In the video below, Joy-Ann Reid can be seen answering (at 14:04) a question (at 13:33) about "the ways that black people through time have been treated." In the following lengthy portion of the extremely lengthy response, she advocates reparations (a truly bad idea) for blacks while properly speaking in the third person rather than the first person. Daughter of two professionals, a father from the Democratic Republic of Congo and a mother from British Guiana, Reid comes from a reasonably privileged background. Presumably, she understands that any rationale for reparations does not apply to someone of her ancestral background as she remarks
I mean, to be a black person in- you know, in 2024 in America is to be a state of complete perplexed confusion about what is wrong with a country that hates your history to this day can't admit even the basics of what was done to your ancestors, won't accept any responsibility for the fact that has carried throughout the entirely of the existence of you in this country and thins 60 years of relative freedom is enough.
Now blacks who can't get into Harvard, now blacks who can't get any more loans, you can't even give each other loans of $20,000 unless white men who get 99% of funding for their businesses. We want a hundred.
.
The "loans of $20,000 appears to be a reference to President Biden's student loan forgiveness program, although it's unclear, understandable because the MSNBC host evidently is not in a field in which she is expected to speak clearly and cogently. The program, now suspended by the courts, was not sold as racial preference tool and whites (and others) were eligible for it. If there has been racial bias- uh, er- preference- Reid should have explained it. And if banks are giving all white men 99% of the loans requested for their businesses- and rejecting all black applicants- she needs to expose this extreme racial discrimination. She is, after all, a journalist (supposedly).
Reid employs the general term "blacks" rather than of the smaller universe of "African-Americans. This is especially significant as pertains to individuals being refused admission to Harvard, whose affirmative action program was struck down by the US Supreme Court last June. Three years earlier, the Harvard Crimson explored the changing demographics at the university, which prompted creation of the Harvard College Generational African American Student Association. The writer noted that generational African-American is "a label for the community of Black folk who trace their lineage in the United States back for centuries." Therefore
Within Black communities at Harvard, there’s an overarching
belief that GAA representation is disproportionately low, that “we’re in the
minority,” as (then-student Samantha C.) O’Sullivan explains. Every Black student I interviewed — GAA or
not — expressed this as common knowledge.
As a first-year, I once heard from a teaching fellow of the
Introduction to African American Studies course that GAA students make up 10
percent of Harvard’s Black population. For the Class of 2022, that would mean
roughly 17 students.
Brown used to joke “that there were only a few of us on
campus.”
Within Harvard’s GAA population today, O’Sullivan has
noticed a seemingly large percentage of biracial students and students who come
from socioeconomically-privileged backgrounds. “If we were to count the number
of GAA students at Harvard who were descended from enslaved people, came from
low income backgrounds, first generation, four grandparents descended from
enslaved people, I feel like that number would be so low — like, maybe one
person. It’s just so, so, so low,” she says.
The demographics seem to have shifted from what they were
decades ago. Professor Cornel R. West ’74 says that, when he was the
co-president of the Black Students Association in the early 1970s, “about 95
percent of the Black folk in the association were Black people from the United
States who had been enslaved in Jim and Jane Crow.”
He continues, “So you [have] a fascinating expansion of what
we mean by Black people, what we mean by African Americans"....
“I don’t have the statistics and the University doesn’t
release them, but a large percent of the Black students in the College are
descendants of recent Africans as opposed to being descended from
African-Americans who were enslaved in North America,” says African and African
American Studies professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.
In such a context, "black" takes on a slightly, but significant, meaning than "generational African-American." Harvard fought hard at the Supreme Court, with Reid and the similarly ideologically inclined, cheering it on. Unable to trace her lineage in the USA over a long period of time- and thus not GAA- Reid would be particularly partial to the program at Harvard, which did not broadly embrace black applicants.
The university enthusiastically accepted blacks who do not trace their lineage in the USA back for centuries. Individuals whose descendants were brought to this land as slaves and whose progeny faced segregation, lynching, and other atrocities in this country need not apply. Harvard still would boast of its racial diversity while largely shutting out the victims of what has been termed "America's original sin."
Consciously or not, Reid did not explicitly place herself within the cultural group which has endured what she described as "a state of complete perplexed confusion about what is wrong with" the USA. However, she descends into- as she would put it- "a state of complete"- ignorance or bigotry when she claims
And to find out literally Barack Obama's two terms as President are your reparations and Juneteenth, which you already celebrate anyway, is your reparation. And yet, you built this country. You literally, physically, built this country and yet the attitude toward you from a lot of your peers and your fellow citizens is just "shut up" and be grateful.
Whites either accept Juneteenth as appropriate recognition as an historical event or don't consider it important in any way. And the whites whom Reid believes consider Obama's two terms as President as reparations don't see Obama's election as payback or righting a wrong. Rather, they think of it as vindication, as hard evidence that the USA isn't the land of bigotry and racism which many individuals such as Reid believe it is.
Those conservatives, similar to many on the left, fooled themselves into thinking that the election (finally) of a black individual to the presidency was more significant than it was. Ironically, they bought into the myth of the left- and of the center- that electing Obama was historic in a pertinent way. Election of a black man did not concretely change anything in this country, and was due to events particular to the time. They included his long-time opposition to an unpopular war coupled with opposition from a candidate apparently quite comfortable with a permanent wartime footing- and who put onto his ticket a truly ridiculous first-term governor. Race was less of a factor than commonly believed and revealed little about the fundamental character of the nation. Sometimes an election is just an election.
Far worse is Reid's contention that "you"- by which she means blacks and only blacks- built this country.
It was blacks. It also was whites, with contributions from other ethnic groups. We built this- all of us. One wishes Reid would take the more inclusive and expansive view Tom Paxton recognized several decades ago:
For all those clutching the pearls about Joy Reid's @JoyAnnReid commentary, here are her ACTUAL words... NO. LIES. TOLD! https://t.co/RdMHiMAY2t
— Thoughtful Processes 📸🐕🌷🍅 (@thoughtpro54) March 9, 2022
There is no need to clutch one's pearls. Joy Ann-Reid
brought up an important issue. Fortunately, she was mostly wrong when on Monday
evening she commented
As the world watches
the devastation unfolds in Ukraine, nearly 4,000 miles away, another crisis is
deepening that we don`t hear much about in the U.S., and that is the war in
Yemen.
In March of 2015, a Saudi-led coalition backed by the United
States intervened militarily in Yemen in a bid to fight Iran-backed Houthi
rebels. It has triggered one of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, due
to widespread hunger, disease and attacks on civilians. Four million Yemenis
have been forced to flee their homes.
Now, what we`re seeing in Ukraine is absolutely the worst
humanitarian crisis that Europe has seen in decades, but we haven`t witnessed
the same type of solidarity for the Yemenis as we do for the Ukrainians. We
don`t see historic sanctions or global campaigns, corporations like Airbnb and
Netflix taking a stand.
Now, this is not to say that we shouldn`t care this much for
Ukraine. Far from it. The point is, we should also care this much for refugees
and those facing occupation and war in the Middle East and Asia and Africa too.
The coverage of Ukraine has revealed a pretty radical
disparity in how human Ukrainians look and feel to Western media, compared to
their browner and blacker counterparts, with some reporters using very telling
comparisons in their analyses of the war....
OK, let`s face it. The world is paying attention because
this is happening in Europe. If this was happening anywhere else, would we see
the same outpouring of support and compassion?
But we don`t need to ask ourselves if the international
response would be the same if Russia unleashed their horror on a country that
wasn`t white and largely Christian, because Russia has already done it in
Syria.
This is a teachable moment for us in the media. We aren`t
afraid to call out our own industry. There is a lot of soul-searching that we
need to do in Western media about why some wars and lives seem to matter more
than others and why some refugees get the welcome mat, while others get the
wall.
First, this: it's not a "teachable moment when Reid is
calling out her "own industry" while a) not naming any one individual
or news organization; b) covering Ukraine in her own show much more than she
ever did Yemen; and c) omitting any criticism of the Democratic president whom
she loyally supported for the top job over Donald Trump.
Vladimir Putin's Russia invaded a nation with a stable and
largely Democratic government, one which had asked for NATO membership and sent
soldiers to U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ukraine has been an ally of
the USA and of the European Union.
In Yemen, the Houthi radical Shiite movement helped force the
resignation of the president, who stepped down in 2011 in favor of his deputy, who in turn was forced to flee
Yemen in 2015 in the face of an escalation of the insurgency. Concerned that
the Houthis were backed by Shia Iran, Saudi Arabia began an aerial campaign,
aided by logistical and intelligence forces from the USA, the UK, and France.
Civil war has continued, now exacerbated by an Islamic State group, which has
taken some territory in the south, which the Houthis want as an independent
state.
Yemen is suffering a civil war fueled by a religious rivalry
in which a religious minority is suffering the brunt of civilian
casualties. The contrast with Ukraine is
obvious and dramatic, which should be clear to everyone, even someone such as
Joy Ann-Reid, prone to view through a racial lens events with only the barest
of racial undertones.
Speaking of which: in December, 2017 an obedient Daniel Shaver crawled in
a hotel hallway on his stomach as demanded by verbally abusive police officer
Philip Brailsford.. Totally subservient and obviously helpless, Shaver was shot
dead by the officer, who ultimately was acquitted of second degree murder, was
reinstated, then retired, and now receives a pension.
Shaver was white. You won't remember this case and may not
have heard about it even at the time because it was a one-day story nationally. There was video of most of the encounter, and
it still passed into history with barely a mention, though the Justice
Department has been investigating the case since 2018.
I don't know why there was so little attention. But,
notwithstanding Reid's slant on the media, this is not an instance of brutality
virtually ignored because the only victim was non-white. It is a case which should give Reid pause in
accusing the media of a lack of concern about suffering and death because of the race or color of the victims. And maybe it would- except that, like most of the
country, she probably never heard about it.
If you were this stupid (or naive or dishonest) you, too, could make $1 million to $1.5 million annually hosting a show on MSNBC (maybe).
Watching this sentencing, and struck yet again by the defiance in Derek Chauvin’s demeanor; the utterly cold look on his face — the same way he looked as he knelt on George Floyd’s neck for 9 and a half minutes. It’s chilling to the bones.
— Joy-Ann (Pro-Democracy) Reid 😷 (@JoyAnnReid) June 25, 2021
"Defiance" can be defined as "bold resistance against an
opposing force or authority" or, as is more applicable to this case,
"contemptuous disrespect for the authority of another." That is utterly contrary to the "cold
look" Reid also observed on Chauvin as today's sentencing hearing took
place.
"Utterly cold look" is a realistic judgement. However, Chauvin displayed no defiance as he
took on a stoic demeanor.
Perhaps Reid understood that she was contradicting herself
and merely Reid wanted to condemn the defendant as much as possible by slamming
him for both being defiant and utterly cold.
The intellectually dishonest remark would be self-satisfying.
This, though, suggests either either extreme naivete about
the justice system or an interest in justice which is highly selective:
If Chauvin gets less or even equal to that, it will prove that we just don’t ever have equal justice under law in this country.
— Joy-Ann (Pro-Democracy) Reid 😷 (@JoyAnnReid) June 25, 2021
Fortunately, Chauvin received a sentence greater than
12-and-a-half years. He is expected to serve 15 years because he was sentenced
to 22 and-a-half years. Though a
relatively light sentence, it is greater than the other by 30 months.
If Chauvin gets less or even equal to that, it will prove
that we just don't ever have equal justice under law in this country. Derek
Chauvin received a longer sentence than Mohamed Noor, and we nevertheless live
in a nation without equal justice under law. Reid must be living in another
world, or at least another country, than we are.
Some of us recognized injustice before the brutal murder of
George Floyd. During the protests which followed, most other people learned of
racial disparities in policing; of the unwillingess to prosecute, or inability
of convicting, police accused of illegal behavior; and of harsh punsihment of
blacks for minor violations of law.
It all added up to unequal justice of law in this country.
However, her own words indicate that Joy Ann-Reid was blithely unaware that we
lack equal justice and, with the sentence handed down to George Chauvin, now
should be expected to argue that equal justice is the norm.
Instead Reid, despite believing equal justice is the norm,
may instead complain that Chauvin's sentence was insufficient and indicative of
a lack of justice. If so, she should be called upon to explain her journey from
faith in the system to outrage at the permissive sentence handed down upon
George Chauvin.
It's not that Liz Cheney isn't courageous. She is, as much as CNN is giving her credit for, and that's not easy.
Cheney is not attacking only the GOP's reigning god, Donald
"Chosen One" Trump. She also is standing up against a party establishment, the entrenched powerful, which, as Democrats who once opposed Nancy Pelosi's
leadership in the House learned, is rarely successful.
Still, Cheney's challenge is mostly sound and fury, with little chance of sucess. Matthew Dowd, Independent, former Republican strategist, and
founder of "Country Over Party," appeared on MSNBC's "The Reid Out" on
Wednesday. He has this one nailed, and not only because he realizes that the
Wyoming congresswoman and her allies
have to ask themselves the question, am I facilitating and
enabling a party that`s going to push this by staying in it? And that`s my
issue with Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and Mitt Romney and others, because what
happens if the House is taken over by the Republican in 2022, or the Senate is
taken over by the Republican in 2022? The reason why it will be taken over is
because Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney stayed in the Republican
Party. So they will facilitate this happening.
After host Joy-Ann Reid referred to the "first big lie as having been
birtherism," Dowd remarked
Well, to me, it actually -- I trace it back further than the
birtherism. I think that if we really look at this and trace it back to where
this sort of started, where this virus began and where it really started taking
off, it was in the mid `90s. And in the mid `90s with Newt Gingrich started to
make cultural argument, and because the Republicans were then beginning to face
the prospect that the diversity of America was blossoming and that people of
color, women were starting to push themselves into power and at the table. They
didn`t like that.
— Jennifer 'pro-voting' Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) May 13, 2021
Conservative Republicans are not offended because some
people are "black and brown." They're not offended even because of
the subculture characterizing many members of the black and Latino communities. They're angry because of "the prospect
that the diversity of America was blossoming" and ethnic groups
conspicuously favoring Democrats "were starting to push themselves into
power and at the table." For the most part, they don't dislike them. They simply don't want them to vote.
That's the major Republican mission now. The GOP
"autopsy" following the party's loss in 2012 recognized that the
nation's demographic profile was changing dramatically, and strongly implied
that the Party would have to branch out from their core of old white males. Then failed businessman and successful actor Donald Trump
came around to complain "They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime,
they're rapists some I assume are good people," he won, and their descent down the rathole of voter suppression accelerated.
Now the Republican Party is engaged in a massive,
nationwide effort to block Americans from voting. As of March 11, Republican state legislators
across 43 states had introduced more than 250+ bills to curb
voting. Yet, a mere nine days before she'd be thrown out as chairperson of the House
Republican conference, Cheney denounced HR 1, the For the People Act, as
"unconstitutional federal takeover," claiming the Democratic effort
to protect voting rights
steals power from the people, violates Americans’ First
Amendment Rights, and is designed to protect Democrat politicians. The
legislation would force hard-earned taxpayer money to fund political campaigns
and enable the federal government to control all aspects of our elections.
It’s clear that we need common sense election reform, but
this unconstitutional federal takeover would only create more uncertainty for
the system.
Liz Cheney has decided that a guy who incites a riot to
storm the Capitol and seek the execution of the Vice-President and the Speaker
of the House should not lead the GOP or the nation. That places her in a minority in her Party. "Her stand likely won't matter much," Esquire's Jack Holmes writes, "and it certainly does not redeem her or her family name. But her defenstration is, at the very least, a telling mile-marker on this path into the darkness."
The human impulse to treat an inauguration as a sacred and
holy event akin to a coronation can never be eliminated, only suppressed. Until
the United States switches from a presidential system to a parliamentary form
of government, where the top political leader can be cashiered and replaced
inside a day without pomp or circumstance, we’re stuck with all the fussery that
meets an incoming president.
Short of dosing commentators, anchors and reporters with
Seconal to prevent their central nervous systems from over-reacting to
Inauguration Day proceedings, maybe we could embed a house cynic on each
network and newspaper to police or at least tamp down the irrational exuberance
that rains down on most inaugurations. Think of the house cynic as the one
trusted to stay off the sauce all night long so that when the party ends, a
sober somebody is still standing to drive all the drunks home safely.
Shafer recognizes that coverage of the yesterday's inaugural
was a little worse than most. He knocks The New York Times, which
"swallowed whole the recent myth-making that has transformed (Joe) Biden
from a shifty politician into a statesman; also, The Washington Post, The New
York Times, Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC.
And especially MSNBC, where
At day’s end, Rachel Maddow confessed to having worked her
way through an entire box of Kleenex during the festivities and Joy Reid gushed
like a partisan about the event. “They gave us fashion. They gave us celebrity.
They gave us hope,” Reid said of the “incredible” inauguration.
Also joy, as the video below indicates,
although J.A.R. can be excused for being personally prejudiced in favor of that
adjective.
More soberly:
I really appreciated Biden's instruction to the staff he swore in that they must treat everyone with respect, and that he will fire anyone on the spot if he hears that they were disrespectful to a co-worker. I know that can't be enforced, but it is great to set as a standard
At least Baker acknowledges that Biden made a vow he
can't deliver on. However, the promise that political appointees will treat one
another with respect is a little empty coming from someone who elevated to
vice-presidential nominee a politician who directed a race-based attack on his character in a (successful) calculated fund-raising ploy. And after Biden was accused of sexual impropriety by two women, Harris markedly failed to defend her fellow Democrat.
When Biden put Harris on his ticket, it demonstrated the
strategic brilliance of the California senator in trying to undercut Biden by
veiled, and not so veiled, criticism. It demonstrated also that Biden's
commitment to people treating others with respect is subject to circumstances,
to which principle and integrity are subordinate.
It should not be necessary to explain the importance of
print and broadcast journalists (the latter far more guilty) holding their
enthusiasm for an incoming president until he at least does something, maybe on
January 21 quadrennially. The failure to
do so does neither the public nor the president any good.
Joy Ann-Reid appeared Tuesday on "The Daily Show" and together with host Trevor Noah expressed the conventional wisdom about presidential leadership. That which passes for wisdom spans the political spectrum from far right to far left and, presumably, is especially strong among independent, non-ideological individuals. Noah remarked
Donald Trump is currently traveling as president, counseling the victims of Hurricane Harvey. Could this not be- could this not be the moment to where he pivots to presidential, and unifies the nation duing its time of crisis?.... This is a valid question.
After chuckling, Reid responded
Only if he goes into Trump Tower, locks himself in, sends out a different person that isn't Donald Trump, that his name is Donald Trump, who is a completely different person, and maybe that person can pivot and be the president we need. Donald Trump is 71. Do you know any 7-year-olds? I do. They are what they are. They're not going to change. He is that guy.
The ellipsis in Noah's comment replaces "You guys are all assholes- every single one of you." Evidently, Noah is unaware that the audience laughter which annoyed him reflects his own perspective (and that of Reid) that we actually want the President to be "presidential" as he- and most others- define it.
But as Charlie Pierce explains in criticizing Glenn Thrush's yearning that President Trump "recapture some of the unifying power of his office he has squandered in recent weeks
This is how Ronald Reagan skated on the crimes of the Iran-Contra affair. In Mark Hertsgaard's study of the press in the Reagan era, On Bended Knee, Ben Bradlee, the hero editor of Watergate, says flatly that another "failed presidency" would be disastrous, and that Katherine Graham, the hero publisher of Watergate, "called for a retreat" in her newspaper's aggressiveness in the wake of Watergate and the rise of the Reagan Administration. You can see this at work as well in TheNew York Times's decision to bury the story of the George W. Bush administration's illegal surveillance program so as "not to affect" the 2004 election, even though that is precisely what that sort of story is supposed to do. This is more than mere deference to power. A lot of institutions are powerful but still subject to an aggressive press and a skeptical public. But the presidency has grown to the point where a failed president shakes the comfort zone down to its foundations. Too many people want a unifying Daddy in the White House so much that, if a president is not up to the job, those people will create that unifying Daddy out of shoddy material and wishful thinking. As Hertsgaard wrote, reflecting on the presidency of Ronald Reagan: "…[it was] a time when the national political debate was dominated by a bundle of ideas that almost without exception were contradicted by objective facts, common sense, or both."
We don't even have to go back some 30 years to the dramatically overrated President Ronald(6) Wilson(6) Reagan(6). We have an example in this century alone, when in the wake of the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks, President Bush climbed onto a fire truck at Ground Zero, put his arm around a retired firefighter, and spoke to the crowd through a bullhorn, at which time
The crowd began chanting “U.S.A., U.S.A.” As the cheers died down, Bush started speaking. Someone from the crowd yelled that they couldn’t hear the president. Bush, with his arm still draped around Beckwith, shouted into his bullhorn, "I can hear you, the rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.” The president’s words were met with whooping and hollering from the crowd.
The media swooned. The politicians swooned. The country swooned. And the Bush Administration made its dishonest argument to the nation, now fertile ground for tales of aluminum tubes, yellowcake uranium powder, and "weapons of mass destruction." In the end, the Administration launched an ultimately disastrous war in Iraq. Compounding the error, to this very day the federal government is partnered with Saudi Arabia, the nation giving birth to most of the 9/11/01 terrorists, in a bombing campaign which has caused the death of approximately 8,000 Yemenis and the displacement of millions.
"Be careful what you wish for" is a useful aphorism. Presidents Reagan and Bush 43 were both great unifying figures in times of crisis, and we are the worst off for it. Fortunately- whether or not because of age- whatever unifying power President Trump, a would-be autocrat, may exhibit in the next few days will not last, and we will be the better off because of it.
Stupid questions- or good questions in the wrong context- yield stupid responses. I'm not speaking of Charlie Pierce, who liked the question while recognizing "But it was the question that was the story. Can you imagine asking that same question of the four remaining Republicans? Can you imagine the reaction of the people in the audience if anyone asked?"
That is why it was a waste of time (other than for the over-heated reactions by surrogates) when CNN's Don Lemon at the Flint debate decided "to ask both of you again. In a speech about policing, the FBI director James Comey borrowed a phrase saying, “everyone is a little bit racist.” What racial blind spot do you have? "
This is not nearly as useful a question to ask Democrats as to ask of Republicans. (It wouldn't be so now, given they have been forewarned.) For Democrats, one might ask, about one topic or another: "And how do you propose to pay for all of this?" to which a legitimate answer probably would follow.
Nonetheless, Lemon did ask it, because asking about feelings is always an attention-getter, and somewhere there is a potential employer still sufficiently foolish to ask "what are your weaknesses?" It is not the responsibility of job-seekers nor political candidates to implicate himself revealing their own limitations..
Clinton gave her answer first, after which Sanders offered a response I didn't much notice at the time, given that it truly was unremarkable,
Jonathan Capehart noticed, however.in part slamming Sanders' response as being out-of-touch with "people of color," whom those familiar with the English language recognize as "colored people," justifiably considered a prejorative term. The Senator, in full, stated
Well, let me just very briefly tell you a story. When I was in one of my first years in Congress, I went to a meeting downtown in Washington, D.C. And I went there with another congressman, an African-American congressman. And then we kind of separated during the meeting. And then I saw him out later on. And he was sitting there waiting and I said, well, let’s go out and get a cab. How come you didn’t go out and get a cab? He said, no, I don’t get cabs in Washington, D.C. This was 20 years ago. Because he was humiliated by the fact that cabdrivers would go past him because he was black. I couldn’t believe, you know, you just sit there and you say, this man did not take a cab 20 years ago in Washington, D.C. Tell you another story, I was with young people active in the Black Lives Matter movement. A young lady comes up to me and she says, you don’t understand what police do in certain black communities. You don’t understand the degree to which we are terrorized, and I’m not just talking about the horrible shootings that we have seen, which have got to end and we’ve got to hold police officers accountable, I’m just talking about every day activities where police officers are bullying people. So to answer your question, I would say, and I think it’s similar to what the secretary said, when you’re white, you don’t know what it’s like to be living in a ghetto. You don’t know what it’s like to be poor. You don’t know what it’s like to be hassled when you walk down the street or you get dragged out of a car. And I believe that as a nation in the year 2016, we must be firm in making it clear. We will end institutional racism and reform a broken criminal justice system.
Salon's Amanda Marcotte approvingly linked to a post by Vox's German Lopez, who contended that the Vermont senator "seemed to characterize all minority Americans as impoverished." Lopez linked to Reid twittering "most African-Americans are not poor. The AA poverty rate is too high, of course, at about 28%, but that's not most or all."
The "AA poverty rate" to which Reid referred is not that of Alcoholics Anonymous but of African-Americans.
It isn't surprising that the successful and well-paid Reid, an MSNBC contributor, takes offense at the idea that poverty is a problem plaguing African-Americans. She lives and works amongst individuals largely affluent, whether they are black, hispanic, Asian, or non-hispanic white. The people with whom she associates are much more likely to be white and affluent than poor and black and she may nott like being seemingly lumped in with poor blacks.
But of course, as Benjamin Dixon notes (video below), she and Capehart are generally not experiencing what far too many black Americans experience. Most of those difficuties escape the financially fortunate, who are loathe to acknowledge that class plays at least as important a role in society as does race.
Also taken aback by Sanders' linkage of blacks and ghettos was Capehart, who tweeted "He knows that all Black people don't live in ghettos, right?"
Well, yes, Bernie certainly knows, inasmuch as being a member of Congress for 20+ years exposes oneself to many prominent black people, such as Capehart and Reid. However, his experience, whether as a youthful civil-rights activist or more recently in government, has enabled him to understand that the issues facing many blacks go beyond race and that being poor and black is more problematic than being affluent and black.
Yet, Sanders does recognize the disadvantage of being African-American in a white-dominated nation. It is the purpose of his cab story, which Capehart virtually dismisses, notwithstanding that prosperous blacks have for years emphasized the indignity (and inconvenience) of skin color when they tell of being bypassed by a cab driver for no reason other than skin color.
Capehart argues that Sanders has a "shallow knowledge of African Americans compared to Clinton" because he represents a state in which blacks are only 1.2 percent of the population. Oddly, he also slams the Senator's admission "that he doesn't understand what police in certain communities" as being "more damning than you think." The contradiction escapes him.
"Democrats," Capehart inists, "know how to talk to people of color, especially African-Americans." (The first thing might be not to refer to them as "colored people.") Because Mrs. Clinton does and Sanders- allegedly- does not, we "also see who the true Democrat is. It's not Sanders."
The ability to say what someone wants to hear- less generously, for a politician to be able to fake sincerity- is an odd criterion for genuiness. If Sanders is unable to communicate with blacks, it's not for lack of trying, and sometimes the failure to communicate is a fault of both parties, or neither. Additionally, although Sanders hasn't been effectively connecting with African-Americans, he evidently is getting through to some people, including a few Trump supporters. They, too, vote, even though their economic status is beneath that of the likes of Capehart and Reid.
Capehart gives it all away when he concludes with a wish that votes from African-Americans "will clinch the Democratic nomination for Clinton and hopefully secure the legacy of the nation’s first black president." He does not suggest that a President Clinton would reduce income inequality, provide greater opportunity for blacks, or reduce inter-racial tension. He does not suggest a Clinton 46 presidency would provide lasting peace to the Middle East or at least stabilize the region, or bring a needed sense of proportion to the Pentagon budget. And fortunately he is not so disingenuous as to suggest Clinton is the Democrat more likely to prevent another Great Recession brought on by the financial services industry.
No, Jonathan Capehart, realizing that Mrs. Clinton has tied herself securely to the hip of President Obama, expects that the election of the former Secretary of State would "secure the legacy of the nation's first black president."
What President Obama has done, President Obama has done, most good, some bad. The legacy, however, refers specifically to how something is viewed; it is not necessarily reality, but perception. Most of us wished Mr. Obama would be a great President, and still that the aftermath of his policies prove favorable. Promoting a president's legacy is better left to the destructive Grover Norquist, whose Ronald Reagan Legacy Project has convinced much of the country that he was a good, even great, president. It is unbecoming, not unlike pushing the idea of Bernie Sanders as insensitive to the interests of black Americans
I come not to bury Joy-Ann Reid. I come also not to praise Joy Reid, though she apparently understands that the excessive violence in sports is more damaging to youth than to professional athletes. In a discussion Sunday about the use of performance enhancing drugs in sports, she noted
Right, exactly, and I mean, I think that for parents of kids who play sports, this whole spectacle has been even more depressing, because, I just lived in Florida, which is a factory for little football players, and no one talks about the injuries these kids are suffering. The extent to which they`re destroying their growing bodies in order to play this sport, because sports has this great iconography that is almost all a lie. That`s sort of a lesson we`re learning.
Sports has (have?) become a sacred cow in America, and Reid called them on it.
But on MSNBC there is another sacred cow. Despite critics who lump MSNBC in with Fox News as the liberal answer to conservative excess, MSNBC is only accidentally a liberal network. And it is only accidentally a conservative network. It is not only accidentally an Obama network- and few (o.k., a few) individuals demonstrate this as Reid, managing editor of thegrio.com and MSNBC contributor.
In Chris Hayes' inestimable program (virtually buried Saturday and Sunday mornings on MSNBC), Reid on Sunday (show transcript, here) not only drew the connection between drug use and violence in sports and the obscene elevation of sports in American culture, but also about Guantanamo and the Persian Gulf.
During the course of this blog, Guantanamo Bay has been the topic of a post only twice and is something I'm not now going to "relitigate"- as politicians put it when they want to avoid an issue. (It's not even a word, making it an even more splendid dodge.) But Reid's remark Sunday served as a reminder of her value to MSNBC not in the insight she brings when she chooses but in her shilling, however subtle, for Barack Obama. In a discussion of the nomination of John Brennan as CIA director, another of Hayes' guests, Ellen Goodman, explained
He`s also been there for four years of President Obama. And they`re involved with the drone program. I just came from Doha, Qatar where I was covering the climate change summit, but during that time, I went over to al-Jazeera and they interviewed the only journalist who was held at Guantanamo for six years. His name is Sami Al-Haj, never charged, released after six years. Held in Afghanistan, then in Guantanamo. He was tortured, he was constantly interrogated about what -- who were the bosses at al-Jazeera. It was an astounding story of how this man was held, only freed after a 400 day hunger fast. The reason I raise Sami al-Haj is when people watch the Senate confirmation hearings of John Brennan, he`s an example of one of the few voices of the voiceless who can describe the reality of what is happening on the ground at Guantanamo. This is not just about John Brennan. It goes to President Obama as well who promised to close it. It`s now the fourth anniversary of President Obama promising to close it.
Cue Joy Reid, exquisitely sensitive on behalf of Barack Obama, who responded "And Congress blocked it. We need to remember, Congress is also implicated in that. I mean, it was one of the first executive orders." When Goodman, apparently trying to question her obeisance to the Executive Branch, stated "absolutely fine, but-" Reid interjected "And Democrats wouldn't vote for it."
But the 'but' is critical, its absence tending to absolve the President of responsibility. Last July, Glenn Greenwald wrote
What made Guantanamo controversial was not its physical location: that it was located in the Caribbean Sea rather than on American soil (that’s especially true since the Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that U.S. courts have jurisdiction over the camp). What made Guantanamo such a travesty — and what still makes it such — is that it is a system of indefinite detention whereby human beings are put in cages for years and years without ever being charged with a crime. President Obama’s so-called “plan to close Guantanamo” — even if it had been approved in full by Congress — did not seek to end that core injustice. It sought to do the opposite: Obama’s plan would have continued the system of indefinite detention, but simply re-located it from Guantanamo Bay onto American soil. Long before, and fully independent of, anything Congress did, President Obama made clear that he was going to preserve the indefinite detention system at Guantanamo even once he closed the camp. President Obama fully embraced indefinite detention — the defining injustice of Guantanamo — as his own policy... When the President finally unveiled his plan for “closing Guantanamo,” it became clear that it wasn’t a plan to “close” the camp as much as it was a plan simply to re-locate it — import it — onto American soil, at a newly purchased federal prison in Thompson, Illinois. William Lynn, Obama’s Deputy Defense Secretary, sent a letter to inquiring Senators that expressly stated that the Obama administration intended to continue indefinitely to imprison some of the detainees with no charges of any kind.
At first glance, it would appear that at least President Obama wanted to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, a symbol to much of the world of U.S. arrogance. Call me Machiavaellian- but I doubt it. Rather, it's likely that Obama, who uniquely thinks two chess steps ahead of others, realized that a plan to re-locate the camp in the U.S.A. would incite a torrent of opposition. Eventually deciding not to close the prison, he avoided virulent opposition from the hard right while maintaining support from his apologists, who have been able to argue that he made an effort or, as less generously described by Greenwald, "classic Obama: a pretty, feel-good, empty symbolic gesture (get rid of the symbolic face of Bush War on Terror excesses) while preserving the core abuses (the powers of indefinite detention ), even strengthening and expanding those abuses by bringing them into the U.S."
That abuse of power was further defended by Reid, who later in the program responded to criticism of the Executive branch's drone program, greatly expanded under the current President, by arguing
And by the way, shock and awe, dropping cluster bombs all over Iraq, also killed a lot of civilians, but we had a Congress that authorized the president of the United States, George W. Bush, to wage unlimited war on terrorists, to decide who those terrorists were and to go and kill them, whether killing them with bunker buster bombs or killing them with drones. When the Congress of the United States gives to the president the power to wage war, it`s very rare that an executive gives back power. That`s why we have a balance of power.
Uh, no. Ceding to the President a power, one never returned, in times of national urgency is not "why we have a balance of power." It undermines the balance of power, vesting it almost entirely in the Executive, giving him/her authority disfavored by the Founders.
Congress increasingly has allowed the Executive branch to assume additional power over the past several decades. However, with those added prerogatives goes additional responsibility- or should. President Obama shouldn't be given a free pass by the left simply because he is constantly under attack by the right. But with the likes of Joy Reid, Chris Matthews, Melissa Harris-Perry and Al Sharpton at MSNBC, "shouldn't" is not "won't."
