posted by Sam Richards
The uproar over Harry Reid’s comments is standard fare for anyone who pays attention to race relations as viewed through the prism we call “political correctness.” A misguided white man uses an unwise phrase (or two…or five…) and suddenly people are calling for his head, including the National Republican Senatorial Committee:
On Saturday it was released that in 2008 Reid made racially charged comments about then Senator Barack Obama. Unfortunately, this is just the latest in a long history of embarrassing and controversial remarks by the senior Senator from Nevada. We hope Reid’s fellow Democrats in the Senate and on the campaign trail will stand up and rightly condemn these racially insensitive remarks by their elected leader. Sign the petition to condemn Reid’s remarks and encourage other Senate Democrats to do the same. ~ NRSC
Amazing. Wow. His comments must have been hard-hitting and over-the-top racist for this group to condemn them and give back-handed support to Barack Obama and other “colored” people. I mean, really, Republicans across the country are well known for taking offense at anyone–and I do mean anyone–who says mean things about black and brown people. I’m not sure if any of us fully realize that.
So here is a summary of the controversy:
The Obama controversy is centered on remarks published in the book “Game Change,” by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. The book cites Reid as saying privately in 2008 that President Obama could succeed as a black candidate partly because of his “light-skinned” appearance and speaking patterns “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” ~ CNN
Insensitive, is what the comments are being called. While I’m not sure what exactly is insensitive about his comments, since I’m not hearing many Democrats condemn the remarks my guess is that this is a moment when politicians can line up and spit on one another from across the great divide.
But I have to ask: how old is this guy? This is like referring to Pink’s new recording as a record album. “Did you hear that Pink has a new record album coming out?” If anyone said that to me I’d immediately assume that he or she has been totally out of the loop of pop culture and technological innovation for oh, let’s say…about 15 years!!! Maybe twenty. I wonder how many times Harry has heard the word “negro” in the past 30-40 years? Frankly, I’ve heard it maybe once or twice — and usually uttered by old fossils like him. Where’s the guy been? Does he watch TV? Go to the cinema? Engage in conversations with black and brown people? Does he have grandchildren? Why hasn’t someone told him that his drawing on old school vocab?
You see, while his comments aren’t insensitive in my humble opinion, they do open a window into his social world–and that sounds as though it is a very white place indeed. But hey, lighten up. He’s an elected official. Why should THAT matter?
First, I would like to point out that Harry Reid’s comment was a private remark (“…book cites Reid as saying privately…”). As such, I would speculate that he probably never believed his personal opinion expressed in private would be publicized. Second, it is not uncommon for older individuals to use terms from the times in which they were raised. Terms are always changing in attempts to be more “politically correct”. Individuals who were once known as “retarded” are now deemed “mentally challenged”. To call one “retarded” was not seen as offensive a number of years ago. As such, some older people are either accustomed to using older words, are ignorant of the new words, or unaware that the words have been updated to be politically correct. Political correctness can be viewed as stuffy, but some people take offense to words that are not politically correct because they can have a negative connotation. I don’t feel that you should refrain from making your point for the sake of political correctness, but if you can make your point just as effectively without offending someone, then why not take that approach? As a member of political office and representative of the residents of Nevada, I believe that it is part of Harry Reid’s duty to be up-to-date on politically correct and incorrect terms. He could have easily substituted “Negro” with another word to avoid public offense. But again, his statement was a private remark and he did not use the word “Negro” to the general public.
I think it is interesting that the Republicans were vigorously condemning Reid’s statement and hoped that the Democrats would take similar action. I believe that the Republicans were trying to look like the “good guys” by defending blacks by saying Reid’s word usage was insensitive. The statement the NRSC released made it look like their condemnation of Reid’s statement was the correct and sensitive suit of action. Their “hope” that the Democrats would condemn Reid’s statements I believe to be insincere; if the Democrats did not condemn Reid’s statements, then it would appear that they were supportive of Reid’s usage of the insensitive word “Negro” through their silence. I also think that the Republicans chose to magnify Reid’s statement because they knew there was truth in what he said and that Obama had the advantage. It was therefore the hope of the NRSC to slightly damage the image of the Democratic Party since many black voters are registered Democrats. If that were achieved, the Republican Party would hope they could gain black votes.
I don’t really feel as though the Democratic Party had much on which to comment. First, I believe that Reid only vocalized the Democratic Party’s underlying strategies from the beginning of selecting a presidential candidate: they wanted a minority in office to gain support of either blacks (Obama) or feminists (Clinton). Sure, a state senator used the term “Negro”, but regardless of what a white state senator said, that white state senator would not be the next president of the United States; a black man would, who would have unconditional black votes. Therefore, Obama would gain much support among black voters because a black man in the White House would be a huge milestone among the black community. And although white people can be racist, (sure the most racist white people wouldn’t vote for him) because Obama looks more white than black, mildly racist whites could look past his black blood and vote for him because he resembles and speaks “white”, which would only add to his vote total.
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It’s amazing how politicians can nearly get away with murder now in days. Both congress and the media both have a democratic majority, so if they don’t want a certain remark such as Harry Reid’s remarks about Obama not having a “negro dialect” to go so far, the media will make it not go far. Sure there are the minority balanced media outlets such as select talk radio hosts and internet sites, but no one pays as much attention to them as they do to the mainstream media. The common American citizen will say that they get almost all of their news from the mass media and not any other sources. We as Americans tend to get attached to a certain news source, and then we get most of our news from that source for a while. Once that happens, there is no turning back. Sure some of the news media coverage is good, but the majority of the reports coming from the mainstream media address the corporation in charge of the network. One great example of this would be General Electric, which controls and owns NBC. The owner of the company has a very liberal agenda, so he created his own radical network MSNBC. I don’t know about you but if you look at a politician, it should be someone that you can trust or is responsible when making legislation. Now in days, this is not even close to the case at all. We should be able to trust the people who hold office in our country, but now we can see that its very hard to do.
What is very sad to see about this particular situation is that the minority leadership within the Democratic Party, Reid’s party, supported him in his comments. They said that he apologized and that they were not offended. This seems a little strange. I understand that this was a scuffle within a particular political party, but to say that you took no offense to some outlandish comments is completely ridiculous. Even the President of the United States said he took no offense to these comments. That seems a little strange to me. The democrats are willing to do anything to keep their super majority at that time. If someone said something along that magnitude to me, I would take great offense to it and not cover it up at all once so ever. Apparently, even racist comments among themselves can’t stop the democrats from push forward with their socialist agenda, borrowing us further and further into the ground in debt. I think that politicians should be representatives of the people, and I’m sure that Mr. Reid’s continuance was not satisfied with his actions at all.
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What Harry Reid said is very racist and disappointing. Unfortunately, racism has not completely died out in the United States. We have come a long ways though in the past 145 years. Just within the past 50 years many things have changed. With that in mind, it makes sense why Harry Reid said what he said. Growing up for him, racism was very much alive. People could get away with comments like this. This goes to show how hard it is to change the way people think. As a young child he was given certain ideas about things and obviously it is hard to make him think otherwise. Generation after generation racism dies a little bit more so eventually it will be over.
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I do not think Senator Harry Reids comments are racist. Though his comments are insensitive and are indeed not politically correct, I see where he is coming from. Though his statement was bold, I feel it is some what true. I am a black woman. Even as a black person, I would not want my president to give his speeches using slang words or phrases. I think it was the way Senator Reid phrased his thoughts was the real problem. The way he phrased it by including the term negro, as this comment came from a white man, made it sound worse than what was really meant by the comment. He should found other words to express his feelings. He clearly did not think before he spoke. When a person who is a presidential candidate speaks, no matter what his or her race or ethnicity is, he or she is expected to speak articulately. When a person speaks articulate, it shows intelligence, knowledge, and at times maturity. I dont feel it has anything to do with race, however stereotypically black people or people of color are known to speak using slang words or phrases. Being the president of the United States of America is a very influential, important, and respectable. Anyone who is a candidate for this position is expected to be intellectual, knowledgeable, and articulate. It doesnt matter what the persons race is, he or she should not speak in slang when addressing the people of the United States. I feel that President Barack Obama being a light skin African American has nothing to do with him being elected as president in oppose to if he was a dark skin African American. I feel no matter how you look at it, he is going to be scrutinized in some ways for being the first African American president
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I sort of think that this is to be more expected from an elderly white individual than anyone else. Older people, at least in my experience, just seem to be more racist. I guess it is the way that they were brought up, how they lived or maybe even their environment. I don't quite understand it. But as time goes on, people seem to be more open minded about others and more accepting of differences. I don't necessarily think that what is said was "racist" but I do think that he should not have said it. I feel that when whites are speaking about blacks people just have the tendency to be more offended no matter what. Lighten up! We're all just monkeys!!
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I don’t understand how these people Harry Reid get elected, when they have views like this. It’s the same with Rush Limbaugh having the most listened to radio talk show in America. I don’t personally view his comments are extremely racist, but they are defiantly not politically correct. You can’t say Negro, or have it in your book, when you’re the senator of Nevada. One thing people need to understand is that Harry Reid is from a different era. The civil rights movement was happening when he was in his teens through his 30’s. He grew up thinking the word “negro” was a common word used to describe African-Americans. You would hope that over the past 40 years he noticed a great decline in the use of the word, but sadly not. Harry Reid wouldn’t purposely put a racist comment on his book if he wanted to keep his job as senator. His comments strike me as more ignorant than they do racist.
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When I read this article I noticed that older generations are definitely more racist and unaware then younger generations. I do still think that younger people are racist but in reality older people tend to be more racist. I am White from a suburban town and I voted for Obama because I thought he would do not better then George W. Bush, but he had newer fresh ideas that would be good for the United States. You learn from your parents and how they raise is has a lot to do with how your end up voting when you are of age. I think that no matter what there is still going to be racism amongst us no matter what you do. But how your raised has a lot to do with racism and how you vote and deal with things growing up.
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Even though Harry Reids comment could be taken as racist, it is undeniable that barack obama appealed to more people due to his light skin, high education and because of the way he speaks. Honestly, Harry Reid simply said what alot of people were thinking themselves. The way in which he said this and the termonology used might not have been socially acceptable or the right thing to due but he spoke the truth.
yes, the term "negro" is old school and noone under the age of 25 has probably ever said that word but what do you expect from a 70-something white man? He is going to speak the way that he was taught to speak and in a way that the people around him speak, which are probably other 70 year old white males. What other word could Harry Reid have used to describe african americans that would have been less offensive? Sometimes the specific words used dont matter as much as the point that is trying to be proved, such as in this case if harry reid would have said "colored", "blacks" or "african americans" all would have been viewed badly by one group of people or another.
do you think that just because this man is a politican we hold him to higher standards? if you were to have a one on one conversation with someone and this same point or even the same exact words were used would you be equally offended and upset? or would you personally agree in different cirumstances. or since this man is more privilleged his opinion is viewed as looking down on barack obama, but if an african american had made the same point other african americans, and maybe even white people would have agreed with him.
while reading the other comments to this post i have noticced the topic of freedom of speech come up often. everybody is entitled to freedom of speech which is why we can say whatever we want and not be arrested, but this does not mean that society will not punish us. to me the beauty of freedom of speech is that every single person has a different view on every event and these different opnions lead to conversation. the points that harry reid made might be correct or they might be wrong but they still led us to open our eyes and examine what he said, whether we agree or not. and if everyone reading and commening on this blog truely believed in freedom of speech that wouldnt critize harry reid as much as they would analyze and give their personal opinions on the situations. so instead of critizing harry reid for stating his opinion in the future maybe you should try to state your opinion rather then simply criticzing someone.
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Harry Reid is the perfect example of a politician who could care less about what is going on around him. I'm sure that senator Reid doesn't think that there is anything wrong with what he said, so I guess you can't call him insensitive for not knowing any better. I don't know why the cable news networks acted so shocked when they reported on this story, I'm certain they were thrilled about it. It's just another story for them to ignore or never stop talking about. Just because some old man said something stupid doesn't make him an evil human being, just a human being. I don't think there is any hidden racism here, just a guy who is out of touch.
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Im going to go straight to the point. Harry Reid is 100 percent right. If Barack Obama was not biracial and light skinned white Americans would not have voted for him. Him being biracial and growing up around mostly white people thus, developing a "white dialect" aided him in getting the white vote. Harr Reid was not wrong for speaking his mind. Its ridiculous every time a white persons speaks the truth about race or is "real" they often get labeled racist or racial incensitive. Thats why alot of white people do not speak up on race. If the senator was black or hispanic and he said those same words " President Obama could succeed as a black candidate partly because of his “light-skinned” appearance and speaking patterns “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one" their would not have been any backlash about the comment
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. I personally noticed that most whites do not truly speak their mind on racist unless they trust and know the person of color they are talking to. The more comfortable they are with the person.. the more open they are. Alot of my friends and people I associate with are white and I notice this. (Needless to say.. Im black). Back to white I said about white Americans not voting for Barack Obama if he was not biracial…If Obama was dark skinned (not biracial) alot of whites would not have voted for him. Yea I know thats racist as shit. On the other hand, if Barack Obama's wife was white alot of black American would of thought he was a "sellout" and would not have voted for him. Yea, thats racist as shit too… its jus how people are.. most of us are more comfortable with people who look like us.
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I found it wierd how President Barack Obama is biracial. His dad was African and his mom was white. However, the world acts like he is an average black man. He isnt he's BLACK and WHITE. If anything wouldnt it make more sense to label Barack Obama white… he was raised by his white mother and his white grandparents in an all white community. He went to Columbia and Harvard University which are emensly mostly white. He grew up in an environment that was mostly whites..So why do often classify him as white…I dont know… is it because he looks more black then white…or because his wife is black… I dont know.. you tell me…Anyways, for whatever reason we label him as black ( dont say the 1 percent rule that was for slaves 150 years ago) its ok with me. I feel proud that my president is biracial.. white and black.
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With his comments I truly believed he showed his ignorance and age.”Negro” seriously though….. How old is this man? He probably still believes these “negroes” shouldn’t be sitting at the lunch counter. In society we always take a few steps to better ourselves but it’s always that one person that screws it all up. Since when is it okay to call the President a “negro” like come on Massa! Get with it! And it’s funny when Bush was president his race didn’t matter one bit and we never referred to him as that “white president”. But every time someone refers to President Obama that is the first thing that flies out of everyone’s mouth. It’s so sad that no one hasn’t corrected him before this because I do believe he has done this more than once around a group of people and no one said anything. It’s not about being politically correct it’s more like a level of respect that you have for the opposite race. And since when being light-skinned and being able to speak in proper English have anything to do with the person’s ability to be president, it doesn’t matter if he is an elected official….Ignorance is Ignorance! It’s not about being “politically correct” it’s about thinking before you speak. It’s so sad that a man or woman has to define by the color of their skin last time I checked isn’t it 2010? Why is this still a problem in our society? The comments maybe “harmless” to some but still being defined by the color of our skin still stings a bit it seems like no matter how hard we work this is the first thing people see and then or accomplishments. It’s funny because he know what he said was insensitive but he doesn’t care I personally think he said this out of jealously he may be an elected official but he’s damn sure not President! This I believe can spark jealous in anyone.
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What WAS he thinking? If an ethnic slur was what he wanted he had a decent size list to chose from, but he thought "negro" was the way to go? Does he think we are still living in the slave days? Negro was rid of during the Civil Rights Movement because of its association with slavery and black oppression. The term is archaic. I can try and look at it from his side. I guess Reid thought he was expressing what he might be public opinion. If you want to speak for the people, learn how to speak like the people. Not only can the comment be seen as offensive to Obama in particular, but what is it saying to the rest of Black Americans? You are only favorable if you are light skinned and do not speak too "black" (whatever that means)??
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I find this whole issue very interesting because of the entire Political Correctness issue. While Harry's comments may have been seen as insensitive or rash by many, I believe that people have the right to say whatever they want to. That is what this whole country is founded upon. Elected officials are constantly walking on egg shells and the minute they slip up, face steep consequences and might even lose their position and jeopardize their future. We are all human here and no one is perfect. How can we expect politicians to be? They are just like anyone else, just constantly being scrutinized so that someone else can take over their position.
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Of course, we’re not just looking for things we can’t say. We’re looking for things we can’t say that are true, or at least have enough chance of being true that the question should remain open. But many of the things people get in trouble for saying probably do make it over this second, lower threshold. No one gets in trouble for saying that 2 + 2 is 5, or that people in Pittsburgh are ten feet tall. Such obviously false statements might be treated as jokes, or at worst as evidence of insanity, but they are not likely to make anyone mad. The statements that make people mad are the ones they worry might be believed. I suspect the statements that make people maddest are those they worry might be true
Certainly, as we look back on the past, this rule of thumb works well. A lot of the statements people got in trouble for seem harmless now. So it’s likely that visitors from the future would agree with at least some of the statements that get people in trouble today. Do we have no Galileos? Not likely.
To find them, keep track of opinions that get people in trouble, and start asking, could this be true? Ok, it may be heretical (or whatever modern equivalent), but might it also be truef we could look into the future it would be obvious which of our taboos they’d laugh at. We can’t do that, but we can do something almost as good: we can look into the past. Another way to figure out what we’re getting wrong is to look at what used to be acceptable and is now unthinkable.
Changes between the past and the present sometimes do represent progress. In a field like physics, if we disagree with past generations it’s because we’re right and they’re wrong. But this becomes rapidly less true as you move away from the certainty of the hard sciences. By the time you get to social questions, many changes are just fashion. The age of consent fluctuates like hemlines.
We may imagine that we are a great deal smarter and more virtuous than past generations, but the more history you read, the less likely this seems. People in past times were much like us. Not heroes, not barbarians. Whatever their ideas were, they were ideas reasonable people could believe.
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Harry Reid obviously used the wrong phrasing with that statement and I can see why it would cause controversy. Saying that, I agree with the blog entry in the fact that his age and social surroundings had a part in that phrasing. I do not think that the statement was at all supposed to be racist or insensitive. I think if you look at it realistically that statement makes sense in some ways and the republican’s try and twist it as much as possible to cause a disturbance. If Barack Obama was a dark skinned black man that spoke a bit differently it may have affected his public image among the white community. Despite all that, I still do not think that he should have used the word negro because it is an insensitive and extremely outdated word.
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No matter what the story is, there always seem to be supporters and protesters; from something as simple as a movie or book, to something as public as a magazine article or speech. Unfortunately, no matter what is said about another race, some will react proclaiming the speaker a racist and hater. This all stems back to our inclination towards maintaining political correctness. As soon as something is said "out of line," the White Man has overstepped his boundaries into racist territory. Perhaps Harry Reid is unaware of this political correctness, and is able to speak his mind because of this. After all, the old man has some catching up to do when he’s still using words like “Negro.”
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I feel like Mr. Harry Reid’s comments were a result, as Sam said, of him not speaking in a language appropriate to 2008 or any time in the past decade, for that matter. These may have been alright things to say when he was growing up, but in today’s world, speaking like that is not acceptable, especially to be talking about someone in such a highly respected position as President Barack Obama, especially since he is a current senior United States Senator. The fact that he insinuated that a person of dark skin could not be a successful president is disturbing.
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I am not surprised that an elected official would use such word repeatedly. Although I think it’s definitely an issue with political correctness and ignorance. How are you going to be an elected official and not know when to say that right thing at the right time? I mean people elected this elected official to speak out for them as a voice for them. They are also elected to represent the people. I would hate to have voted someone in, that would basically call me a racial slur when I put my hope and confidence in hoping that person would be able to make changes for me.
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While I agree that Harry Reid could have picked better choices of words (or really not made any remarks about the color of Barack Obama’s skin), I do think that the reaction against him is a little bit strong. I agree with the majority of the people that commented on this who blame his age for his choice of words. I did not pick up on any negative connotation in Senator Reid’s words, he was just saying why he thought Barack Obama would succeed. He was not degrading him for skin color, he was just stating his opinion, which happen to include a word that apparently is not so politically correct anymore.
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