{"id":171517,"date":"2010-01-12T14:20:30","date_gmt":"2010-01-12T19:20:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/northwestvoices\/2010772818_harryreidsperceivedracialremarks.html?syndication=rss"},"modified":"2010-01-12T14:20:30","modified_gmt":"2010-01-12T19:20:30","slug":"harry-reids-perceived-racial-remarks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/171517","title":{"rendered":"Harry Reid’s perceived racial remarks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Comments taken out of context<\/strong><\/p>\n

Editor, The Times:<\/p>\n

Sen. Harry Reid\u2019s statement reflects the mindset of most Americans \u2014 including African Americans [\u201cGOP says Reid should quit over Obama,\u201d News, Jan. 11]. He should not be censored for being truthful based on the reality that America is not a colorblind society and has not reached the level that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of: That men and women \u201cshould not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.\u201d<\/p>\n

What has happened is that many propagandists have taken Reid\u2019s statement out of context to create conflict and promote their agenda. This strategy was used years ago in the print media and is called \u201cyellow journalism.\u201d Today, it is used by the television news-pundits to reinforce specific beliefs, in this case, the superiority of light-skinned African Americans over their darker sisters and brothers and to lessen the unity within a political party.<\/p>\n

Stereotypes have been around for a long time and many white Americans, African Americans and biracial groups still embrace them. To those Americans who do believe in fairness and understanding, one should always listen or read with their spiritual ears and eyes and pay particular attention to the context of the statement and the time period as well.<\/p>\n

I applaud President Obama for not hesitating to accept Reid\u2019s apology. It shows his wisdom, understanding and gratitude for a senator who has not failed to support the Obama administration\u2019s goals and objectives.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Phyllis I. Beaumonte, former president of the Black Heritage Society, Seattle<\/em><\/p>\n

Same standards should not apply to both parties<\/strong><\/p>\n

The recent controversy over comments made by Sen. Harry Reid regarding the electability of President Obama deserves a more considered examination if we are to accept \u2014 as GOP Chairman Michael Steele suggests \u2014 that Reid\u2019s comments are the equivalent of those made by former Sen. Trent Lott in 2002 and \u2014 like Lott \u2014 Reid should resign for having made them. The same standards should be applied to both parties, but in this instance there is no comparison.<\/p>\n

Reid was giving his analysis about how candidate Obama would fare in the 2008 election. Lott, on the other hand, was giving remarks at the late Sen. Strom Thurmond\u2019s 100th birthday party, in which he praised Thurmond\u2019s presidential candidacy, speculating that had Thurmond won, the nation, \u201cwouldn\u2019t have had all of these problems for all of these years.\u201d Thurmond openly ran as a segregationist in 1948. Which \u201cproblems\u201d are we supposed to think Lott was talking about?<\/p>\n

The worst that can be said of Reid is that, while he thought the election of a black president possible in 2008, he was nevertheless suggesting that America was still too racist to do so unless the candidate spoke like a white candidate and had fair skin. The best that can be said of Sen. Lott is that he was trying to say kind words about an old racist senator in the waning days of Thurmond\u2019s career and life and instead clumsily appeared to endorse segregation.<\/p>\n

Reid\u2019s sin was suggesting that racism still exists. Lott\u2019s sin was humoring it.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Stephen Crotts, Edmonds<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Comments taken out of context Editor, The Times: Sen. Harry Reid\u2019s statement reflects the mindset of most Americans \u2014 including African Americans [\u201cGOP says Reid should quit over Obama,\u201d News, Jan. 11]. He should not be censored for being truthful based on the reality that America is not a colorblind society and has not reached […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-171517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}