Skip to main content

Serious question: will this be considered a racist statement?

In a WaPo story criticizing the Obama administration for a long series of mistakes in Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy, this sentence appears:

Daniel Levy, a veteran Israeli peace negotiator now at the Century Foundation in Washington, summed up the administration's efforts in recent days as "amateur night at the Apollo Theater."


Given that the Apollo Theater is one of the historic landmarks of African-American culture....

On the other hand, you can't lampoon the Century Foundation as rightwing...

And Daniel Levy cannot be written off as some hardline conservative....

So in the good spirits of "see, Hube, I found one before you did [finally]" I have to wonder how this one will be treated by the pundits. If at all.

Comments

Brian Shields said…
Would that comment had made any sense if it was referencing GW Bush?

In my eyes, it would hold a different meaning, and would sound like it was a race-pointed comment.

Racist? Eh.. No hate spouted off, nothing derogatory.

Does it point to the possibility of racist thinking.. oh hell yeah.
Hube said…
Post-racial America my ass. ;-)
Chris Slavens said…
Despite alluding to black Americans, the remark doesn't imply inferiority, and therefore isn't racist. Would it be racist to call the former Bush administration a rodeo, or call him a cowboy? Simply because there aren't many blacks that are into rodeos and country n' western music? Some people are far too sensitive to stereotypes. My family name is originally from Ireland, but I won't be offended if you offer me a pint of Guinness.

The three best-known racists in America today all have names preceded by "The Reverend".
RSmitty said…
Well, depending on how the beholder intends to interpret it, such as do they want to inflict harm on the quote-owner or not, will result in the level of racism this holds.

That said, the equivalency within your scenario does have some consideration. What also should be considered, but wasn't presented, is that Amateur Night at the Apollo was (is?) one of, if not THE premier amateur stage act nights this country has ever known. It's run the gamut from superstars-in-the-rough to flat-out bombs.

Just something to consider.

Popular posts from this blog

A Libertarian Martin Luther King Jr. Day post

In which we travel into interesting waters . . . (for a fairly long trip, so be prepared) Dr. King's 1968 book, Where do we go from here:  chaos or community? , is profound in that it criticizes anti-poverty programs for their piecemeal approach, as John Schlosberg of the Center for a Stateless Society  [C4SS] observes: King noted that the antipoverty programs of the time “proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils,” with separate programs each dedicated to individual issues such as education and housing. Though in his view “none of these remedies in itself is unsound,” they “all have a fatal disadvantage” of being “piecemeal,” with their implementation having “fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies” or been “entangled in bureaucratic stalling.”   The result is that “fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.” Such single-issue approaches also have “another common failing — ...

The Obligatory Libertarian Tax Day Post

The most disturbing factoid that I learned on Tax Day was that the average American must now spend a full twenty-four hours filling out tax forms. That's three work days. Or, think of it this way: if you had to put in two hours per night after dinner to finish your taxes, that's two weeks (with Sundays off). I saw a talking head economics professor on some Philly TV channel pontificating about how Americans procrastinate. He was laughing. The IRS guy they interviewed actually said, "Tick, tick, tick." You have to wonder if Governor Ruth Ann Minner and her cohorts put in twenty-four hours pondering whether or not to give Kraft Foods $708,000 of our State taxes while demanding that school districts return $8-10 million each?

New Warfare: I started my posts with a discussion.....

.....on Unrestricted warfare . The US Air force Institute for National Security Studies have developed a reasonable systems approach to deter non-state violent actors who they label as NSVA's. It is an exceptionally important report if we want to deter violent extremism and other potential violent actors that could threaten this nation and its security. It is THE report our political officials should be listening to to shape policy so that we do not become excessive in using force against those who do not agree with policy and dispute it with reason and normal non-violent civil disobedience. This report, should be carefully read by everyone really concerned with protecting civil liberties while deterring violent terrorism and I recommend if you are a professional you send your recommendations via e-mail at the link above so that either 1.) additional safeguards to civil liberties are included, or 2.) additional viable strategies can be used. Finally, one can only hope that politici...