“Are you a racist?” It is a question that most of us find uncomfortable at best. And yet, there are those times in the human culture that warrant this question such as this one from Bill O’Reilly’s September 19 radio show:
“You know, I was up in Harlem a few weeks ago, and I actually had dinner with Al Sharpton, who is a very, very interesting guy. And he comes on The Factor a lot, and then I treated him to dinner, because he’s made himself available to us, and I felt that I wanted to take him up there. And we went to Sylvia’s, a very famous restaurant in Harlem. I had a great time, and all the people up there are tremendously respectful.“
“They all watch The Factor. You know, when Sharpton and I walked in, it was like a big commotion and everything, but everybody was very nice. And I couldn’t get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia’s restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it’s run by Blacks, primarily Black patronship. It was the same, and that’s really what this society’s all about now here in the U.S.A. There’s no difference.”
“There’s no difference. There may be a cultural entertainment — people may gravitate toward different cultural entertainment, but you go down to Little Italy, and you’re gonna have that. It has nothing to do with the color of anybody’s skin.”
“There wasn’t one person in Sylvia’s who was screaming, ‘M-Fer, I want more iced tea.’ You know, I mean, everybody was — it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn’t any kind of craziness at all.”
“You know, and I went to the concert by Anita Baker at Radio City Music Hall, and the crowd was 50/50, Black/White, and the blacks were well-dressed. And she came out — Anita Baker came out on the stage and said, “Look, this is a show for the family. We’re not gonna have any profanity here. We’re not gonna do any rapping here.” The band was excellent, but they were dressed in tuxedoes, and this is what white America doesn’t know, particularly people who don’t have a lot of interaction with Black Americans. They think that the culture is dominated by Twista, Ludacris, and Snoop Dogg.”
“Now, how do we get to this point? Black people in this country understand that they’ve had a very, very tough go of it, and some of them can get past that, and some of them cannot. I don’t think there’s a Black American who hasn’t had a personal insult that they’ve had to deal with because of the color of their skin. I don’t think there’s one in the country. So you’ve got to accept that as being the truth. People deal with that stuff in a variety of ways. Some get bitter. Some say, [unintelligible] “You call me that, I’m gonna be more successful.”
OK, it depends on the personality. So it’s there. It’s there, and I think it’s getting better. I think black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves. They’re getting away from the Sharptons and the Jacksons and the people trying to lead them into a race-based culture. They’re just trying to figure it out: “Look, I can make it. If I work hard and get educated, I can make it.”
After a careful examination of his words, O’Reilly comes across, though without malice, as one of the more culturally, uneducated personalities in all of media. It is truly remarkable how many statements of shock, surprise, and bewilderment occur in the transcript in the first paragraph alone. O’Reilly concedes happily that everyone was respectful in the Black owned restaurant with Black patrons.
He continues by saying how impressed he was that “[t]here wasn’t one person in Sylvia’s who was screaming, ‘M-Fer, I want more iced tea”. He compares the majority white Americans perception of blacks as being dominated by rap culture and ends his diatribe with his feeling that Black Americans have figured out that they can indeed “make it” if they work hard.
First, let me say that as a journalist and a communicator Bill O’Reilly often raises good points and is admirably never afraid to say what is on his mind. He always speaks frankly and directly to an issue in my view. However, O’Reilly’s frankness, and his honesty have seemingly caused him to slip into an unexamined section of his unconscious so to speak. His remarks do not seem hateful, or to advocate mistreatment of Blacks. However, they most definitely do indicate an absolutely stunning level of ignorance that I thought that was far above the intellectual level of any journalist who wishes himself to be an effective communicator.
If one who is not a professional communicator and whom has had little to no contact with African-American people (for instance those in an isolated region of the Midwest, where a Black face is few and far between long stretches of farmland) I should expect that a person might equate Black culture with rappers like Snoop Dogg, Ludacris and Twista but never a person of O’Reilly’s education. For a journalist to be surprised for example, that Black people are able to be polite in a restaurant is irrevocably racist, not due to hatred, but rather to stereotypical thinking on that journalist’s part because he has based his judgment of a group of patrons solely on the ethnicity of that group.
As a person with cerebral palsy who uses a wheelchair, I experience a similar type of prejudice fairly often. When strangers in nightclubs come up to me and tell me that it’s “great to see me out” it leads me to believe that they do not expect me to be out because of my disability. When a certain manager of a major league baseball team told me, “Good for you!” and nothing more while shaking my hand during a meet and greet session, I felt he was making an assumption about me that just seemed pitiful and patronizing to me. And just this past year before graduating college, my girlfriend was mistaken for my attendant numerous times by people who had seen us on campus.When I corrected them and told them she was my girlfriend. I would receive responses of shock and amazement. One food service worker proceeded to ask my girlfriend if she really was my girlfriend and then asked me, “Does your mother know you have a girlfriend?”
My point is that none of these people meant any harm by what they said. I consider none of them mean or hateful. To the contrary, they were all very nice, very polite and very hospitable to me. Nevertheless, what they said was ignorant. In the same way, I in no way see that Bill O’Reilly meant any harm by what he said about Black people. In fact, I believe he meant his comments to be complementary and to champion the progress of African Americans in this country. Similarly, in doing so, he was ignorant and clearly reaffirmed his previously held prejudices about African Americans.
I would suggest that Mr. O’Reilly meet some more African-American people outside the rapper realm and just see what happens. It really can’t hurt.
-Keith Olbermann Speaks Out-
-O’Reilly and Glen Beck agree on why they don’t have many Black friends-
Technorati Tags: Bill O’Reilly, Ignorant, Racist, Racial Remarks, Journalist
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