Reid did not offend us enough

I’m afraid Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid did not offend us enough.

Let me explain.

In "Game Change," a book released today, Reid is quoted as saying that then Sen. Barack Obama could be a successful candidate because he was “light-skinned” and spoke with “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

Forget Michael Steele’s inane comparison of Reid’s comments to Trent Lott’s in 2002. Lott endorsed a segregationist, Reid endorsed a fair-skinned Ivy-Leaguer. As national anti-racist educator and author Tim Wise posted on his Facebook page, “That's like the difference between saying, on the one hand, ‘gee Tim, you don't look Jewish,’ and ‘Wow, those Nazis were really on to something.’ One is insensitive and stupid, while the other is monstrous.”

Sorry, Michael. You might have better luck castigating Rod Blagojevich. In an interview in "Esquire" for its February issue, Blagojevich is quoted as saying he is “blacker than Barack Obama” because he shined shoes as a child and grew up in a five-room apartment. (Now that is black. Really black.)

But for those of us who are more concerned with the meaning of Reid’s comments than the demise of the “evil” Democratic Empire, let’s examine Reid’s apology. He repented for “offending any and all Americans, especially African-Americans, for my improper comments.”

I’m not sure Americans are offended for the right reasons. This is not just about partisan tit-for-tat as Steele suggests, nor is it about Reid’s use of the antiquated term “Negro” which, by the way, shouldn’t appear on the census unless “mulatto” and “colored” are also making vernacular comebacks. This is about a rejection of blackness as unpalatable.

Dr. Boyce Watkins, a professor and social commentator, published the clearest and most insightful analysis of Reid’s remarks yet. He wrote, “The idea that [Reid] would congratulate Obama for being less black sends a clear signal that he and other Americans would support Obama IN SPITE of his blackness, as if being ‘too black’ were a liability that Obama had been able to overcome. Therefore, the whiter you are, the better you are. That is White Supremacy 101.”

Now that is offensive. Don’t shoot the messenger. Reid has apologized, and President Obama has accepted it. But the president shouldn’t “close the book.” White Supremacy 101 is yet to be dismissed.