Should Harry Reid step down from Senate leadership?

[MikeSun5]

The bottom line is that Obama is perfectly okay with it.

Of course he is! He HAS to be. Look at his platform and agenda. There's no way in hell he'd ever play the race card. Obama aims to be bigger than that.

The real bottom line is that Reid used a word that people don't use anymore. If I say it once, I'll say it a thousand times: I challenge those who say "negro" is not offensive to use it in your everyday speech. Go ahead and permanently substitute it for the word "black" and carry on like it's 1943. I'm sure you'll learn very quickly.

 

[Tricky]

Of course he is! He HAS to be. Look at his platform and agenda. There's no way in hell he'd ever play the race card. Obama aims to be bigger than that.

The real bottom line is that Reid used a word that people don't use anymore. If I say it once, I'll say it a thousand times: I challenge those who say "negro" is not offensive to use it in your everyday speech. Go ahead and permanently substitute it for the word "black" and carry on like it's 1943. I'm sure you'll learn very quickly.

I do use it in certain situations, though I'm much more likely to use "black". (And is "Afro-American" still in the vogue or not? I didn't get the latest memo.)

But the charge that Reid is racist and should step down because he used a slightly outdated term is patently ridiculous. Us geezers are subject to brain farts and may have flasbacks to old scenes, like one of my favorite comedy albums by Flip Wilson, "Cowboys and Colored People".

To be fair, I thought the flap about McCain referring to Hispanics as "you people" was overblown too.

 

[Grizzly Bear]

The bottom line is that Obama is perfectly okay with it. The statement was about him and only him. If he's not offended, who are we to tell him that he should be?

Statements like that often have unintended consequences regardless of who or what it's about though. During the 2008 campaigns McCain referred to one of his focuses a "tar-baby of a situation" and I ran into a number of people who took that statements as a racial slur even though the contextual meaning he was using it for was clearly not. I can't say I was offended by it, but then I can't exactly speak for other people, in the political front that can still be pretty hairy

 

[Tricky]

Statements like that often have unintended consequences regardless of who or what it's about though. During the 2008 campaigns McCain referred to one of his focuses a "tar-baby of a situation" and I ran into a number of people who took that statements as a racial slur even though the contextual meaning he was using it for was clearly not.

Yes, I thought that was overblown, though I have never seen "tar baby" used to refer to blacks as anything other than an insult. True, a reference to blacks is not the primary meaning of the term, but it is one of the auxillary meanings.

And yes it is true that statements have unintended consequences. Mostly that is because of the tabloid-like media and the public who love to read that kind of gutter politics.

 

[kbm99]

I have to admit that I'm kind of confused by the uproar over this comment. Surely if anyone is to be offended by it it should be the American public, who Reid assumed would not vote for a dark skinned man.

Aside from the fact that he's right about that, I guess you have a point.