For now, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) appears to have survived the initial firestorm over the "poor choice of words" he used to assess the chances of then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) to make it to the White House, describing him as "light skinned" and "with no negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." 
 

After word of Reid’s unfortunate comments started ricocheting around cyberspace – they are included in the just-released book, "Game Change," by Time magazine's Mark Halperin and New York magazine's John Heilemann – Republicans went on the warpath* (Reid should resign; Dems get away with racial missteps that kill a Repub’s career) while Dems circled the wagons (“it was in the context of saying positive things about Senator Obama”; it was “just a mistake").

As it happens, the anachronistic term “negro” became a flashpoint several weeks earlier, when people noticed that it is included in the 2010 Census form as one of the choices to describe the respondent’s race (White; Black, African-American, or Negro; American Indian or Alaska Native). You’ll notice that all the other races get only one term - take it, or leave it – but blacks get three to choose from. How come? An article on the Website “theGrio” explains:

Shelly Lowe, a U.S. Census Bureau spokesperson, agrees that the use of "Negro" is antiquated, and says that the bureau was surprised to learn there still are people who prefer to be called by the term. …

The term was left on the 2010 form after a number of respondents [mostly elderly blacks] to the 2000 census opted to write-in "Negro" when answering the question on race, census officials said.

But just because some in the black population continue to use the term “negro” to refer to themselves, it doesn’t get Reid off the hook. What does? Usually it’s a combination of these three things:  

1. Being a Democrat or a liberal. Biden told the New York Observer pretty much the same thing ("I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy") and not he not only wasn’t forced to give up his Senate seat, but he got promoted to veep. Similarly, in 2006 Steny Hoyer (D-MD) got away with saying that then- Republican Senate candidate Michael Steele had a career of “slavishly supporting the Republican Party.”

2. Not being a Republican or conservative. Outraged Repubs reflexively contrasted Reid’s treatment with Trent Lott’s – who appeared to endorse Strom Thurmond’s long-ago disavowed segregationist presidential campaign platform when praising his decades-long career. But the more pertinent example of the racial double standard against Repubs is the fallout from a holiday CD with parodies of well-known songs, including “Barack the Magic Negro” (video), that Republican National Committee Chairman hopeful Chip Saltzman sent supporters last year.

3. Characterizing white people as racist. Case in point: In an article carrying the headline, “Harry Reid: Racist or Political Realist?,” The Christian Science Monitor quotes Syracuse University professor Boyce Watkins, who believes that Reid “wasn't necessarily giving his own opinion. Rather, he was giving his assessment of the preferences of the American public.”

Check, check and check. Short of a YouTube video surfacing of Reid wearing blackface, he’s pretty much bulletproof for the time being, because he has one more thing going for him – Dems can’t afford to lose a single vote in the Senate if they want to enact healthcare “reform.”

So, Obama accepted Reid’s apology – just as he had previously accepted Biden’s. But once you get past the “light-skinned” and “negro” bits, Reid is “complimenting” Obama, by characterizing him as a phony. In today’s America, where people are taken aback by someone using the word “negro,” being black isn’t fatal to your political ambitions. But being a phony (or “inauthentic” to use a fancier word) can be. Just ask voters who couldn’t stand former Repub presidential aspirant Mitt Romney (second item on page). So Reid really wasn’t doing Obama any favors.

As Rush Limbaugh once pointed out, in his autobiography "Dreams from My Father," Obama admitted that he acted a certain way when he was amongst whites:

It was usually an effective tactic, another one of those tricks I had learned. People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied; they were relieved, such a pleasant surprise to find a well mannered young black man who didn't seem angry all the time.

And writing in New York Times blog, “The Caucus,” Jeff Zeleny recalls that Obama talked a certain way when he was amongst blacks (Politico’s Nia-Malika Henderson called this an example of “dog-whistle politics” – sending out coded messages that will be “heard” only by people attuned to pick them up):

As Mr. Obama moved from state to state in the long Democratic primary fight … it was not unusual for his inflection and mannerisms to be a bit different.” …

When he spoke to some black audiences, Mr. Obama’s consonants tended to linger a bit. He would speak with a certain staccato and rhythm – particularly in churches – that he had not used when addressing white audiences in Iowa or New Hampshire.

In other words, Obama could - and did - turn “the dialect” and his “blackness” on and off at will, so Reid’s calling attention to his phoniness could have hurt Obama - especially amongst the blue collar voters that he couldn’t wrest from Hillary Clinton’s iron grip during the primaries and needed to win over so he could prevail in the general election.

For his part, former Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-IL) tells Esquire magazine that unlike Obama, he did not put on a different persona for different audiences: 

[M]ost of the people in politics are “full of s*** and phonies, but I was real.” …

I'm blacker than Barack Obama. I shined shoes. I grew up in a five-room apartment. My father had a little Laundromat in a black community not far from where we lived. I saw it all growing up."

Which brings us to the biggest double standard of them all: A white Dem can be black, but not a black Repub. Only in America.

* Editorial Note: Encarta did not flag “warpath” as being an offensive term, so The Stiletto is going to assume it isn’t racist.

My Friend The Witch Doctor, He Taught Me What To Do

Last week, a Washington Post editorial decried a new Ugandan law that would relax the criminal penalty for homosexuality - life imprisonment, instead of execution – calling the proposal “barbaric” and “beyond the pale of civilized nations.” The same day, BBC News reported that there has been an uptick in child sacrifices in “civilized” Uganda since 2007:
 

According to officials trying to tackle it, the crime is directly linked to rising levels of development and prosperity - and an increasing belief that witchcraft can help people get rich quickly. …

Moses Binoga, the assistant police commissioner who is head of the Ugandan anti-human sacrifice and trafficking task force, said there were 26 murders thought to be part of ritual sacrifice last year compared with three cases in 2007.

"We also have about 120 children and adults reported missing whose fate we have not traced," he added. "From the experience of those whom we recovered, we cannot rule out that they may be victims of human sacrifice."

One witch doctor who denied performing human sacrifices explained the ritual to BBC News (click here for the televised report):

"They go and capture other people's children. They bring the heart and the blood directly here to take to the spirits," he said.

"They bring them in small tins and they place these objects under the tree from which the voices of the spirits are coming."

The Stiletto wonders when – or if - The WaPo will denounce the executions of innocent children - and the mutilations of their tiny corpses - in Uganda. As these victims are not guilty of any crimes under the country’s barbaric penal code, human sacrifices are an entire order of magnitude more barbaric than the anti-homosexuality law.

In Memoriam

Art Clokey, October 12, 1921 - January 8, 2010

Editorial Note:  The media focused on Clokey’s best-known creation, Gumby, but he created two other characters that had a much more profound and enduring impact on several generations of children - Davey and Goliath. The Stiletto’s parents are free thinkers who do not believe in organized religion and taught their children that wherever you pray to G-d, that is a church. Consequently, The Stiletto and her siblings got much of their spiritual guidance watching Davey Hansen navigate his way through sticky moral and ethical situations to the straight and narrow path with the help of his dog Goliath (“I doon't knooww, Daavey”) on Sunday mornings while their parents were still asleep. Hearing the opening theme of the show – based on the hymn, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” written by Martin Luther - time warps The Stiletto back to her childhood as instantly as hearing the Mister Softee ice cream truck jingle. Take your own walk down memory lane here.