the same thing when addressing a black audience.

Bottom line: Reid has apologized for his truthful but clumsy statement, and the president has forgiven him. He doesn’t need to give up his leadership post or resign from the Senate. To borrow the words of Bill Clinton, it’s time to “move one.” There are many racists who daily utter vile and false statements about African Americans, they are the ones that we should be criticizing, and not Reid whose days in the Senate appeared to be numbered anyway.

Follow Robert Paul Reyes on Twitter: http://twitter.com/robertpaulreyes

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   [ By: Melissa Harris-Lacewell ]
Joe Biden once remarked that Barack Obama was “clean” and “articulate.” He is now Vice President. During the Democratic primaries Hillary Clinton invoked Robert Kennedy in a way that implied Barack Obama’s assassination was imminent. She is now the Secretary of State. It is foolish to suggest Senator Harry Reid should step down as Senate majority leader because of his 2008 assessment that Barack Obama’s election was more likely because he is “light-skinned” and free from “Negro dialect.”

If President Obama has demonstrated anything at all, it is that he unperturbed by the racially awkward outbursts of his fellow Democrats.

Republicans hope that reports of Reid’s old gaffe might derail his leadership of the health care reform package. But watching Michael Steele go after Reid is more bizarre than convincing. Steele seems to pride himself on the liberal use of black discursive patterns. It’s hard to take seriously the moral outrage of a self-professed “hip-hop Republican” who explains his tenure as GOP chairman saying “brother still here.”

President Obama may be unconcerned and the GOP may be transparently race baiting, but Reid’s comments did create a legitimate queasiness among many Americans that is worth exploring.

President Obama is a forgiving, beer summit kind of leader, but I am less likely to give Democrats a free pass on issues of racial bias. As I wrote a few months ago here on The Notion, any implication that racism is the sole purview of the Right obscures the continuing and troubling realities of racism within the Democratic Party and progressive political movements.

Still, I remain entirely uninterested in a racial McCarthyism that plays “gotcha politics” with elected officials public utterances. Yes, public officials should be particularly careful when talking about race to media (on or off the record). The opportunities for misunderstanding, divisiveness and assumption of ill intent are heightened in this area of political discussion.

But let’s be honest, if we weeded out every public official guilty of racial insensitivity, the halls of Congress would echo with utter emptiness. The point is not so much public gaffes as it is the creation, support, and maintenance of systemic and structural inequalities. This is why Trent Lott’s wistfulness about a Strom Thurmond presidency is in a different class than Reid’s comments. Lott was longing for a bygone era when structural barriers and entrenched inequality were the norm. Reid was enthusiastic that the same barriers were lessening and that America was ready, albeit with caveats, for a new racial reality.

Rather than being worked up about Reid’s awkward assessment of these barriers, we should be asking whether these structural biases actually make academic and political accomplishments easier for light-skinned African Americans. NC State University historian Blair LM Kelley makes this argument in her piece on Salon.com. She points out skin color bias in the 21st century should alarm us. It shouldn’t be a matter of breezy acceptance, as many Sunday morning pundits seemed to suggest. “Accepting this as a matter of course degrades the quality of our democracy.”

Reid’s assertions about “Negro dialect” also should raise structural justice questions far more important than his offensive use of an antiquated term for black Americans. Because of generations of lower class status and legal barriers to quality education, black children are far more likely than their white counterparts to be raised by parents with inadequate literacy skills. But rather than acting as a leveling ground, many public schools only reinforce these disadvantages. These are the same children relegated to schools with fewer expert teachers, larger classroom sizes, fewer educational resources, and fewer literacy support tools.

This is the racism that should worry us: millions of black American children attend and graduate from public schools that leave them utterly unqualified for public office for their entire lives. As adults these children will always be second-class citizens, unable to participate as rule makers rather than simply rule followers in their own country. Not only does this deprive whole group from full participation in government, it also deprives our country of the skills, talents, and ideas that these citizens might have offered, had we not initially deprived them of the capacity to communicate their ideas effectively in the public realm.

Political theorist Nancy Fraser’s describes imagines justice as “a difference-friendly world, where assimilation to majority or dominant cultural norms is no longer the price for equal respect.” Creating that world is an important task for combating racism.

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Newly hired Sarah Palin has been busy making the rounds, “familiarizing” herself with the Top Goons at Fox “News,” America’s number one LYING CHANNEL — The Anti-Obama, Propaganda and Race-Baiting Headquarters for Republican America.

The other night she met with fellow ‘Middle-Schooler‘ Glenn Beck, during which Palin talked about ‘Founding Mothers,‘ eternal ramifications, and John McCain.

Glenn Beck criticized John McCain as a “progressive” who “was for the bank bailouts,” and also criticized those who call for windfall profit taxes on oil companies but ignore the Federal Reserve’s “record profits.” In fact, both Beck and Palin have previously expressed support for the 2009 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), and Palin, while Alaska governor, increased taxes on oil companies operating in Alaska. [ READ MORE ]

Last night she met with Sean KLANnity, the sickest mother-fucker on TV — and Sarah promptly and confidently declared: Harry Reid is “driving a bus that is headed towards a train wreck,” ….and also stuck like glue to her thoroughly debunked “death panel” falsehood.

Letterman on Sarah Palin’s First Day at Fox

Palin still defending thoroughly debunked “death panel” falsehood

In Palin interview, Beck criticizes bank bailouts and oil company tax hikes — but Palin supported both

Just like her newspaper preference: Palin says her “favorite” founder is “all of them” before eventually citing Washington

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   [By: Eugene Robinson]
Skin color among African Americans is not to be discussed in polite company, so Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s newly disclosed remark about President Obama — that voters are more comfortable with him because he’s light-skinned — offended decorum. But it was surely true.

Color bias has always existed in this country. We don’t talk about it because we think of color as subordinate to racial identification. There are African Americans with skin so light-hued that only contextual clues speak to the question of race. I remember once looking up some distant cousins on my father’s side. They were so fair of hair and ruddy of cheek that I thought I’d gone to the wrong house, until one of them greeted me in what I guess Reid would call “Negro dialect.”

Forgive me if I am neither shocked nor outraged. A few years ago I wrote a book about color and race called “Coal to Cream,” and the issue no longer has third-rail status for me. What I would find stunning is evidence that Reid’s assessment — made during the 2008 campaign and reported in a new book by journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin — was anything but accurate.

Advertising is a reliable window into the American psyche, so look at the images we’re presented on television and in glossy magazines. The black models tend to be caramel-skinned or lighter, with hair that’s not really kinky — which is how I’d describe mine — but wavy, even flowing. A few models whose skin is chocolate-hued or darker have reached superstar status, such as Alek Wek and Tyson Beckford, but they are rare exceptions.

Skin color could hardly be a more conspicuous attribute, but we don’t talk about it in this country. That’s been a good thing.

I became interested in perceptions of color and race when I was The Post’s correspondent in South America. On reporting trips to Brazil, a country with a history of slavery much like ours, I kept running across people with skin as dark as mine, or a bit darker, who didn’t consider themselves “black.” I learned that at the time — roughly 20 years ago — fewer than 10 percent of Brazilians self-identified as black. Yet at least half the population, I estimated, would have been considered black in the United States.

This was because American society enforced the “one-drop” rule: If you had any African blood at all, you were black. In Brazil, by contrast, you could be mulatto, you could be light-skinned, you could be “Moorish” brown, all the way to “blue-black” — more than a dozen informal classifications in all. Color superseded racial identification. In Salvador da Bahia, I met a couple who considered themselves black but whose children were lighter-skinned. The children’s birth certificates classified them as branco, or white.

The Brazilian system minimized racial friction on an interpersonal level. The American system fostered such friction, through formal and informal codes that enforced racial segregation. But our “one-drop” paradigm also created great racial solidarity among African Americans, while maximizing our numbers. We fought, marched, sat in, struggled and eventually made tremendous strides toward equality. The most recent, of course, was Obama’s election, which is difficult to imagine happening in Brazil — or, for that matter, in any other country where there is a large, historically oppressed minority group.

Brazil has now begun addressing long-standing racial disparities through affirmative action initiatives. But the upper reaches of that society — the financial district in Sao Paulo, say, or the government ministries in Brasilia — are still so exclusively white that they look like bits and pieces of Portugal that somehow ended up on the wrong side of the ocean.

American society’s focus on race instead of color explains why what Harry Reid said was so rude. But I don’t think it can be a coincidence that so many pioneers — Edward Brooke, the first black senator since Reconstruction; Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court justice; Colin Powell, the first black secretary of state — have been lighter-skinned. Reid’s analysis was probably good sociology, even if it was bad politics.

Much worse, as far as I’m concerned, was the quote the new book “Game Change” attributes to Bill Clinton. In an attempt to persuade Ted Kennedy not to support Obama, Clinton is supposed to have said that “a few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.”

I guess the one-drop rule can still trump Harvard Law.

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[Enlarge] About The Author: Eugene Robinson — is an Associate Editor and twice-weekly columnist for The Washington Post. His column appears on Tuesdays and Fridays. In a 25-year career at The Post, Robinson has been city hall reporter, city editor, foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires and London, foreign editor, and assistant managing editor in charge of the paper?s award-winning Style section. In 2005, he started writing a column for the Op-Ed page. He is the author of “Coal to Cream: A Black Man?s Journey Beyond Color to an Affirmation of Race” (1999) and “Last Dance in Havana” (2004). Robinson is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and has received numerous journalism awards. More Articles By Mr. Robinson: | Part 1 | Part 2 |

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Answer: ALL, but in varying degree!

All men grew up during some of the most segregated years in American history.

Taking into account the fact that we are all a product of our experiences, it is easy to understand where each man is coming from — based on past remarks. Reid was simply speaking the truth — Racist or not. For, the white man (all over the world) has conditioned some light-skinned “people of color” to think that they are superior — “closer” to the white man, and some dark-skinned ones to feel inferior about themselves.

Colonial Europeans and the Anglo-Saxon land-grabbers in America operated in the same “Apartheid” mode.

Unfortunately, in the 21st century, many blacks have not shaken off this slave mentality and are still suffering from acute NEGRO NEGROPHOBIA: a psychoneurosis, a mental disorder — a conditioned response to white power and black powerlessness.

Professor Chinweizu opines: “Negro negrophobia makes black women bleach, till some proudly sport yellow monkey faces and ebony-black thighs. (or ‘Fanta Orange face and Coca-cola legs‘ as some call it). It makes black parents prefer their lighter skinned children to the darker skinned. It makes blacks who marry white or mulatto think they are marrying up and improving the race. It makes a pitch-black Sudanese proclaim himself Arab, on account of just one white Arab ancestor ten generations back; it makes him count as nothing, indeed as a blemish, all his 1,023 black ancestors in that generation, and all the millions before and since.” [ READ MORE ]

REID in 2008: Reid reportedly said that he “believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate” like Obama who is “a ‘light-skinned’ African American ‘with no Negro dialect.’”

CLINTON in 2008: “…..a few years ago this guy (Obama) would have been getting us coffee,” Clinton told the late Ted Kennedy, according to the book: Game Change — a comment that angered Kennedy, who later endorsed Obama.

LOTT in 2002: Lott declared that the U.S. “wouldn’t have had all these problems” if Strom Thurmond’s segregationist presidency campaign had been successful.

Which is worse?

Reid and Clinton, despite their flaws, have mostly been on the right side of civil rights over the years, while Trent Lott and his fellow Republican segregationists have always been on the wrong side — feasting on racial animosity to divide the country to win elections.

Reid’s intent was clear — he was genuinely praising Obama in a way any other sixty something old white man in America would, per his past experiences, having grown up in racism. Clinton’s was clear to — get a win for his wife at all costs. Given that he (Clinton) was a product of the deep south, racism flows naturally — when faced with the frustration delivered by a black man as formidable as Barack Obama. Bill probably never knew any other way to react to a black man “hanging” his white wife!

Trent Lott’s intent was pretty clear too — nostalgia for WHITE SUPREMACY and SLAVERY, a right-wing staple, a tea-party delusion and the bread and butter of Republican politics; the exploitation of racial fears.

One cannot compare a person who yearns for eternal racism, hangings and the malfeasance that come with segregation.

Therefore, I find it utterly despicable for the Republican hypocrites to be howling for Reid’s head (conveniently forgetting Clinton’s statements which are worse), and comparing old man Reid to the despicable racist-segregationist Trent Lott, who has a mile-long rap sheet of bigot politics.

Even more reprehensible is that the Republican pitchfork rampage towards Reid is being led by black RAT Uncle Michael Steele.!

Fuck You Steele. You are a disgrace! You cannot claim any credibility in race issues while you are aiding and abetting a party whose political platform stinks (a lot more than Democrats) of rotten racism and bigotry.

Navigating Race in America

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Defending Harry Reid

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State of Race

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Bill Clinton’s Racism

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Conservative media dubiously compare Reid’s controversial comments to Lott’s support of segregationist Thurmond

Sean KLANnity carefully avoids explaining why Lott’s remarks were offensive

Beckel attempts to explain to Hannity why Lott’s Thurmond comments were offensive

Fabricationist Extraordinaire Dick FAT Morris says Reid’s comments “indicate a level of personal bigotry that really is incredible… This is blatant bigotry” [ P/S Dick Was in Paris -- Eating French Fries ]

Limbaugh: Reid “was complimenting Obama as being able to hide his half-blackness; this is the way they look at it”

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