Reid's Racist Comments Shows How Completely Out of Touch Dem Congressional Leadership Is

[Yavin4]

Frankly, I'm not surprised at all at Sen. Reid's quote. Several Democratic leaders are completely and wholly out of touch with the Democratic base of support. They don't know nor care about us. Many of them are Dems because it was politically expedient for them to do so. Reid is probably a Dem because of the potential strong support he gets from the labor unions in Las Vegas, and yet, when it comes to making actual policy, he doesn't care if he shafts them.

Folks, if you want REAL, PROGRESSIVE change in America, we have to replace these leaders with a new generation of leaders that strongly reflect our views.

[Enrique]

1. if that's true, then Biden's comments would have already shown that

because what he said was just as bad, or worse.

And then Obama chose him to be VP.

[Better Today]

2. It is also a bit of a generational mis-speak. Mountain out of mole, get over it.

[davidpdx]

3. There's a good chance Reid will get thrown out this year anyway

The only bad thing is it means we lose a seat. The good news is someone else would be Majority Leader.

[vaberella]

4. I don't know how easy that will be to find.

I know many young people with rather questionable views But I a do agree we have to search them out.

[opihimoimoi]

5. From the looks of it....Real Progressives are rare as Heck....not enough to overcome Negative Forces

But, help is on the way....This Nov, we should see a continuing upward trend.

Congress will slowly shift to taking better care of the Peeps.....

The Dems are better suited toward this end..History backs um up

Its Progressives Turn....

[Bitwit1234]

6. And how do you propose to do that????

For a person to run for and get elected to office, now a days, it takes millions. The average person doesn't even have enough to get started. I don't care what anyone says....when they say vote them out. The only way to turn congress around is TERM LIMITS. If a position as important as president can be limited, why in the heck can't we limit congress. If they weren't filling their pockets full of lobbyist and special interest money to get re-elected, then maybe they could work for the people.

[secondwind]

7. Aw, COME ON, get real! It is NOT a racist remark. The damn word appears in our 2010

CENSUS for Pete's sake!

Does it not occur to you that there are older folks who remember this word (and it wasn't RACIST back then either....you might say it was what BLACK is today).

There are older black gentlemen who prefer to be called "Negroes", it is on the census form, and they can check it off.

Harry Reid is in his 70's, no? Give the guy a BREAK!

We have a lot more important shit to worry about.

[eilen]

8. I heard the quote and I am

not seeing prejudice or discrimination. Mostly I am hearing antiquated speech. I am not a big Harry Reid fan but honestly, he made an assessment of race tolerance in our country, and it seemed somewhat backhanded complimentary of the American public.

[Rebubula]

11. OK...

...let's say that the quote was attributed to John McCain or Joe Leiberman?

Are you still forgiving?


I agree with you 100% that we have much more important shit to worry about - but I suspect that your forgiveness would not be extended if the utterer had an (R) after their name.

[secondwind]

14. I'm not sure I would agree with you......Negro is a word that I remember being used

to refer to blacks (lots of blacks didn't like the word "black", they preferred "Negro").....I'm in my 60's, and I understand perfectly what Harry Reid meant, and besides he used it in a not-derogatory manner, he was complimentary of Barack Obama in using the word "Negro".....

It's in the CENSUS this year, for those older black men who wish to refer to themselves as NEGRO.

[spiritual_gunfighter]

20. My exact thought reading this thread

If a Republican had said this there would be outrage. This is small stuff in the scheme of things. But it is kinda pathetic that people are justifying Reid's comments but would destroy them if it were Chuck Grassley.

[Bullet1987]

18. It's not the fact that he said Negro...it's how he used "Black dialect" and Obama's lack of it

as a reason for Obama being President. Since when does a persons dialect disqualify them from the Presidency. We're not talking about street slang here...he said NO NEGRO DIALECT. I agree, there are more important things to worry about, but it's a comment that comes at a time when Reid looks worse and worse as Senate Majority Leader. He's never had any backbone or passion for the position. And now this. Please get his ass out of there.

[polmaven]

22. You do understand that the comment

was not made last week, don't you?

"it's a comment that comes at a time when Reid looks worse and worse as Senate Majority Leader."

[Igel]

26. He was right.

That may be hard to accept, but he was right. Where it matters. Call "negro dialect" AAEV if you want to. People are hung up on a word, not so much meaning and even less on intent.

Consider Hillary. She doesn't have a southern/appalachian/south midlands dialect. If she did, there'd be people mocking her for it.

Well, I'm wrong about Hillary. Just as Reid was also wrong about Obama. Both *possess* that speech variety, at least to an extent (in Hillary's case it's her native register). However, both actively and properly use the standard norm in a wide variety of settings. That allows them to manipulate their speech styles to good affect. Both also keep it out of the media.

Had Obama spoken only like many of my neighbors--they understand standard English just fine and can produce the vocabulary but their phonology or even their morphology isn't very 'standard English'--he'd have had little chance. It *sounds* uneducated, and while we can make all kinds of claims about how it's just an alternative system, the same is true for any dialect or idiolect--including those that DUers have mercilessly mocked. But while we could mock *'s "nucular" and mix of Texan dialects, it would be impossible to mock Obama's AAEV, and that would make discussion of the matter even harder (while garnering him no greater support from bearers of that norm). I mean, yesterday there were people claiming that Obama surely couldn't speak AAEV, and even had no chance to learn it (both assertions being too intent on achieving victory in the argument at the expense of the facts).

The assumptions are different with discussion of AAEV vs. any Texan speech variety. But in neither case would it be like Kerry's non-rhotic Massachusett's speech variety, something that could be considered a valid, educated alternative. I think having an AAEV speaker in a country that still has grammar nazis and prescriptivists, that considers dialect to indicate intelligence, would be more difficult. It's also tied up with Biden's "articulate"--not only could Obama express himself clearly, with good syntax and vocabulary choice, but also his phonology and grammar were standard.

[inthebrain]

9. When the right wanted to kick the left out of every remnant of government

they got what they wanted. So here we have a moderate conservative Democratic Party and they say moderate conservative things.

They got the world they wanted.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

10. Jinx! Michael Steele already said this stuff on MTP.

[HughMoran]

12. I wonder if he's learned anything in the 2 years since he said that?

Actually (in addition), there is a good chance Reid will be replaced - with a Republican!

[secondwind]

15. pls. don't salivate when you say that.....

[secondwind]

13. again, the word NEGRO is not a bad word. IT'S IN THE 2010 CENSUS, for older blacks

to choose between black, African American or Negro. There are older black men who PREFER the word "Negro".....time to bury this s*** now!

Harry Reid, in his 70's, grew up using that word, older black men PREFER that word, enough said.

[Texastornado]

16. Former NAACP president: old African Americans do not call themselves negro

While it is true that the word "negro" will be kept in the census form, the San Jose Mercury quoted a former NAACP President as saying the following yesterday:

Callender questioned the Census Bureau's argument that older African-Americans still identify themselves as "Negro."

"I'm not sure who that refers to. I'd like to know who those older African-Americans are," said Callender. He said his grandmother, who died in her 80s, never used the term, nor does his mother, who is in her 60s.

http://www.mercurynews.com/valley/ci_14156729?nclick_check=1

[golfguru]

19. Get away from hyphenating ALL Americans!!

If this country is going to get away from it's history of slavery
based on race, and other forms of racial prejudice,
all Americans should get away from hyphenating their origins.

No more English-Americans..
No more German-Americans..
No more Chinese-Americans..
No more African-Americans..
No more Mexican-Americans..
No more Native-Americans..

Just Americans!
The census should get rid of asking racial identity. What's the point?
To categorize us in some way? Besides how many Americans are of any
100% pure race or origin? The greatest strength of America is it's
melting pot of people from all over the world.

However, it is still OK for law enforcement to describe a crime perpetrator's
physical characteristics to find her or him.

[Jennicut]

17. I think it just shows what a complete idiot Reid is and has always been

Nancy Pelosi really has not done anything wrong lately to me. I have no problems except with wishy-washy Reid.

[Hansel]

21. I don't think Reid's intent was racism.

He said a word some have never been and other of us are no longer comfortable with, but the word Negro was used to describe Blacks before the word "Blacks" in not too distant of the past. He used a word that he and I grew up with. He's like a gazillion years old and I'm not that much younger and remember the word to be commonly used in "white polite society". So let's can the hyperbole on that.

Even though his statement was poorly worded he makes a valid point. The media likes to claim that the racial barrier was broken when Obama won the presidency, but Obama was only able to win because he fit the role of the "acceptable black person". In other word "he looks and sounds like us white folk". Reid knows how white people think and how the media works and he made a statement of fact using an unfortunate and no longer acceptable word. He probably shouldn't had said it at all.

This country is still racist as hell in many ways. The media plays up the Tea Baggers like they are representative of great Americans exercising democracy and put on the blinders to the blatantly racist signs they carry and words that come from their mouths. A major motivation behind the Tea Bagger movement is racist, but every time someone brings that possibility up someone qualifies it by saying that "most" of them are really just exercising democracy. If I was in a group that used disgusting racist signs to "exercise democracy" I'd find another group to "exercise" with.

The Tea Baggers represent the unease many of our pundits have with a Black president but, because they are so different from them, they know no one will ever relate them to these jack asses. So they allow that unease to play out through people that they can't be accused of being like. Trust me, for many of these clowns the Tea Baggers are only saying what they think.

The media is making a mountain out of a molehill on this because they know damn well he is right. They relate to it so they "protest too much". They don't relate socially to the Tea Baggers so they giggle and let it go. But anyone or any pundit who still shows any respect at all to the Tea Bagger movement is showing exactly what values they have. And blatant racism is one of them.

This ginned up outrage needs to be treated exactly like Obama has treated it. Like a closed book.

[Igel]

27. It's unlikely his was.

But norms for within the community changed and we were all given the memo as to what people in that community wanted to be called. Now one thing, now another, then a third. It might yet change again, and when "they" (whoever "they" are that actually make the decision and issue the memo) decide then there'll be another memo.

Reid failed to internalize the memo sufficiently so that in a private conversation he would spontaneously obey speech standards prescribed by people not in the room. Presumably by civil libertarians, although in this case the definition is a bit murky.

[JustAnotherGen]

23. Compared to all of the things Reid has NOT done or said

That the should have? This somehow falls very low on the radar of things he HAS said or done.


Honestly - had McCain or Lieberman said it? It wouldn't have even made it into the book.

[marshall]

24. If we knew every back room murmur we would no doubt be shocked

And that includes Obama. I'm sure they have ALL said things in private that wouldn't go over in public.

And in the end, who gives a damn what their personal musings are? What matters is what they do. What they say only matters if it is a statement made in public.

[Hansel]

25. You're right about that from the one's I've known. Except for Mark Dayton.

Dayton was more like Joe Montana in the old SNL sketches where everyone was saying the opposite of what you heard them thinking in their voice-over except for Joe. What he verbalized was exactly what he was thinking. Which is why he didn't last long in the Senate.

Most of them though are not angels.