Racist or Reckless?

The Pastor’s Page

Well, there certainly has been a lot of hoopla around Sen. Harry Reid’s remarks that he made during the Obama presidential campaign.
He said that Mr. Obama would probably win because he was a “light skinned African American who didn’t have a Negro dialect unless he wanted to.”
The media and the politicians went ballistic. Mr. Reid was called racist; Michael Steele, chair of the Republican National Committee, called for his resignation. All day Monday, Reid’s words were reported, and pundits weighed in. Was it racist or not? Should he resign, as Trent Lott resigned after his remarks about how the nation might not have had the problems it had had if Strom Thurmond, a professed segregationist, had been elected president?
It was apples and oranges, folks. Not the same situation at all.
Mr. Reid’s comments were unfortunate, but the words and his sentiment were honest, and I think the words were more a function of when he was raised than him being racist.
When most of us were growing up, the common word for black people was “Negro.” It wasn’t until the 60s that other monikers were offered, including “black,” “Afro-American,” and later, “African American.”
Prior to that, we had been called “colored.”
As long as my grandparents lived, they called black people “colored,” because that’s what they’d grown used to. Older black and white people used “colored,” in spite of the naming game for us being in a state of flux.
It feels like that’s what happened with Mr. Reid. He grew up saying black people were “Negro.” Heck, for that matter, whomever put the new census forms together must be stuck “back then,” because the word “Negro” appears on those forms as well.
He was also saying what most people were thinking. Mr. Obama had a good chance of being elected because he was light skinned and didn’t “sound” like a black person. Reid called that “Negro dialect.”
This nation would never have elected Mr. Obama had he been dark, had he “sounded too ethnic,” and had he sounded too angry. Black people are not allowed to be angry. It is an American commandment.
Mr. Reid must have forgotten for a moment that because he is a politician, he is always under scrutiny. Any laying down of the guard has to be saved for when one is with trusted loved ones. No, he forgot, and said what he said in public, and now, the political world is spinning.
But make no mistake: What Mr. Reid said was not as racist as it was careless. He called himself giving kudos to America on its willingness to elect a black man who wasn’t too threatening. Trent Lott, on the other hand, who was the Majority Whip during the Bush administration, did something far different.
He uplifted and praised Strom Thurmond, unabashedly so, and said that if the elderly senator had been elected president, the country would not have had the problem it had had.
Excuse me? Are you kidding? Thurmond, who, by the way had a daughter by a black woman, was brazen in his segregationist views. Thurmond more than once offered violence as a way to thwart efforts of integration.
Reading columnist Richard Prince, I was also reminded of what racist is, as opposed to ignorant or reckless. Former President Bill Clinton reportedly deeply offended the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, when, during the 2008 presidential race, he called Kennedy seeking an endorsement for his wife. In the book “Game Change,” the same book in which Reid’s statement is found, Clinton is reported to have said to Kennedy, “Come on. A few years ago, a this guy would have been getting us coffee.”
That’s racist.
When I think of Mr. Reid, I think of people even today saying “stewardess” instead of flight attendant, and “record” or “album” instead of “CD.” Sometimes, it’s hard to change with the times when it comes to common language. And, Reid was on the money when he said alluded that if Obama had been dark skinned, there is no way he would have gotten the Democratic nomination, much less the presidency.
I am not surprised that the media doesn’t understand all of this, but I sure wish it did.
All this hullabaloo over Reid was a waste of a good news day.
Have a good week.

Pastor Smith