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In the end, he turned out to be a wimp. At least we still have Roland Martin.

Tavis also sort of baited Henry Louis Gates when he was on the show – trying to get him to say negative things about Obama’s race speech. He was clearly impressed by it and said as much, but Tavis wasn’t satisfied with his seemingly pro-Obama responses. Any emphasis in bold is mine.

Tavis: … nobody in mainstream media who is prepared or as far as I’m concerned interested, quite frankly, in having a thoughtful dialogue about what Black liberation theology is? So to what extent did Obama, Obama’s speech, that is, lead to a hit, ultimately, on the Black church?

Gates: Well, let’s address it this way: the big surprise to me was that anybody in America would be surprised that there are separate discourses about race. When I wrote my book “The Signifying Monkey,” which was 20 years ago -

Tavis: Brilliant text, though.

Gates: Thank you. But I talked about Black cultural underground discourse and White underground discourses. You remember the Redd Foxx show and the Archie Bunker show? The brilliant thing about them, when Redd Foxx did -

Tavis: “Sanford and Son.”

Gates: – “Sanford and Son” is that they articulated all the resentments and the anxieties and the aggression about race – Anti-Black racism, anti-White racism – Archie Bunker and Sanford, Fred Sanford. It’s as if everyone has forgotten that. It’s no surprise that Black people sit around complaining about White people and anti-Black racism.

It’s no surprise that White people say things when they are together about Black people. All of the press coverage that I read today treated this as if it was a huge, huge revelation. Black theological discourse is not primarily defined by Black cultural nationalism or, as the conservative pundits might represent it, anti-White feeling among Black people.

It’s how we took the text of the bible and made it in our own image. How we painted God Black, how we painted Jesus Black – literally, sometimes, and metaphorically. So I’m not sure that I think that Black theological discourse took a hit yesterday, but I’m wondering what sort of denial has our society been in when journalists greet Barack’s simple statement that Black people are angry for historical reasons and White people have resentments based on fears about Black people, and this is treated as news.

Tavis: A part of what troubles me, with all due respect to Senator Obama, though, was he kept casting Black feeling, Black emotion, as that of **anger and bitterness. And so Black folk are angry and bitter, but White folk have resentment. That sounds to me, once again, like Negros are the problem.

Gates: Oh, I see. But if that’s -

Tavis: I didn’t like that.

Gates: If that’s what he did – I didn’t hear him do that, but if that’s what he did, that would be inappropriate. Because as you’ve noticed in my responses to your question, I cast them as equal examples of emotion.

Tavis: Which I respect. And maybe he meant that, I don’t know.

The link to the full transcript is here: http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200803/20080319_gatesjr.html

I listened to it on iTunes and you can hear HLG’s hesitancy (i.e. “What are you expecting me to say Tavis???”).

There was a link here at JJP on the Gates segment that didn’t focus on this angle but you have to hear the entire interview to hear Tavis trying to force-feed ole Skip the Obama haterade LOL!

** Note that Clinton, McCain and all of the pundits up in arms about Obama’s SF statements on PA voters being “angry and bitter” had nothing to say about Obama’s use of those terms towards black people in his speech.

That’s pretty low down…but I felt that Tavis fundamentally doesn’t respect fellow blacks. Colin Powell was on his show and he asked something along the lines of how Powell felt seeing Barack do what he(Powell) could have achieved. Powell looked a little irritated, and responded that he was pleased to see Barack’s success…paraphrasing. What kind of question is that anyway? He was essentially asking the man if he was jealous. Anyway, I haven’t seen him ask Hildebeast any uncomfortable questions; that’s suspicious.

The Powell interview is on PBS.com