Harry Reid is a racist.
Or at least, that’s what most of the conservative media would have you believe. Harry Reid, Senate majority leader and liberal senator of my home state of Nevada, is a seething, demon-eyed, devil-horned hater of Black people and should immediately resign his lofty position.
The evidence? Excerpts from an interview conducted in 2008 for the book “Game Change” by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, in which Reid commented on then-candidate Barack Obama’s bid for president, saying Obama had a decent chance to win the presidency because he was “light-skinned” and spoke with “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”
A gaffe, indeed; but one that reveals far less about Reid’s character than it does extreme hypocrisy on the part of both Democrats and Republicans.
If these comments were truly so hurtful to African-Americans, why keep them secret for so long?
With an election coming up, conservatives unhappy with Reid’s liberal policies and power as head of the Senate will use any ammo available to them to undermine his campaign. A revelation of “hidden racism” has become a powerful tool to combat successful politicians. By holding onto Reid’s comments, his political enemies are better able to let them loose at a time most opportune for them.
The use of racism as a political ploy is nothing new.
At a 2002 party celebrating the 100th birthday of Strom Thurmond, Mississippi Senator Trent Lott made statements that were used to effectively end his career.
At the party, Lott praised Thurmond’s 1948 bid for president as part of the State’s Rights Democratic Party ticket, a party predicated on racial segregation. Lott voted for Thurmond, he said, “and if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over the years.”
What Lott meant by “problems” we can never know. What was known was that Lott was Senate majority leader. Liberals pounced, and Lott was quickly forced to step down under a media firestorm and accusations of bigotry.
A similar uproar occurred in 2007, when now-Vice President Joe Biden, still a presidential candidate, characterized Barack Obama as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”
One thing must be remembered about most politicians: they’re old. They grew up in a time when schools were segregated, Black people were called “coloreds” and people walked uphill to school — both ways! What was politically correct in their youth is vastly different from what’s acceptable to NAACP activists and news commentators today.
It’s hard to believe that anybody is so upset by these gaffes or miscues they would demand these politicians’ jobs. It’s doubtful that even the very conservatives now calling for Reid’s head actually believe he’s a racist. Actions speak louder than words, and the Nevada senator’s history in civil rights activism speaks more than his stupid mouth ever could.
Accusations of racism have become nothing more than a political tool, brought out at the most opportune time to do the most damage to political opponents. Volatile commentators and political opponents don’t actually care what politicians say, or how it affects the Black community. They care how they can use it to their advantage.
Racism is still a problem in the United States. But we make it far worse by wielding it like a sword to accuse good men of erroneous character flaws. We’ll never get past it if we can’t become serious about it, and flipping out every time some old man sticks his foot in his mouth isn’t helping.
Zach often speaks with a Negro dialect, but only when he wants to. E-mail him at zfowle@asu.edu
