BrianGarst.com

Harry Reid is taking a lot of heat for the recently revealed statement he made regarding Barack Obama during the presidential campaign.  The new book, Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime, revealed that Reid thought Obama’s electoral chances were improved by the fact that he was light-skinned and had no “negro dialect” unless he wanted one.

Is this statement racist as many are claiming?  It is certainly about race, but I reject the identity politics tactic of taking anything racial and making it racist when it serves partisan purposes to paint it as such.  The fact of the matter is that there is nothing in the context of Reid’s statement that suggests racial prejudice.

He used the word “negro.”  This is an old fashioned word, for sure, but it was never one associated with racial venom the way other words have historically been.  Moreover, it is still used by many national black organizations, such as the National Council of Negro Women or the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Club.  Simply saying “negro” is not racist.

Beyond the word choice, the content of his statement reflects his opinion of the rest of America’s views on race, not his own.  And there is likely a grain of truth to the idea that a lighter-skinned candidate who sounds more or less white would face less racial resistance than other black candidates.  But even if it’s wrong and reflects an unfairly pessimistic view of American racial tolerance, that doesn’t make the statement itself racist.

It is interesting to note that Reid acknowledged Obama’s tendency to pander to black audiences by putting on a phony accent, where he drops his g’s and mimics the cadence of MLK.  But beyond that, I find the statement wholly uninteresting.

It is fair to point out that a non-liberal would undoubtedly be tarred as racist for making such a statement, but we can’t confuse pointing out hypocrisy with engaging in it. To brand Reid’s statement as racist in the process of pointing out hypocrisy is to undermine the very position we have rightfully staked out in the past: talking about race does not make someone a racist.

Harry Reid race issues