Negro, Please
A few days ago, the buzz about a book called Game Change began to surface. This book, written by Time Magazine’s Mark Halperin and New York Magazine’s John Heilemann, mentions some comments that Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said about then-Presidential candidate Barack Obama. Apparently the Senator said something like this: Barack Obama is a great candidate because he is “light skinned” and has “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”
I was shocked. Absolutely shocked…that Harry Reid correctly assessed a political situation. We democrats weren’t sure that he was capable of such an achievement. It might be the first time this has happened. Reid just might be one of the worst Senate leaders ever. He’s petrified of the conservative Democrats and Traitor Joe Lieberman, he can’t give a press conference to save his life (I have seen reporters struggle to maintain consciousness while hearing his answer to their own question), and he has had a majority since 2006 and hasn’t been able to do dick with it. And we are criticizing him for using the word “negro”?
Basically what he said was that Obama is black enough for the black people, but no so black that he scares the white people. He said what every black person already knows. You have to be fairer that average and speak the Queen’s English, but you have to be able to shift into what Dave Chapelle calls “street vernacular” on cue. I myself have mastered the former, but never could accomplish the latter.
As for his use of the word “negro”, I am less concerned about him sounding like a racist and more concerned about him sounding like a hick running for the town council in Texarkana in 1904.
I have one thing to say to any black person who spends more than 90 seconds thinking or talking about this incident:
Negro, please.
