Well, I've been slacking, per usual, and with no posts in two weeks, I'm sure blogger was thinking of dumping my blog. But never fear, bullshitters (new name for my readers, maybe), I am back with random news bits that piss me off. So, without further ado. . .
Harry Reid is a racist, but that's okay. For those of you who haven't followed the news, Harry Reid apparently said that Obama had a good shot at being President because he's light-skinned, and doesn't use "Negro" colloquialisms. A lot of Republicans have jumped onto these comments to knock off Reid as the Majority Leader, just as Democrats used Trent Lott's comments to end his tenure as Majority Leader. Of this, I have two points to make:
1) Be careful what you wish for. Trent Lott was a powerful and brilliant Majority Leader, who passed whatever Bush wanted, no matter how small his majority. He was replaced with Bill Frist, who got his ass kicked on a regular basis by Harry Reid. Reid, meanwhile, is getting his ass handed to him by the conservatives in his caucus. In other words, knocking off Trent Lott lead to a less effective GOP majority; knocking off Reid will probably lead to a more effective Democratic majority.
2) It wasn't that racist (if at all). Reid was speaking as a politician eying the attitudes of voters. In essence, Reid was saying that Obama is less threatening to the suburbian folks than Jesse Jackson. Well, duh. But it also appears that Reid was speaking from the perspective of the vaguely racist voters, and I'm pretty sure he was.
Most civil rights legislation passes because of men like Harry Reid, who are intellectually in favor of civil rights, but still, at a gut-level, hold racist beliefs. And that makes sense because the only way to get past gut-level racism is to have experiences and make friendships with people of differing ethnicities.
From my own experience, my father, who's strongly in favor of LGBT rights, is so homophobic that he can't be in the same room as a television playing "Will & Grace." He visibly squirms at the sight of two men holding hands or showing any kind of affection. In the meantime, I grew up taking his views on equal rights to heart, and am now on my second gay roommate. Now, I'm far from perfectly homo friendly, but I'm a lot farther along than my father, and my children will be farther around still. But it was my parents who started the ball rolling.
Oh, and Trent Lott's comments were far, far worse. He said that the U.S. would have been a better place if segregation was still in effect. Not cool.
He did not say that Jim...be fair now. He said that the US would have been better if Strom had won the election, not that segregation was still in effect. I know what the hyper-offended inferred from his statement, but be clear with what he said.
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