Comments | scottish_like: Quote, Negro dialect

scottish_like

Quote, Negro dialect

Jan 11, 2010 08:39

(Hey radioactiveart, this is an example when LJ is a hundred times more effective as a medium - in this case for thoughts longer than a synapse - than FB, if not more effective as a platform. Just sayin'.)

I don't make it a habit of watching the morning pundits because they all just infuriate me. Every issue they touch upon is deeper than they give them credit ( Read more... )

how black folks talk, al sharpton, fucking media, fucking politicians

Comments 16

theklute January 11 2010, 14:24:54 UTC

Fun story. tereze's sister said in a conversation that she "always gets 'both sides of the story'". Her illustration? "I watch both 'Morning Joe' and 'Fox and Friends'!"

scottish_like January 11 2010, 18:57:40 UTC

Good lord.

Over lunch I turned on Rush to see what he had to say and my god: he was putting on a fucking minstrel show - literally - trying to prove how racist Reid was. RUSH FUCKING LIMBAUGH.

theklute January 11 2010, 20:31:18 UTC

There's nothing conservatives love more than having license to say the racist shit that's in their hearts.

Rush Limbaugh, April 5th, 2004:

And I’m not going to believe this business that you don’t like heavy metal [Senator Kerry]. I mean, I think heavy metal’s probably your anthem. You know, from the Vietnam era and all that. But here, again, don’t stand up for white music. Associate yourself with rap.

More fun with my defacto sister-in-law. We had a huge debate on Thanksgiving about why African-Americans today don't have greater emnity for the African forebears who sold them into slavery rather than the white people who kept them enslaved.

chaptal January 11 2010, 14:27:49 UTC

It's best for me to avoid these shows. People are under microscopes, and I'm guilty of putting them there as well. One slip, and the opposition starts demanding the pound of flesh, and more. Outrage is manufactored. Three days later, the issue is forgotten as the news cycle finds someone else to pick on.

At least they're leaving Biden alone to mourn the death of his mother.

theklute January 11 2010, 15:01:47 UTC

At least they're leaving Biden alone to mourn the death of his mother.

I'm surprised they're not braying about seeing her death certificate.

nerak_g January 11 2010, 16:03:30 UTC

Whenever something like this happens,I think of the words re-iterate and reify.It's like a poet who knows that if he uses the word "bitch" in a negative context, he'll get flak for it, but he really wants to use the word a lot.So to get away with it, he writes the poems about how women are not all bitches, using the word bitch ten times or more.In the end, the truth of him comes out and he's done more to say women are bitches than not.
Republicans are great at this game of catch a fumble and then say the bigoted thing that's been itching in their craw to say over and over and over again, to reinforce and reinstate the bigoted stereotypes.
bait & switch, bait & switch, bait & switch.

scottish_like January 11 2010, 18:56:05 UTC

lol. RIGHT!

verbalessence January 11 2010, 16:59:16 UTC

This whole thing is just so dumb. And I agree with every single word you wrote here.

I've basically reduced myself down to the 10 minutes the Today Show spends on politics and then walk away.

scottish_like January 11 2010, 18:55:31 UTC

It's funny how black folks at large are kind of like, "Whatever." Most of us never even heard of this guy. Plus, we make that statement, or a variation of it, every day. Plus, it doesn't surprise us that any white person might think this, let alone say it. I think we're more surprised it's still a story than anything else. We we more pissed when Clinton tried to be our first black president than we are at this.

verbalessence January 11 2010, 20:04:21 UTC

So true. I guess I wasn't taken aback because I heard variations of Reid's sentiments in various corridors of my academic, familial, and social circles. He just said it more plainly and sounded pre-1960 while doing so.

I just want them to pass a health care bill and work on the jobs issue in this country among other things. I'm not impressed by the issue or republicans faux-outrage about it.

radioactiveart January 11 2010, 17:43:28 UTC

Agreed. On both the LJ reference and the full post.

You know, I'm not as up to speed as I should be on this story...because when I read Reid's remarks, it struck me that I could comfortably hear a lot of people I know say exactly that, in a sarcastic tone, when describing certain voters who said they'd have no problem voting for a black candidate while internally adding, "provided the candidate isn't 'too black'. "

Does that make sense? I'm not sure I'm making myself clear. I'm trying to ask if Reid's remarks were a commentary on the state of mind of certain voters who don't see themselves as being racist, but who secretly harbor, um, "reservations."

IF that was the case, then there's even more bullshit to be called on the news shows for taking things out of context.

scottish_like January 11 2010, 18:46:59 UTC

Oh, I think Reid clearly made a racist comment in any event. If you're still using "negro" to describe people you're either racist, very old or a census taker.

That said, I don't think you see the fury that would follow a comment like this because no one disagrees with it. There's no way for Reid to have said it and not sounded racist - can YOU think of a way to say the same thing without sounding racist? - but that just means he shouldn't have bothered pointing it out at all.