The big ruckus seems to be over Harry Reid using the word "Negro" in the term "negro dialect" as reported in the new book by the writing duo Halperin and Heilemann, Game Change.
I think it would be a serious double standard for African Americans to take issue with the use of the word negro since we still have the United Negro College Fund, I wondered why the NAACP was still using the word colored which I find way more offensive than negro, but if the NAACP didn’t see a need to change it then I won’t argue.
I think what is going on here is a case of entitlement by the republicans. They decided that this was a racist statement and now the media is picking up on it. Harry Reid was addressing Obama prospects with certain sectors of the white demography. I am sure Obama being light skinned helped some white voters push the button for him, and truth be told it probably made some African Americans more enthusiastic. Being a darker skinned person I am familiar with this, more favorable treatment or feeling toward lighter skinned people. He did not call Obama a Negro, he called him a "light skinned African American"--what’s wrong with that, he is isn't he?
Sen. Reid is seventy years old, he is a man from a different time but he did use the “politically correct term”. Republicans and their supporters can say Obama is a socialist and pushing a socialist agenda, carry posters of Obama as a monkey or caveman, but Harry Reid can’t say he is a light skinned African American.
