Monday, January 11, 2010

Why doesn't Michelle Obama ask Harry Reid what it means to 'talk like a White girl'?

During a visit to a Washington DC high school last year, Michelle Obama told the students that it's cool to be smart. She went on to say that as a child, kids in her neighborhood told her that she 'talked like a White girl', but that it did not disturb her in the least:
"I didn't care whether it was cool because I remember there were kids around my neighborhood who would say, 'Ooh, you talk funny, you talk like a white girl.' I heard that growing up my whole life. I was like, I don't even know what that means, but you know what? I'm still getting my A."
Question: If Michelle Obama has difficulty understanding what it means to 'talk like a White girl', why doesn't she ask Harry Reid to shed some light on the matter?:
[Reid] was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama -- a "light-skinned" African American "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one," as he said privately.
Who knows, maybe, now that Sen. Reid's remarks have been made public, Michelle Obama will indeed ask the Senator the aforementioned question.

Incidentally, during the Presidential campaign, Joe Biden issued the following statement about Barack Obama:
"I mean, you got the first main-stream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a story-book man!"
Undoubtedly, it was the above statement that caught Obama's eye and compelled him to choose Joe Biden as his running mate, as evidenced by what Obama wrote in his best-selling memoir, 'Dreams of my father':
"People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied; they were relieved; such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn’t seem angry all the time."
Clearly, Biden saw these qualities in Barack Obama, and Obama was smitten by Biden's keen perception and his appreciation for courteous and well-mannered African Americans.

Meanwhile, President Obama told TV One network today that Sen. Reid was trying to praise him when he referred to him as a "light-skinned" African American "with no Negro dialect".

Perhaps we can better understand what Obama told TV One network today, by paraphrasing the President's [previously cited] words in 'Dreams of my Father', substituting the words 'Sen. Reid' in place of the word 'people':

"Sen. Reid was satisfied so long as I was courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. He was more than satisfied; he was relieved; such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man."

Ironically, Eric Holder - who once described America as "essentially a nation of cowards" for not feeling "comfortable enough with one another to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us" - said he has no problem with Sen. Reid's [covert] remarks concerning Obama's 'light-skin' color and 'non-Negro dialect'. "I don't think that there is a prejudiced bone in [Reid's] body," Holder told the AP today.

Apparently - according to Holder - Harry Reid is one of those rare individuals who does not have a prejudiced bone in body, unless, of course, "he wanted/wants to have one."

And, finally, it would be remiss of me to conclude this post without citing at least a couple of morally instructive quotes from Barack Obama on the issue of race. Obama, after all, is the ultimate unifier, and clearly the only person in America capable of healing our nation's racial divide:

From 'Dreams of my Father:

1) "Ray assured me that we would never talk about whites as whites in front of whites without knowing exactly what we were doing. Without knowing that there might be a price to pay."

2) "The title of Reverend Wright's sermon that morning was 'The Audacity of Hope'... Rev. Wright explained [in his sermon]...'it is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks' greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere ...That's the world on which hope sits'!"

That last sentence, with all due respect to Mr. Obama and Rev. Wright, is incorrect. For indeed, the world on which hope sits, rests solely upon the shoulders of magnanimous leaders like Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, Joe Biden, Harry Reid and all the great luminaries who have fought against racial prejudice since time immemorial.

Undoubtedly, White folks, greedy White folks, light-skinned and clean, articulate African Americans - will forever remain indebted to these great American heroes....