Lisa appearing on Glenn Beck Live 5:00PM ET 1/14/19

Lisa will be appearing on the Glenn Beck show tomorrow 1/14/10. It's another Audience Special show and will air LIVE at 5:00pm Eastern Time

First Published January 13, 2010 in the American Thinker

Thoughts on the public use of the word 'Negro'

Lisa Fritsch
Bravo for President Obama. Obama took the high-road giving our Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid the benefit of the doubt, playing down the race card. Reid says our President, then Senator, made it this far as a light skinned black who could speak so well.

Why would our President be offended, he believes what the Senate Majority Leader says-and it is true: Obama is well spoken, he is light skinned. This month, I reckon, he is thick skinned too. Yet, however, kind and gracious it is to forgive someone in using a "poor choice of words", one should be mindful of the character revelation these poor choice of words unveil. For it is not our President, and his race, or his dialect, but also, the dignity and integrity of a people at the heart of Reid's opinion.

The most troubling aspect of our Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's statement that then-Sen. Barack Obama would likely find success as a candidate because he was "a light-skinned" African-American "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one," is his use of the word Negro. We know from previous statements that Reid must understand that the word Negro in identifying today's black Americans is a primitive and somewhat offensive term. Just six months ago Reid himself cited a talk show host as racist in linking Franklin Raines to President Obama saying, "...The only connection people could bring up about Raines and Barack Obama is they are both African-American, other than that there is nothing." Suddenly African-American is appropriate? Why not say "Negro" then Mr. Reid? Mr. Reid certainly knows why not.

It is not, Negro, for the same reason Michelle Kwan is not Oriental. It is not Negro, for the same reason that Prime Minister Hotoyama is not a Jap. It is not Negro, for the same reason, your Jewish neighbor is not a Jew. Reid knows as well as we all do that identifying with certain markers can underscore and imply way more than a person's ethnicity and character. The word Negro though accepted by blacks was used at an ugly and divisive time in this country. Negro is old-school and linked to a world that was still abusive and derogatory towards blacks. Negros were second-class citizens, largely undereducated, and vastly oppressed. Harry Reid certainly knows this and therefore knows better than to use the word Negro, at least publicly.

So what is this "Negro dialect" Mr. Reid speaks of? It is a dialect of an oppressed and uneducated people. A dialect of suffering and struggle. It is a dialect that President Obama would naturally be able to turn on and off like a faucet just as it appears that Harry Reid can as well in deciding when and when not to use racially titillating lingo. Thus, in confidant company, Obama and black Americans are Negro. Publicly, blacks are elevated to the gentrified African-American. Why, thankya good-suh massa Reid.

As far as the assertion that it would be important for a successful black Presidential candidate speak properly, Harry Reid makes a valid point. Many black Americans would be remiss to support an inarticulate representative of their race. Only, Reid suggests there are times when speaking with a Negro dialect (as only a true Negro would) might be useful.

In all the ways Mr. Reid could have complimented our President on becoming the first African-American President he choose to look beyond his character and go straight for divisive, archaic stereotypes. Mr. Reid did have a "poor choice of words", but, it was a lack of words that he did not use in defining our President. In praising then Senator Obama, Mr. Reid made not one mention of character, experience, wisdom, or intelligence, only Negro dialect and the hue of his skin. Someone recently reminded me of a quote my grandmother used to say and it is perfect for this. "A new broom knows how to clean up the mess; an old broom knows where to find the dirt." Yessuh, massa Reid, you an ol', duhty broom.

Lisa Fritsch is a writer and radio talk show host in Austin, Texas.

Lisa on her way to NYC

Lisa on her way to NYC today, Stay tuned to find out why....

What Harry Reid Didn’t Choose to Say

First Published January 12, 2010 by Lisa Fritsch at America's Right
Filed under Featured Commentary

1 Comment

Harry Reid’s admission that he made a “poor choice of words” in saying that then Sen. Barack Obama would make it big as a light-skinned black with “no Negro dialect” unless he wanted one, was indeed in itself a bad choice of words. What’s worse, however, are the words that Reid is incapable of uttering about President Obama and many other successful black Americans like him — words about their character.

In speaking of President Obama and in his mind complimenting him, liberals never use words in relation to character. On Friday, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have celebrated his 81st birthday but for that fateful April evening in Memphis, Tennessee — and yet here we sit on the heels of that anniversary, still falling short of his dream that his four children would “one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” To this day, nearly half a century since he delivered that speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the highest, most intellectual and most enlightened circles still use primitive and divisive words to describe a United States senator on his way to becoming our president.

To use “Barack Obama,” “light-skinned,” and “Negro” in the same sentence without a word about his character, intelligence or experience is more damaging than it is racist. It is the bigotry of the human spirit. That when Harry Reid looks at Barack Obama and sees shades of brown rather than the valleys and rivers of his mind is a terrible moment for all American people. That when Harry Reid hears Mr. Obama speak he hears the coming and going of Negro dialect, a tool to be unleashed at will to exploit the liberal agenda and disregarded when immaterial, exposes the impotence of Reid’s own character.

Harry Reid’s statement, a “poor choice of words” made nearly two years ago yet admitted to only now, reinforces the notion that liberals like Reid are still unable to see beyond race. Mr. Reid and those who defend him are condoning the idea that being black is as shallow and flippant as the hue of one’s skin, that intellect and character are much less relevant than how much you can exploit one’s degree of Negroeness for the sake of party politics.

Senate Majority Leader Reid and his liberal co-horts such as Vice President Joe Biden, who has a history of showing that he too is incapable of seeing beyond skin color, are unable to make comments beyond the exterior of Barack Obama because they only see the veneer of race. They look no further than what the exterior can offer in the short-term goal of political elections. Biden and Reid fail to look into the soul of the man that is Barack Obama, and that is a shame. For if they cannot do it for an African-American man who was then on the road to becoming president of the United States, how can they do it for each of us?

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Lisa Fritsch is an Austin, Texas-based conservative writer and radio talk show host known for her no-nonsense approach to today’s social and political issues. She is of the conservative character, her work has been published in The Dallas Morning News, The Baltimore Times, The Florida Sun, The Austin-American Statesman and Today’s Black Woman, and she has been contributing to America’s Right since December 2009. Visit her Web site at lisafritsch.com

Lisa to Speak at JSANA on 1/21/10

Lisa Fritsch will be speaking to the Joint Service Academy Network of Austin on 1/21/2010. She'll discuss her new book "Letter to My People" and talk about her experiences appearing on the Glen Beck Show on Fox News as well as hosting a radio show on KLBJ 590AM in Austin, Texas.

To attend please RSVP via EVITE

Originally posted December 23, 2009 on the American Thinker

Master of the House

Lisa Fritsch
Devastation of the family was one of the most damning aspects of slavery. In separating brother and sister, mother and child, the slave trade was able to prosper and continue as men and women toiled with no hope of belonging with their kin and therefore being owned by their master. The constant pain of the slave was not having “relations.” This broken human link weakened the resolve of the individual to fight for freedom giving greater power to the masters to control their slaves’ lives. The master of the house was the patriarch in an isolated and cruel world that bemoaned freedom to black people and offered only the most limited notions of humanity.

The Master of the House of late is our US government. It is difficult to deny the role government has played in breaking down the family ideal, particularly in the black community. The advent of welfare programs, public housing, public assistance programs, has landed the black community in peril. As the government set out to replace fathers in the homes with welfare checks and food stamps, out of wedlock birth in the US has gone from 5% in 1960 to a whopping 38.5% as of 2005. For the black community, the statistics are worse -- up 70% percent today .

Every recent legislative arrow is aimed at the core of the family: same sex marriage legislation, publicly funded abortion, health care reform, even climate change is all about having Americans identify with a communal and global family rather than their God given one. Public schools are being used lately as a soapbox for the President’s agenda. Climate change, as a religion, pulls every person toward a communal family working as one, not working for their actual family. Health care reform requires every person to submit to our governmental father’s system of care where all Americans are the responsibility of their state father … not, their real father.

But the government is a lazy parent. Government as master cares little that the Stevens come from a long line of good swimmers, or that the Andersons all have the ability to think swiftly on their feet making them great doctors and keen negotiators. Government as parent doesn’t care for the soul of its children. Submission and homogenous dependency is the government’s goal.

Who we are, and grow to be, is firmly rooted in our family. Family was historically the bearer of identity and the passing of heritage. Last name first on applications.

Without the structure of the family America will fall. The government will have our people believe that those 70% of black children born out of wedlock are safe as long as there are enough food stamps, public schools, and universal health care to go around -- that the million black men in jail would be free if not for the systemic racism that failed them. Or, that a flat or rising economy, greedy capitalists, and stimulus packages dictate our future. Yet, blood is indeed thicker than water and without returning to family as our core American value, we can be sure that the poor will definitely get poorer and so it will seem that the richer gets richer. For our poverty is spiritual, not financial.

Master is hard at work. Our government master knows that without family, the motivation for individual purpose and authority are weakened. “In this sense, government power is inherently limited by the role of other social institutions, such as families, religious congregations, schools, and businesses.” The God-given father then is a protection against falling prey to the master. In our God given father rests one’s dignity, tradition of heritage, and the glorification of our heavenly one. The government as master has neither the desire, nor, capacity to support this. In fact, it is master’s best interest to abate these traditions of generational influence on the individual self. And, with this, we see a version of history repeating.

Tiger Woods and The Myth of the ‘Great Black Example’

Originally posted on December 11th, 2009 at www.americasright.com

By Lisa Fritsch
America’s Right

Tiger Woods’ latest violation with the black community is that, out of the string of adulterating women of late, black women don’t rate.

“Tiger Alienates Black Community with White Lovers,” attests one headline. Whether he cares, or whether he knows it or not, Tiger has been alienating the black community for some time. The black community wanted Tiger as their latest “great black example,” in order to validate their cause of collective power. This is how it has always been done; the black community celebrates and shares in the successes of one of its own, the “great black example” gets approval and acceptance. Only, Tiger Woods has rejected the need for that approval and acceptance.

Frankly, it’s about darn time for somebody to have the courage to live outside the box and boundaries of race.

Tiger has appeared firmly against being the “great black example,” and who can blame him? Being part of the “great black example,” after all, requires no small tendering. The “great black example” must abide by certain codes of conduct and pass extensive loyalty tests within the black community and its leaders. It requires loyalty put into action over reason, individual choice, and common sense. It requires the adhering to three main rules, three very important rules which Tiger Woods did not follow and thus led to the disappointment and angering of this “alienated black community.”

First, where there is any ambiguity in the race of the “great black example,” be it a white, Asian, or other non-white mother or father, they must identify first and foremost, as the one-drop rule states, with blackness. He or she should first announce, publicly and emphatically, their unequivocal blackness to the world. To not obediently and happily adhere to this rule is considered a shame. Tiger Woods may be–by his own description–Cablinasian, but the black community is willing to overlook this infraction, as Tiger is such a “great black example” attesting to the limitless world of elite sports for blacks. So they define him as black, whether he accepts it or not.

Second, it’s best that a “great black example” marry within the black enterprise. This is especially crucial when the “great black example” is of mixed race, because it further solidifies their alliance and loyalty to their blackness. President Barack Obama, for example, passed this loyalty test with flying colors in marrying Michelle, who is not only intelligent and attractive but also unambiguous in her blackness as she is dark-skinned. “Had Barack had a white wife,” said one woman in an article on race and Tiger Woods in the aftermath of the implosion of his personal life, “I would have thought twice about voting for him.”

Woods, however, is not a politician, and the voting for his endorsements and trophies lies only in his swing, not in his wife’s skin color. Tiger’s wife is everything in which alienated black community disapproves: white, blindingly blond, and married to the uber-celebrity, multi-millionaire “great black example” that got away. Similar abandonment issues have been reckoned with before when other “great black example” strayed — notably Quincy Jones, Van Jones and OJ Simpson. (Which begs the question: were any black women were envious of Nicole Simpson after she was murdered?)

Tiger didn’t just marry, though. His cheating revealed a certain amount of profiling and preferences for women that, according to several black talk show hosts, has supposedly disgraced the name of black women who wonder, in this alienated black community: Are we not good enough to be the plaything of a “great black example?” Says talk show host Michael Dyson: “Woods bought into the lie about what is beautiful?” Is there anyone out there who denies the beauty of Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Tyra Banks, Lauren Hill, or our First Lady simply because Tiger Woods’ wasn’t unfaithful with a black woman?

Finally, the “great black example” must willingly and publicly denounce and cry foul to any person or entity that hints at racism through commentary, off-handed remarks, or lack of racial/black diversity. Racial offense cannot be tolerated and no “great black example” can overlook this no matter how evolved and post-racial he thinks himself. Tiger failed greatly here. When CBS broadcaster Kelly Tilghman said that golfers challenging Woods should “lynch him” in order to prevail, Tiger took the high-road. “We know unequivocally that there was no ill intent in her comments,” said Woods through his agent, even going on to say that he was friends with Tilghman and respected her. GASP! This kind of grace and dignity that turns away from conflict and finds strength in forgiveness and excuses human err is not permitted — “great black examples” are explicitly expected to conform to victimhood at every opportunity so as to defend the dignity of the community they represent.

The “great black example” is extinct. The notion that an individual is obligated to a group based on race or gender, is inhumane. A person belongs to God and themselves. No group has a right to lay claim to someone else’s existence and their individual right to free will, tastes, and choice. It is time for the black community to accept and rejoice in this, for this is the ringing of true freedom.

There is no “alienated black community,” and woe to the person who works to manufacture one. There is only the fruitful character of the individual and therein our responsibility lies. For so long the black community has known power through a collective force of identity, and that time was not misplaced. The time now, however, calls for us to serve our communities collectively by living and thinking through the lens of character. Our only obligation to each other is to be ourselves. Apparently, Tiger Woods understands that and has been true to that at the risk of rejecting or alienating a community of people, or being rejected himself. More power to him — for “to thine own self be true” takes courage. And so too does letting go of others who define and represent us. Rejoice in God-given individuality! This, we owe to ourselves and others. This, so that we don’t rise and fall according to mere examples of our race but, instead, united with the human race we stand.

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Lisa Fritsch is an Austin, Texas-based conservative writer and radio talk show host known for her no-nonsense approach to today’s social and political issues. She is of the conservative character, and has been contributing to America’s Right since December 2009. Visit her Web site at lisafritsch.com.