Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Race Baiting At Glenn Beck's The Blaze

Updated October 7th, 2010.

I was on Glenn Beck's website, The Blaze, and noticed something very interesting - the assistant editor of the website, Johnathon M. Seidl, questioned as to whether or not MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell called RNC chairman Michael Steele a "black minstrel dancer," citing NewsBusters' Lachlan Markay, of course. 

Here is the excerpt:
As the first congressional election during his party chairmanship approaches, Michael Steele is dancing as fast as he can trying to charm independent voters and Tea Partiers while never losing sight of his real master and paycheck provider, the Republican National Committee.
Do you see "black minstrel dancer" anywhere in the above quote?  How about the word "black?"

Markay hypothesizes what would happen if an employee of Fox News made similar comments and then compares O'Donnell's comments to those made by Rick Sanchez last week - you know, the one where he outright claimed Jews control the media.

Isn't it interesting that Seidl can't find one incident where a conservative pundit made a comment about Obama's as well as any criticism (I'm sure they exist).  Its funny that whenever you read about these racist comments, they always come from the right and they always claim the liberals are the ones who are racist - the only website I can find after doing a search was called Shattering Denial and on that site was an article titled "Obama's White Papal Masters."

The only incident I can think of was when Dan Rather got into some hot water earlier this year for mentioning Obama and "watermelons" in the same sentence.
When you talk about a triumph though, part of the undertow in the coming election is going to be President Obama's leadership and the Republicans are making a case, a lot of independents will buy this argument, listen he just hasn't been...look at the health care bill, it was his number one priority, it took him forever to get it through and he had to compromise it to death and a version of ...listen, he's a nice person, he's very articulate, this was going to be used against him but he couldn't sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic.
"It's an expression that stretches to my boyhood roots in Southeast Texas, when country highways were lined with stands manned by sellers of all races," Rather later apologized..

"Now of course watermelons have become a stereotype for African Americans and so my analogy entered a charged environment. I'm sorry people took offense."

If you also remember the event, you may recall conservatives getting very excited - here is an article by Michael Walsh on Big Journalism about Rather's folksy metaphor:
The Left is obsessed with finding “racists” under every bed but their own. No need to go into the long history of institutional racism on the part of the Democrat Party and its stalwarts, no need to remind people that Albert Arnold Gore, Sr. — father of Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., and grandfather of Albert Arnold Gore III, the Hillbilly Dynasty! — was one of the Democrat senators who filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — no need to get into the cozy relationship the Democrat Party has had with the Ku Klux Klan, or its utter dedication to the oppression of black people, usually in the guise of “compassion,” “fairness,” or “tolerance.”

Nope, no need at all. Not when the Left has a stalwart soldier such as the disgraced figure of fun, Dan “Lucy Ramirez” Rather, the cashiered-with-a-fig-leaf former anchorman of the CBS Evening News, unsuccessful litigant and now soon-to-be-former talking head on various low-rated cable shows.
Many of the commenters on the Walsh article pondered what would happen if a conservative, like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Don Imus, or Ann Coulter, uttered those words - similar to Seidl's article.

Watch the video for yourself:




Sounds like another incident involving conservative racism - a topic I have touched up upon in the past...

Oh yeah - the RNC has declined to comment.  If it was as big a deal as Markay makes it out to be, don't you think the RNC would be all over this to try and score some political points?

As a side note, I just want to point out that The Blaze could probably use a new editor (and assistant editor).  In the few articles I have read, I have found numerous spelling and grammatical errors, including the article I reference in this post - Seidl mispells O'Donnell's name in the title.

Update - It appears that Lawrence O'Donnell has apologized for his misuse of words.  According to an article by Danny Shea for The Huffington Post, Michael Steele, who is black, found the word "master" offensive due to its connotations of slavery.
After receiving a call from Steele expressing his offense, O'Donnell said he "called him back immediately and apologized for using the word he found offensive.

"Those of us who are not descendants from slaves can never know the full impact of the word master in the ears of an African-American man. Michael Steele told me, 'It sort of stung.'"

O'Donnell said he invited Steele on "The Last Word" Thursday to apologize in person, but Steele said it wouldn't be necessary.

"I am honored that Michael Steele believes me to be the kind of person he can call to explain his hurt and politely request and expect an apology," he added. "Mr. Chairman, I sincerely apologize."
It is uncertain whether or not Steele found the word offensive at the time the show aired or after the conservative Newsbusters made their racial observations, but I find Steele's reaction to be a bit disingenuous when taking into consideration that Steele is the same person who made comments about luring black people back to the Republican party with "fried chicken and potato salad."

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