Fallout Over Senator Reid's Comments: Ryan John

Harry Reid’s comments were not said to degrade Barack Obama or to undermine his competency as a potential president so I don’t consider them racist.  He was simply stating the man’s strength as a candidate to appeal to both the black and white community.  Of course the “negro dialect” sounds as if he was proud Barack didn’t speak in some African tribal tongue, but we all know he was referring to black slang.  Furthermore, I don’t think President Obama himself would disagree with the comments of Reid.
 
Exactly a year ago, at a Washington DC chili restaurant when Obama made a surprise stop in for lunch, he answered a cashier’s question with the response, “Na, we straight.”  He was among common folk, some black some white, but nevertheless, he was portraying the same cool, laid back, attitude that gave him the street credibility he needed to succeed in Chicago politics. And how can we forget Hilary Clinton’s recital of Reverend Cleveland’s “I don’t feel no ways tired…” back in 2007 when she clearly spoke with a southern, black accent to her mostly black North Carolina audience? Politicians do this stuff all the time.  It’s kind of pathetic, but it’s the norm. 
 
Reid was trying to articulate the type of black man he thought had a shot to be in president in a 2008 United States of America and I believe he was right in his analysis. The disconnect between how people are in private, versus their public character needs to end. That’s why I like Joe Biden.  When Biden talks to a crowd, he talks with the type of candor you can imagine he would behind closed doors with his friends.  During the campaign, he publicly declared to the New York Observer that Obama “was the first mainstream AA who was clean, bright and articulate.”
 
Reid shouldn’t apologize.  Like Biden, he knew good political strategy when he saw it.   So, keep it real Reid!  You’re not sorry, you did mean what you said and you should stand by your political intuition.  It was obviously accurate.