"I forgot he was black for an hour"

Chris Mathews on Obama "I forgot he was black for an hour" comment has created so much controversy. Some calling for Mathews head to roll out of MSNBC. What y'al think?

[YOUTUBE]GgWg94lO4Fo&feature=related[/YOUTUBE]

 

The problem with his statement is that he clearly hasn't forgotten that he was black by feeling the need to state that. The unfortunate thing is that people are going to make a way bigger deal out of it than they should.

 

Also what is your take on the State of the union address? Some are calling it a 76 minutes stump speech.
I do not know where the heck we're going to get the money to finance all the promises that were made. We owe China a lot as it is, it will be interesting to watch.

 

I think a lot of it was to inspire consumer spending because that's the only way we get back on track.

 

I think Chris just said what a lotta people actually believe to be true.

For example; If you get pulled over by the cops, wouldn't you want "them" to forget that you were black?:smt042

 

*dingdingding* + 1

 

that's some real talk right there

 

That really makes you think

 

That's the cool thing about progressives, we actually think things through instead of repeating some ol' Faux News bullshit.

 

That was a very ignorant remark. I can't believe this fool actually thought people would be flattered.

 

well some people would be flattered...

you know...

the people that are ashamed to have been born black



there are people like that...after all we as a group have been subjected to in this country, can you blame them? life would have probably been a bit easier for them in certain situations, but hey, it's a challenge you know. That's the way I look at it. I have no regrets about being who I am. To say something like 'you are the whitest black guy I ever met' or 'I almost forgot that you were black' would not be a compliment to me.

 

I will never forget the day when a successful AA lawyer told me about how much he hates being blk. He said "I would rather be a 4'10, 100 lbs chinese farmer that lives in a dirt poor village than a muscular 6'3, 210 lbs, IVY league grad black lawyer". Christ, I was shocked to say the least.

 

Here is a take by two professors.


As a black American I want people to remember who I am and where I come from without attaching assumptions about deficiency to it," said Dr. Imani Perry, a professor at Princeton's Center for African American Studies.

Although she thought Matthews was well-intentioned, she found his statement troubling, because "it suggests that if he had remembered Obama's blackness, that awareness would be a barrier to seeing him as a competent or able leader."

"The ideal is to be able to see and acknowledge everything that person is, including the history that he or she comes from, as well as his or her competencies and qualities, and respect all of those things," Perry said.

That's a very different vision of "transcending race" — a consistent theme of Obama's political history — than one in which race has disappeared altogether.

"It's important for us to remember that everyone has a race," Blair L.M. Kelley, an associate professor of history at North Carolina State University. "When you say we're going to transcend race, are white people called on to transcend their whiteness?"

"When (black people) transcend it, what do we become? Do we become white?" she asked. "Why would we have to stop being our race in order to solve a problem?"

 

sad stuff, i know, but it's truth.

I mentioned on the boards before, about the contribution to a book called 'The Presence of Others,' that I had to read freshman English at PSU. The reading was authored by a white guy, who talks about feeling superior to a highly decorated and renown black peer, who was receiving an award or something for his contributions. He mentions that...here he is sitting next to this guy with such a reputation and achievement...and still feeling like he was better than him, simply because he was white.

 

I'm kind of on the fence with this issue. I say that because I had parents who specifically gave their children names where if they were to ever fill out a job application, you would never be able to tell what race they were simply by looking at their name.

Having said that, I wouldn't trade being a black man for anything. I appreciate who I am and where I came from. My mother raised me to be a man who would transcend race, not one who would be ashamed of it or use it as an excuse.

 

shouldn't even have to be that way man

really

 

To be honest tho, dont a lot of AA have names that are used across the board, i.e Kevin Johnson, Michael Springer, Allen Collins, Ian Smith, etc... Unless one changed his/her last name to Polish or Russian sounding name..... scratch that, I've even seen blk kids with that kind of last name. So it's very difficult to identify someone's back ground on basis of name, unless of course it is sheniqua, lekesha, Moeisha, kenya etc....

 

:smt012I have absolutely NO PROBLEM with what he said. It's amazing, black folk can be so fcukn confusing at times. We want people to be real and candid and when they are, we get pissed....??

Clearly, Chris Matthews is an Obama cheerleader of the Nth degree. It wasn't about trying to 'compliment' BO, his point was that the man transcends race...period. It shouldn't take rocket-science to figure that out.

If a black guy said it....you wouldn't hear a word. A white guy says it in positive context and we get pissed....WTF?

He said it, I'm glad he said it....and I agree. Most of all, I'm glad he was candid.

 

I kinda feel you on that, although for what it's worth I think children should at least have some kind of say in what they're gonna be named. As far as my parents however, I understand their rationale in doing that.

Even though we were raised in the inner city we were forbidden from using slang-terms in any way around the house growing up. My mother explained that she wanted us to learn how to talk like a normal human being before we learned how they talk out in the streets.

Both of my parents grew up in the inner-city as well, and I noticed that they brought us up in a way that was very different than your typical black family in the hood.

Believe it or not I actually had to learn slang on my own, and I'm thankful at how my mother raised me.

 

:smt005 Didn't see the video, but hell naw. I want them to know what I am. Not lookin' for special treatment, but I don't want somebody to think I wasn't black because I did or said something that wasn't "black" to them.