So I listened to MSNBC turn Senator Obama's WIP Sports Radio "typical white people" remark from yesterday (about his granny) into a major problem for the Obama campaign. Joe Scarborough was behaving as if Senator Obama not only besmirched his own grandmother for political gain, but that Senator Obama had insulted white people around the globe.
The thing is this... Senator Obama is bringing up this issue at the peril of his politics. He would rather confront these issues and lose, than to ignore them and win. That's what's called integrity, Joe Scarborough, integrity we haven't seen in a politician in a long, long time. Whether it's the Clinton campaign who likely pushed the Wright videos to the press, or the far-right fuckwits who are pretending to suddenly be racially sensitive -- and who, by the way, mistakenly believe you can be racist against the majority race. You can't be racist against white people. Sorry. I'm also looking at you, Geraldine Ferraro.
So what are we all supposed to do? Repudiate and denounce family members who say racially insensitive things? Of course not. My grandmother said some awfully racist things that, like the senator, made my skin crawl. And I believe that she was typical of white people of that generation -- at least from what I've read about and experienced first hand.
How do I square this with my eternal admiration for her? How do I reconcile this alongside all of the gloriously fun times my brothers and I had with her? That's what Senator Obama is challenging each of us to examine. Do we denounce our closest and dearest family members? No way. But we see to it that we do not carry on these attitudes. That we move beyond it as one America.
Back to the far-right bloggers, FOX News and Ferraro... The minority population CAN'T be racist against the majority population any more than the poor can subjugate a king or, for that matter, workers can subjugate a CEO. For a white Hannity or a white Ferraro to somehow play the role of a racial victim is hilarious...ly stupid.
UPDATE: Brian Kilmeade walks off Fox & Friends over this issue. And Steve Doocy is a dillweed of epic proportions.