• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Racist or not: Harry Reid and Blago get blacker than black

Written by Danielle Belton
Monday, 11 January 2010 00:00

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid used the word "Negro" and disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod "Crazy-Pants" Blagojevich says he's "blacker" than the president. Everyone go crazy!

I'm no fan of Harry Reid, mostly because I think he's useless. But I think his "Negro dialect" comment is about as dumb as Vice President Joe Biden calling Obama "clean" and "articulate" during election 2008. Meaning -- what the hell, old dudes?

From the Los Angeles Times:

In their new book "Game Change," authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann say that in 2008 Reid described candidate Obama as a " 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one,' " whom many voters would embrace.

Although Reid apologized to Obama on Saturday for his "poor choice of words" -- and the president accepted because "I know what's in his heart" -- his remarks dominated the Sunday talk shows, where Republicans called for the senator's head.

The contretemps is unlikely to affect the healthcare overhaul, which Reid has shepherded through the Senate without Republican support. The real issue is whether the controversy threatens his reelection by injecting race into an already tough campaign and depressing black turnout in Nevada, where 77% of eligible African Americans voted in 2008.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele, who is black, led the charge.

"There is this standard where the Democrats feel that they can say these things and they can apologize when it comes from the mouths of their own," Steele said on "Fox News Sunday." "But if it comes from anyone else, it's racism. It's either racist or it's not. And it's inappropriate, absolutely."

Maybe I should be outraged. I'm not, because it doesn't surprise me that some old dude still gets his Negroes confused with his Coloreds and his blacks befuddled with his African Americans. It's more another annoying eye-roll to the racially challenged who put their foots in their mouths by being behind the times in their venacular. (See Lott, Trent) It's 2009. I know it's hard to keep up with the name changes, but, dude, Harry ... no one says Negro anymore no matter what the U.S. Census says.

As for Blago being blacker than a black man ...

This guy, he was catapulted in on hope and change, what we hope the guy is. What the fuck? Everything he’s saying’s on the teleprompter. I’m blacker than Barack Obama. I shined shoes. I grew up in a five-room apartment. My father had a little laundromat in a black community not far from where we lived. I saw it all growing up.”

He's Blago. Did anyone expect anything less than a trainwreck?

But the real question is ... RACIST OR NOT?!?!?! Go!

Danielle Belton is a writer and freelancer whose works have appeared in The Huffington Post, The American Prospect and Essence Online. She is the author of the blog: http://blacksnob.com