Jack & Jill Politics

I wanted to let it go.

But, Harry Reid has a ‘Negro’ Problem.

YES, I know it’s from Mark Halperin, but if it wasn’t true, Reid wouldn’t have APOLOGIZED.

From the new book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin -Game Change – they have the following tidbit about Reid:

On page 37, a remark, said “privately” by Sen. Harry Reid, about Barack Obama’s racial appeal. Though Reid would later say that he was neutral in the presidential race, the truth, the authors write, was that his

encouragement of Obama was unequivocal. He was wowed by Obama’s oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama — a “light-skinned” African American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,” as he said privately. Reid was convinced, in fact, that Obama’s race would help him more than hurt him in a bid for the Democratic nomination.

I’m sorry, but this is the kind of mess that just angers me. White folks pretending that Barack Obama was the first Black person to graduate from Harvard when W.E.B. DuBois got his Phd from Harvard in 1895.

There were whole swaths of Black folk who were educated BEFORE the Civil Rights Movement.

W-T-F is NEGRO DIALECT?

NEGRO DIALECT?

Do you honestly believe that Black people walk around talking Ebonics? That you aren’t talking about a SUBSET of people?

That the overwhelming majority of BLACK people with BLACK parents IN AMERICA were raised speaking the ‘ King’s English’, and that we were liable to get hurt if we didn’t.

This was an insult by Reid, but guess what, it’s not an insult that any other EDUCATED BLACK PERSON hasn’t heard in their lifetime.

The whole, they know you went to college and graduate/professional school, but will utter the words – to your face-

‘ you speak so well.’

You grit your teeth and maybe mumble something, but what you want to say is..

I have 2 degrees[if not more], you idiot. what do you think I had to do in order to get them? That there’s a specific ‘ Black degree’, where they allow you to do whatever to get a degree?

Barack Obama: light-skinned?

Does he even pass the paperbag test?

I will remind you that Reid is also SUSPECT because of all the maneuvering and interference he did in the ILLINOIS SENATE SEAT, where it was reported how he SPECIFICALLY went after ALL THE BLACK CANDIDATES UNDER CONSIDERATION.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Days before Gov. Blagojevich was charged with trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder, top Senate Democrat Harry Reid made it clear who he didn’t want in the post: Jesse Jackson, Jr., Danny Davis or Emil Jones.

Rather, Reid called Blagojevich to argue he appoint either state Veterans Affairs chief Tammy Duckworth or Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Sources say the Senate majority leader pushed against Jackson and Davis — both democratic congressmen from Illinois — and against Jones — the Illinois Senate president who is the political godfather of President-elect Barack Obama — because he did not believe the three men were electable. He feared losing the seat to a Republican in a future election.

This is from me in January of 2009:

First of all, this isn’t about Davis or Jones, who would have been nothing but caretakers anyway. Actually, scratch Davis. Nobody thinking who actually follows Danny Davis, thought that he was SINCERELY considering leaving his SAFE Congressional seat, and the ability to pad that federal pension for another easy decade for something that would be OVER in 2010.

Jones, who had retired from the Illinois Senate, would have been a caretaker. Period. He’s in his 70’s, and this would have been the capper for a long public service career.

No. This was all about Jesse Jackson, Jr.

Deciding from ‘ on high’, that Jesse Jackson, Jr. couldn’t win.

Well, excuse me, if I think that’s up to Jesse Jackson, Jr. to try and if he doesn’t win in a Democratic Primary in 2010, so be it. But, if he won the Democratic Primary, it would be up to the ILLINOIS Democratic Party to put out and help him get over the hump in 2010.

I believed it when it was first reported, but others gave him the ‘ benefit of the doubt’. No longer.

It is what it is.

And remember Reid’s George Wallace imitation when it came to Roland Burris.

He can take his apology and shove it where the sun don’t shine.