Is There a Double Standard When Democrats Ridicule Minorities?

[Pangloss]

This week Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (a Democrat) was able to keep his job after a report surfaced that he made some insensitive remarks about Obama during the 2008 campaign, calling Obama "a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.'" Reid apologized, and Democrats piled on to say it was okay. (source)

 

But that's not what happened to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (a Republican) after he made comments about former segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond, saying "When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either." The press was cited as the primary factor in his removal from power. (source)

 

Is this a double standard? I think this quote from an Associated Press article about this is very revealing:

 

Rep. Barbara Lee, chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, disagreed. In a statement, the California Democrat said, ''Senator Reid's record provides a stark contrast to actions of Republicans to block legislation that would benefit poor and minority communities -- most recently reflected in Republican opposition to the health bill now under consideration.''

 

Yes, she's actually saying that Reid's believable because he's a Democrat, and Lott is not believable because he's a Republican, and that this is because Republicans vote against the poor and minorities.

 

IMO, guilt by association -- the dark side of political correctness. What do you think?

Edited January 11, 2010 by Pangloss

[Mr Skeptic]

Isn't there a slight difference between saying someone only partly black, and saying that they are proud of supporting segregation? What if these people's statement's had been made by the other, who do you think would be the one resigning?

[Pangloss]

I think that's a fine piece of spin doctoring, portraying Reid's comment as nothing more than an accurate observation. Reid disagrees with you, and apologized for the remark. As to what would have happened to Trent Lott had he only pointed out that Obama is only half-black and lacks a ghetto accent unless he feels like faking one, I think it's pretty obvious that exactly the same result would have occurred. And had Reid said what Lott said, the same excuses would have been produced.

 

And I gave evidence with the Barbara Lee quote, in which she openly states that what matters is, to paraphrase MLK, not the content of the character but the politics of the party. Of course that's just one person, but she was speaking as a member of Congress and the Congressional Black Caucus, which will do absolutely nothing to distance itself from her opinion. Not because she's right, but because they don't have to answer any questions about it.

 

Here's an ironic quote: Nancy Pelosi said during the Lott scandal, "He can apologize all he wants. It doesn't remove the sentiment that escaped his mouth that day."

 

Same spit, different result.

[ajb]

"a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.'"

 

Is that not just a statement of fact?

 

 

Like I am "a white Welsh-Briton, with a slight hint of a Welsh accent"?

[John Cuthber]

Imagine that the same person made both coments. Would you consider them equally offensive?

 

I would certaily be more bothered by someone saying, in effect, that he was proud to be racist than by someone making one dumb comment then apologising for it.

As I see it one person has been forced to resign while the other hasn't, simply because the remarks he made were less acceptable.

[ajb]

Quite often the context is lost in quotations. Was Harry Reid trying to insult anyone or was it a statement of fact, but very poor wording?

[Sisyphus]

I think there's definitely a double standard (although it's more complicated then just "one party can get away with things, and the other can't"), but I don't think that's a good example. I don't think a Republican would have to do more than apologize for that comment, either, even if the usual suspects would be more up in arms about it.

 

The difference between those two comments is too stark for a direct comparison, IMO. Reid is basically talking about America - that we would be too threatened by a dark-skinned black man who spoke in dialect to elect him. Using the word "negro" was stupid, but it's not a terribly controversial opinion. As for whether Reid thinks it's an accurate observation, I think we all know that standard Washington procedure at the slightest hint of "racism" is apologize and move on. Insisting it's "just an accurate observation" is what commentators who want an audience do, not politicians who want votes.

 

And yes, I think any Democrat who said what Trent Lott did would be in a lot more trouble than Harry Reid is now.

[john5746]

Quite often the context is lost in quotations. Was Harry Reid trying to insult anyone or was it a statement of fact, but very poor wording?

 

doesn't matter. If you are white and use the word Negro, watch out. In fact, in the supermarket, if you buy black beans in the international section, you might want to turn the bag over, so no gets their feelings hurt.

[jackson33]

Lott said that Mississippians were proud to have voted for Thurmond (D-SC) in 1948 on the pro-segregationist Dixiecrat ticket.[/Quote]

 

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/01/09/sen-reid-trent-lotts-resignation-2002-he-had-no-alternative

 

This was 1948 people, a different world and Thurman represented Mississippians viewpoint, of that day. Where the people of Mississippi and in fact, Alabama, Louisiana and SC, were proud IN THOSE DAYS? I guess so, he carried those four States.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1948

 

Was Thurman an American, proud of his country? Well he did serve his Country and people of his Country, his entire life, starting;

 

After the outbreak of World War II, Judge Thurmond resigned from the bench to serve in the U.S. Army, rising to Lieutenant Colonel. In the Battle of Normandy (June 6 – August 25, 1944), he landed in a glider attached to the 82nd Airborne Division. For his military service, he received 18 decorations, medals and awards, including the Legion of Merit with Oak Leaf Cluster, Bronze Star with Valor device, Purple Heart, World War II Victory Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, Belgium's Order of the Crown and France's Croix de Guerre. During 1954–55 he was president of the Reserve Officers Association. He later retired from the U.S. Army Reserves with the rank of Major General.[/Quote]

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strom_Thurmond

 

In 1947 now Senator Byrd (D-WV) wrote to the KKK Grand Wizard;

"The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia and in every state in the nation." [/Quote]

 

This was a different time in an area of the Country, where attitudes were much different than today or 20 years ago...Lott, was honoring a patriot, in his last days (died shortly after, at age 100) and among his dearest friends....How would you have honored him????

 

Having said all this; Personally, I feel Reid's comments were in line, reflected reality, showing no signs of prejudice or disrespect for the President, maybe poorly worded, but pounced on by a press, desperate for news!!!

 

IMO; President Obama was elected, because he is Black, does have a funny name and was picked after the 1996 DNC, by a few to challenge Hillary Clinton in 2000, for those exact reasons. If every speech he had ever given, every identical fact of his life, education, work career, ideology and personal history, was by a white guy named John Jones from Des Moines, he would have been out of the 2000 Campaign after the Iowa Caucus, my opinion.

 

I'll go a little further, in that this nonsense, of taking words spoke by 40-50-60-70 year old people, or even some younger folks and trying to fit them in to some perception of 'Political Correctness 2010', really needs to stop. I'd much rather have a person talk and act in their reality, than talk in PC, and act in their reality.

[Sisyphus]

Well that's just it. It would be fine to say we don't judge 1948 Strom Thurmond by 2003 standards. But Lott basically was judging him by 2003 standards, and saying he was right. Or at least, that's how it sounded from the way he phrased it, and it would hard to interpret it another way.

[swansont]

Reid is basically talking about America - that we would be too threatened by a dark-skinned black man who spoke in dialect to elect him.

 

Bingo!

 

Mostly I think this is about the pre-outraged pundits finding something to set them off.

 

I think that's a fine piece of spin doctoring, portraying Reid's comment as nothing more than an accurate observation. Reid disagrees with you, and apologized for the remark.

 

Reid might have thought it was accurate and still apologized, because that's the politically expedient thing to do. Many accusations of racism or sexism are no-win, because we tend to presume guilt. There will always be a subset of the population that will not believe the explanation given. Defending the comment merely draws more attention to the accusation.

[bascule]

Is that not just a statement of fact?

 

"Negro dialect" sounds offensive to me.

 

Hey Pangloss, look, it's a Democrat who's not being PC

[ajb]

"Negro dialect" sounds offensive to me.

 

When did negro become offensive?

 

Isn't there debate now about the US 2010 census and the inclusion or not of the term negro?

[Mr Skeptic]

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/12/09/lott.comment/

Thurmond eventually moved away from his segregationist position and went on to the longest career in Senate history. Now a Republican representing South Carolina, he is retiring from the Senate when his term ends in January.

 

Earlier Monday, Lott issued a statement, saying, "My comments were not an endorsement of his positions of over 50 years ago, but of the man and his life."

 

Lott has also had accusations of being segregationist during his college years:

 

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,399310,00.html

"Trent was one of the strongest leaders in resisting the integration of the national fraternity in any of the chapters," recalls former CNN President Tom Johnson, then a Sigma Nu member at the University of Georgia.

...

Lott was a witness to one of the pivotal episodes in that past. During his senior year at Ole Miss, violence erupted there when U.S. marshals moved to install Air Force veteran James Meredith as its first African-American student. Lott was not among the students advocating integration, but did succeed in persuading his fraternity brothers not to join in the rioting. In 1997, Lott told TIME: "Yes, you could say I favored segregation then. I don't now. � The main thing was, I felt the federal government had no business sending in troops to tell the state what to do."

 

While it seems to me now that Lott was probably talking of state rights rather than segregation in the recent scandal, it also seems that what he said still sounded worse than what Reid said, and what with his history, made it a career-ender. Politicians are supposed to be good people, but are also not supposed to stick their foot in their mouth too much.

 

What's really telling is the recent career of the person he praised.

[jackson33]

Well that's just it. It would be fine to say we don't judge 1948 Strom Thurmond by 2003 standards. But Lott basically was judging him by 2003 standards, and saying he was right. Or at least, that's how it sounded from the way he phrased it, and it would hard to interpret it another way. [/Quote]

 

Not at all true; What and how what was said in 2003, was possibly objectionable to SOME, but not at all by those he was concerned with...

 

People think and act, for the most part, from an accumulation of life experiences, their parental nurturing/lack of training, learning from both educational and religious effort. Lott (68), born 1941, has always lived in the Mississippi.

 

In 1980, 30 years before the Thurmonds birthday party, Lott said near the same thing , while supporting Reagan's Presidential bid;

 

Twenty-two years ago, Trent Lott, then a House member from Mississippi, told a home state political gathering that if the country had elected segregationist candidate Strom Thurmond to the presidency "30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today." The phrasing is very similar to incoming Senate Majority Leader Lott's controversial remarks at a 100th birthday party for Thurmond last week. [/Quote]

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37288-2002Dec10

 

This while a member of the House, where in 1981 was elevated to minority whip. To further emphasis my thinking, Lott was re-elected in Mississippi in 2006 with 64% of the vote, to the House and once again made minority whip.

 

 

When did negro become offensive?

 

Isn't there debate now about the US 2010 census and the inclusion or not of the term negro? [/Quote]

 

Probably from the days of the 'Jim Crow' trials....Black the accepted after that, then the NAACP decided on African Americans. Again choice boils down to generation.

 

Census is based on Race...If a census taker, you can call yourself Black/Negro or African American, but usually/reported as 'Black-non Hispanic'.

[Sisyphus]

I don't really understand what your argument is. You're saying that we should only judge a person by the standards of the era of his youth?

[bascule]

"Negro dialect" sounds offensive to me.

 

When did negro become offensive?

 

I think it's more the implication that black people normally talk funny, and (in context, especially with the remark about his skin) Obama is more like a white person

[ajb]

I think it's more the implication that black people normally talk funny, and (in context, especially with the remark about his skin) Obama is more like a white person

 

"Negro dialect" exists right? I have a very hard time listening to the Rikki Lake show, for example.

[Sisyphus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_Vernacular_English

[bascule]

"Negro dialect" exists right?

 

Fo shizzle monizzle

[Pangloss]

My statistics professor made an interesting point in a class over the weekend, which was that he had a student once who was from South Africa who had emigrated to America and insisted on calling himself an "African American". Setting aside the suspiciously antagonistic nature of that position, it's hard not to agree that racial labels get kinda silly sometimes.

 

I think I'm supposed to be a "non-hispanic caucasian" these days, but I'm sure there's an agency in Washington with a budget bigger than NASA's that I can call to find out for sure.

[foodchain]

It was at least to me racist. Every bit of the statement that I have read from this website was loaded with little more then racially centered stuff. There is not dialect for a skin color, I mean if there were I think I would automatically be able to speak Polish or what not, then again you could have a black polish person whom makes racially charged jokes about Germans, but that all reduces race down to the fact it makes little sense outside of cultural stuff.

 

I always like to point out that on a genetic level race becomes something radically different then is held by many on a mainstream level, and furthermore its a bit silly and nothing more then a detriment to even establishing a lasting colony on mars.

[Sisyphus]

There is not dialect for a skin color,

 

But there are for subcultures.

---

Merged post follows:

Consecutive posts merged

My statistics professor made an interesting point in a class over the weekend, which was that he had a student once who was from South Africa who had emigrated to America and insisted on calling himself an "African American". Setting aside the suspiciously antagonistic nature of that position, it's hard not to agree that racial labels get kinda silly sometimes.

 

I think I'm supposed to be a "non-hispanic caucasian" these days, but I'm sure there's an agency in Washington with a budget bigger than NASA's that I can call to find out for sure.

 

I agree that racial labels in general are silly. I think "[blank]-American" should be reserved for first generation immigrants, or at most for subcultures and communities that still maintain a coherent connection with the blank. This would make Tereza Heinz Kerry an African-American, but not Bill Cosby. "Caucasian" should be for people who actually live in the Caucasus. Ideally "race" wouldn't be discussed at all, but realistically we can't just pretend that culturally they don't exist. Luckily "black" and "white" aren't considered offensive, so why not stick with that?

[jackson33]

I don't really understand what your argument is. You're saying that we should only judge a person by the standards of the era of his youth? [/Quote]

 

No Sisyphus, I'm saying people of different ages or places have different levels of accepting and/or rejecting WORDS spoken by others. There are no standards, it's all judgment calls, and has long been out of control.

 

I think it's more the implication that black people normally talk funny, and (in context, especially with the remark about his skin) Obama is more like a white person. [/Quote]

 

bascule; Shade variations in any race are a matter of fact. I don't understand this shades of black, preferential being expressed today, by black folks, but apparently it's important in the Black Community, they get hired, promoted, married quicker and so on, the lighter the shade....I think any person feeling hurt by another person, when being hired, fired or promoted, could find some excuse to claim discrimination. Oh, and people talk funny in the South to Northerners or the reverse. If we don't get off this nonsense, people will be afraid to speak to anyone.

 

I think I'm supposed to be a "non-Hispanic Caucasian" these days, but I'm sure there's an agency in Washington with a budget bigger than NASA's that I can call to find out for sure.[/Quote]

 

Pangloss; No one would likely ask you anyway, you not a minority, yet. However you will be listed 'White- Non Hispanic". Maybe this year they will start using shades of white.

 

It was at least to me racist. Every bit of the statement that I have read from this website was loaded with little more then racially centered stuff. There is not dialect for a skin color, I mean if there were I think I would automatically be able to speak Polish or what not, then again you could have a black polish person whom makes racially charged jokes about Germans, but that all reduces race down to the fact it makes little sense outside of cultural stuff. [/Quote]

 

foodchain; From a die hard Conservative and would never agree with Reid, he was complementing Obama's appearance to public acceptance. He was later proved correct.

 

Thread; Back in the cave man days, while I was being raised, I never went a day without someone saying;

 

"Stick and Stone will break my bones, but words will never harm me"

 

What ever happened to common sense, reasoning???

[Pangloss]

... he had a student once who was from South Africa who had emigrated to America and insisted on calling himself an "African American"...

 

(bonks self) I just realized that I neglected to mention that this individual was a white South African. (lol)