Last updated on February 20th, 2010 at 05:43 am
Thanks to some seriously inappropriate words from Democratic Senator Majority Leader, Harry Reid, the GOP are up in arms while trying to spin their racist behavior on to the Democratic Party.
During the 2008 Presidential Primary, Senator Harry Reid made the mistake of saying basically that then Senator Barack Obama was electable because he was a light skinned African American who did not speak with a Negro dialect unless he chose to do so.
Now Senator Reid has expressed his embarrassment and apologized directly to the President and Obama has accepted it. Why????? Because President Barack Obama knows that Reid’s heart is in the right place and it has been demonstrated with his hard work and dedication to the President and his policies.
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
He has worked tirelessly for healthcare reform and other policies for the President while battling the GOP for hours and hours, days and days, months and months but coming through with an outcome in the end one step at a time, but all the while bringing us closer and closer to healthcare reform in his support and commitment to the President and the people of the United States. The President says, “The book is closed as far as he is concerned.” I think we as a country are lucky to have Senator Reid.
Well, the GOP are in a uproar demanding Reid’s resignation and position of Senate Majority Leader calling the words and statements made “foul” and that the Dems have a double standard when it comes to racism by fellow Democrats. And the lead attack dog is African American RNC chairman Michael Steele who in my opinion, is frequently used as what is called in the African American community, an “Uncle Tom”, for the GOP.
He has been accused of being jealous of President Obama and takes pride in attempting to upstage him. He’s a bit of a hothead and certainly no Colin Powell but he was elected to be the GOP’s representation match for Barack Obama. There’s only one problem, there’s only one Barack Obama.
The problem with this claim of racism is not really much more than the usual tactics of the GOP. They just believe that this time they actually have some truth to stand on for a change. Now if there were not so many other dramatic serious policies and issues to be dealt with, this would be an excellent time period to delve into race relations whole heartedly because it keeps coming up and will continue to come up as long as Barack Obama holds the highest office in the land.
Racial issues have many layers and many subtleties that most don’t understand. It is never merely black and white. The GOP keep bringing up the incident with former Mississippi Senator Trent Lott, that they believe is the same example as this one with Reid. That is not true. Trent Lott was speaking of Strom Thurmond’s leadership as a segregationist.
Senator Reid has a history of being pro civil rights. He made a comment that was stupid and of his age group but it was supposedly off the record and was actually a compliment from his perspective of the then young senator Barack Obama from Illinois. You have to be able to discern the difference in race relations and most are not experienced or knowledgeable enough to do so. So it is all piled in to one bundle and then racism is shouted to the loudest degree.
Well, the real racism with much depth and longevity has been coming since Barack Obama was elected President and primarily coming from most of the GOP and the right wing and fringe of the party. The disrespect to the office of the Presidency on this level has not been seen before. It is supported by the media and the GOP, the birthers, the teabaggers, the rightwing militia, etc.
They may not actually use words that are considered racist but the mentality is totally deep rooted in racism. The claims of “Give Me Back My Country” and “Don’t Let the Government Mess with My Medicare” and the congressman who was out of order and called out to the President in a formal State of the Union Address, “You lie!” He should have been fired but a mere apology was sufficient. But that was actually racism.
When the President’s image is painted as a “Jokerâ€,†Hitler” or worse yet “hanging from a tree”; that is real racism, this president has had more death threats than any other president. Now people want to say it is about his policies but it is actually racism! No one wants to claim it.
Even former president Bill Clinton, as much as he is loved by the African/American community, fell into the trap of being accused of racism. It is easy to go there.
What you have to examine and research are the person’s deeds and commitments. Senator Ted Kennedy was committed to Civil Rights for all and that is why he was a staunch supporter of Barack Obama for President and to carry on his commitment to healthcare reform. This is what Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid is doing and we need him.
The GOP simply wants another excuse to kill healthcare reform and bring down the Democratic Party. They are merely back to business as usual with another distraction. It only takes a moment. Again, the GOP’s expertise is in taking the focus off real progress while they try to sneak back in to power by any means necessary
