I Just Remembered Chris Matthews Was White

[RoyGBiv]

Not sure if this was posted already. I did a search but didn't find anything ...

One way to think about this is to flip the frame. Around these parts, we've been known, from time to time, to chat about the NFL. We've also been known to chat about the intricacies of beer. If you hang around you'll notice that there are no shortage of women in these discussions. Having read a particularly smart take on Brett Favre, or having received a good recommendations on a particular IPA, it would not be a compliment for me to say, "Wow, I forgot you were a woman." Indeed, it would be pretty offensive.

The problems is three-fold. First, it takes my necessarily limited, and necessarily blinkered, experience with the fairer sex and builds it into a shibboleth of invented truth. Then it takes that invented truth as a fair standard by which I can measure one's "woman-ness." So if football and beer don't fit into my standard, I stop seeing the person as a woman. Finally instead of admitting that my invented truth is the problem, I put the onus on the woman. Hence the claim "I forgot you were a woman," as opposed to "I just realized my invented truth was wrong."

Ditto for Chris Matthews. The "I forgot Obama was black" sentiment allows the speaker the comfort of accepting, even lauding, a black person without interrogating their invented truth. It allows the speaker a luxurious ignorance--you get to name people (this is what black is) even when you don't know people. In fact, Chris Matthews didn't forget Barack Obama was black. Chris Matthews forgot that Chris Matthews was white.

I'm put back in the mind of the The Wire, when Slim Charles tells Avon that it really doesn't matter that our wars are based on a lie. Once we're fighting, we fight on that lie until the end. I would submit that a significant number of white people in this country, can not stop fighting on the lie. They can't cop to the fact that they really have no standing to speak on Obama's relationship to blackness, because they know so little about black people. It's always hard to say, "I don't know." But no one else can say it for you.

http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2010/01/i_remembered_chris_matthews_was_white_tonight.php

IMO, this is:

[Swamp Rat]

1. He looks yellow to me.

:)

[RoyGBiv]

2. That always cracks me up ...

I want a Tweety Bird doll with a pull string that just says "asshole."

[Swamp Rat]

3. Me too, and I also want a moose-bear that says:

"I can see Russia, there my backyard from... you betcha!.. *gunshots*... *helicopter*..."

[jaysunb]

10. Hey ! it's good to see you .

:hi:

[Swamp Rat]

12. Way'at jaysunb!

WHO DAT?!

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_OZEW1KPpFOI/SyZWDYvCtwI/AAAAAAAACfQ/2g0Ess5EeIc/s400/SG.Sir+Saint.Larger.jpg

[malaise]

18. Hi there Swamp Rat

I'm rooting for yah!! :hi:

[cliffordu]

6. ROFL....

Heya, SWAMPEE!!!!!

HOWYA BEEN??

[Swamp Rat]

7. Way'at cliffordu!

:hi: :hug:



? :D

[cliffordu]

8. Lessee....

"....I BEN GRATE (??)

:rofl:

[Swamp Rat]

9. How you been?

I was just passing through the neighborhood. Thought I'd stop and say 'hi' to folks.

[cliffordu]

11. Ah, you know - I'm alright - just here for the mud wrestling and the

lack of decorum.

[TexasObserver]

4. When Chris Matthews isn't on, I forget he's outdated.

[SlingBlade]

5. The Hell You Say ...He is isnt he

[Truth2Tell]

13. This is an outstanding post!

And major bonus points for the Wire reference. K&R

[struggle4progress]

14. I think I'll just forget Chris Matthews

[Bucky]

15. Seriously, is anything Tweets says worth analyzing that deeply?

[tavalon]

17. Probably not

I'm willing to spend a line or two mocking him, but a whole article seems to be more attention than that egotistical widdle birdy deserves.

[RoyGBiv]

20. Well, yes ...

... not because it's Matthews, more in spite of it being him than anything.

There's a larger issues to be considered. Matthews's remark was a very public expression of it.

[tavalon]

16. I was telling a friend about this very statement

I mentioned that it was jawdroppingly racist and he said he wasn't sure if it was. I said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot for a moment that you're a Jew." Needless to say, he quickly recanted his position.

And speaking about Tweety, I never, ever forget he's an ass.

[Broke In Jersey]

19. great comback tavalon!!! haha

It always amazes me that there are so many people that think of people in terms of race still to this day. Mathews hasn't received the message that most Americans see a President that happens to be black as opposed to a black man that happens to be president. Its time to move into the 21st century dude!

[Libertas1776]

21. I forgot he was a giant potato in a blond wig.