What Harry Reid Didn’t Choose to Say

First Published January 12, 2010 by Lisa Fritsch at America's Right
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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