Let me start by saying I think the Republicans played it well. The only one of them who could realistically go over the top and call for Reid's resignation, Michael Steele, did so, so they got that point for free, and painted a picture (which the media ran with) of Democrats in utter turmoil, which was very well played, considering this was an essentially complimentary comment about someone's rival, made two years ago.
All of that is fine, and good show by the GOP. Now let's discuss the comment itself.
The first part of it, that Barack Obama was an excellent candidate because he was "light-skinned," I can't see as even controversial. Does anyone doubt that it would be harder for Obama to win if he had the skin tone of even, for example, Sidney Poitier? Since I know you're trying to conjure it up, here's a side-by-side:
Sidney is slightly darker, as you can see, likely because both of his parents were Caribbean, while Obama's mother is famously Kansan. And the fact that Obama is, as Joe Klein once said of his protagonist "not so dark," almost certainly made him more palatable to some voters. How much more palatable? Who the heck knows? I doubt very much that there is a direct melanin-to-soccer mom vote correllation to be established. This is not Haiti, where shifting political tides can launch a person into the upper class or doom them to serfdom based solely on skin tone of the ruling group. But it probably is harder for a darker black politician (or anyone) in America than it is for a lighter one.
The trick here is that Obama's post-racial identity has a lot more to do with narrative with
a specific shade of skin tone. And I don't honestly think that it would have affected a politician of Obama's caliber much, had he maintained all of the things that made him an attractive personal candidate (biracial, immigrant narrative, rhetoric, pragmatism, forward-looking, etc.) but happened to be darker. Think of it this way: Would Morgan Freeman have problems if he ran? No, because he's got gravitas, and his African-American heritage is obviously a big part of his story. Would Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson (at right) have problems if he ran? Well, it'd be a fun race to watch, maybe, but probably a tough sell to suburbanites (who, it turns out, still get to vote). And while being darker than Obama wouldn't help that sell, the bigger issue would be an entire oeuvre of songs about being shot. Also, and this is just me talking, I think the name "Curtis" would not help.Still, Harry Reid is from Nevada, a swing state. He was born in 1939, which makes him a senior citizen. His thought that it is an asset for a black community organizer politician to have light skin is no more interesting than an observation that it might help that same politician to be from the Midwest than from California.
The second part of Reid's comment is what is troublesome.
First, I'll give him a pass on use of the term "negro." While not exactly modern, it's not a pejorative or anything. Again, the man was born in the Great Depression; at the risk of demonstrating Daniel Moynihan's "soft bigotry of low expectations," I can forgive the man for using out-of-date terminology.
My question is what the heck he meant by a "negro dialect." I mean, it's hard to think of what that could even mean without coming up with a pretty ugly answer. I don't think he meant Ebonics, which is usually considered a language and not exactly widely spoken. So what did he mean? The problem is, I can't even figure out what a racist answer would be.
Black people, like all people, do speak in dialects, usually based on where they live. Stereotypically (and, to some extent, demographically), that tends to be thought of as large cities and the Southeastern states. Let's even give Reid the stereotype for a moment. Was he surprised that Obama - who had recently lived in the rough-and-tumble world of Cambridge, Massachusetts - did not speak in urban slang (let alone carry an accent from Pittsburgh or Baltimore)? Has Harry Reid met lots of politicians who speak like they're artists on the aforementioned Mr. Jackson's label? Or was he really surprised that Obama - one-time denizen of Indonesia, Hawaii, Kansas and California - lacked a strong Southern accent? On what were his expectations based?
The most charitable answer I can come up with is that he meant a Southern dialect. Since much of the major mainstream black political leadership of the last 40 years have come from the tree of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, many of them have roots in the Southern religious community (think Jesse Jackson). Certainly this is the case over the last several decades in the House of Representatives, where the plurality of black members are from the South. The problem with this theory is that, of the four black US Senators in the modern era, three came from Chicago (Obama, Roland Burris, and Carol Moseley Braun), and the other was from Massachusetts. Since he was a Senator for most of his national career, Reid knew all of them, and it seems unlikely that he would base his preconceptions on the House.
There is a Boston Legal episode about this, where Shatner tells an associate that he doesn't sound "black," and is promptly sued. In that episode, he later asks if it's really so bad to say someone sounds "black." James Spader responds that he thinks it's worse to say "urban" when you mean "black." And I generally agree with that assessment. But that show was based in Boston; it was pretty clear what Shatner meant. In this case, I honestly have no idea what Reid was even talking about.
I don't think Harry Reid's a racist, and anyone who says he is lacks respect for the full meaning of that word and all it has done throughout history. As Obama himself said, the man has decades of fighting for social justice, and it's not like Nevada is without diversity. But I do think he has to ask himself some tough questions about what, exactly, he thinks black people usually sound like, and if someone with those expectations is the best choice to lead his party in the Senate. Maybe, as he says, he just said something dumb that meant nothing. Or maybe he has more learning to do than he thinks.
One thing I do think is crap is the idea that Obama is somehow a hypocrite for forgiving Reid. Say what you will about him, Obama has never once played anything like the race card in the ruleless game that is politics. He has always resisted any opportunity to paint an opponent's comment as racist, and this is part of what has made him attractive to many. His quick acceptance of Reid's apology and shrugging off of the comment fits pretty well with everything he said and did in the primary (Bill Clinton's comments after South Carolina), and the general ("that one"), when he steadfastly refused to engage in calls of racism.
Okay, three links:
- The Inky did a massive profile on Specter, for those of you looking to brush up on his history.
- Labor appears to be sitting out the Democratic primary for governor.
- The NYT did a pretty cool - if flawed - op-ed graphic on the last decade.




