Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) has had a miserable week. A new book just out quotes private remarks that he uttered in 2008 that Barack Obama was very electable because he was “light-skinned” and “didn’t speak with a Negro dialect unless he wanted to.” Reid has groveled and apologized profusely and was officially pardoned by the president. At least he was spared the indignity of having to appear in public with Al Sharpton and beg. The timing couldn’t be worse—Reid is up for re-election and is lagging by 10 points in the polls. Nevada Republicans are piling on.
Lost in this racial kabuki drama of political correctness and one-upmanship is the fact that Reid’s observations were essentially true. There has been a racial pecking order in all Western Hemisphere societies based on skin lightness or darkness. Light-skinned African Americans have done better politically (c.f. Edward Brooke, Adam Clayton Powell).
Reid’s second point was perhaps clumsy but still largely true. African Americans have to navigate between two cultures. To do well in school and the business world they have to speak and write standard English. They are then at risk of ridicule from other blacks that they are selling out, “acting white.” On the other hand, if their speech sounds too Ebonic, they might be written off as too “ghetto” by middle-class people.
Have you ever seen the 1980 movie “Airplane”? There is a hysterical scene in which two black guys on the plane are swapping jokes in heavy black slang and the poor Caucasian stewardess can’t understand them. A helpful Barbara Billingsley (remember June Cleaver?) jumps up and offers to help. “I speak jive,” she said. Reid is being tarred as a dinosaur for using the word “Negro.” He probably deserves to sweat some over that. But frankly I think most whites in America are a little confused about how to talk about race. The NAACP still advocates for “colored” people and the United Negro College Fund still raises money for “Negro” youth.
President Obama is to be commended if he is “bilingual,” or perhaps a better word is “bi-dialectal.” I am glad that he is such a master of standard English oratory. But I am also glad for him if he can be seen as black enough to represent and advocate for the historic dreams and aspirations of African Americans. Ironically this has a Scriptural parallel. St. Paul in I Corinthians 9 taught that successful evangelists and missionaries learn the language or dialect of the people to whom they are attempting to minister. He spoke like a Jew to Jews, like a Greek to Greeks. That’s not cynicism. That’s just showing respect.
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Straight talk. Real hope.
4/26/2010 - Posted by D
When in Rome, do as he Romans do, as long as it is to the glory od God.
1/17/2010 - Posted by M
In the late 1950’s a “light skinned’ African American named Johnny Mathis hit the pop scene and though I myself was not old enough to buy his records, my cousin was, and she and I would sit for hours in front of her hi-fi record player listening to him sing, absolutely loving every minute of it. The grown-ups who observed us didn’t seem to be as enamored with Johnny as we were, however, and I can still recall overhearing my aunt telling another adult that she didn’t think that listening to a “negro” was a very healthy thing for us to be doing …“but I don’t suppose that listening to Elvis for hours on end is much better and, well, he is a light skinned negro after all”, which made absolutely no sense to either of us because “what in the world does lighter skin have to do with anything anyway??” But, alas, it wasn’t too long thereafter that such comments and the prejudice that fueled them did start to make sense to me, and this understanding literally turned my stomach. Years later I was privileged to be in the company of those who didn’t have the stomach for it either and so we marched across the 16th Street Viaduct with Father James Groppi, and this I did while knowing that my card carrying Nazi uncle (who I lived with) would be waiting for us as we stepped off of the viaduct and onto the south side of Milwaukee. On that day it didn’t seem to matter what color, or variation of color, our skin was because the signs and the shouts all confirmed the same thing: “niggers, and nigger lovers are not welcome here!” …. no, it wasn’t the color of our skin as much as what we believed in that had them all up in arms, and what we believed in was that there would come a day when no-one in our nation would be judged by the color of his or her skin but only by the content of their character… and we were willing to die for it. So they stood there on their bigot-held turf cussing and spewing out vile threats as we crossed over, but this only served to further our resolve. ….. So that was then, and this is now, and because of it I find myself somewhat marveling that we are still having conversations about whether it is right for a person of position to say that favoritism will be/is shown to light skinned African Americans over dark skinned African Americans or, better yet, that because it is a reality that American people are still influenced by, and make decisions because of, the color of a person’s skin we should kind of wink at it for the sake of preserving diversity and promoting unity …… I don’t know. I, for one, am not so sure.
1/13/2010 - Posted by H
Thank you for boldly speaking the truth.
