Tweety : "I forgot that he was Black tonight~ "

[goclark]

What was that about and what make him just have to say it?????

[jaxx]

1. Ignorance.

I call it the old white men's syndrome....they thought they owned it all.

[HopeOverFear]

2. My mom just said that was a compliment

(or what some white people consider to be a compliment. In the same vein as "you're a credit to your race"). It was that kind of thing.

[NOLALady]

13. Your Mom is right.

I've had people (white people) say that to me as if it was the highest compliment they were capable of giving.
I see it as an insult, and tell them so in no uncertain terms.

[Number23]

17. You see it as an insult because it IS an insult

I grew up in an all black environment and didn't even know anyone white until I was a 17-year old college freshman.

I'll never forget hearing one white girl describe a very light-skinned black girl that we both knew to another white girl as "so beautiful that you could hardly tell she was black." Like you said, like it was the highest compliment in the world. Five minutes of me explaining to her that what she said was actually HIGHLY insulting (hopefully) cured her of that belief.

The idea that because this President was so sharp, so on point and on top of his game that this made Matthews "forget Obama was black" is his way of saying "he was so good that for an hour, I unconsciously overcame my innate racial prejudices that blacks are inferior and actually LISTENED to what the man said." On one hand, yay Chris. Only took you what, 60+ years to be able to do this?? :eyes:

On the other hand, he needs to know that what he said was clumsy, racially insensitive and flat out damn STUPID. The thing that kills me though is that typically for DU and for America, for every person who says "please tell me he didn't actually say that" there are almost as many saying "what did he say that was so bad??"

[FrenchieCat]

3. Chris Matthews is a piece of Shit!

He's been into the Race thing since he's heard Barack Obama's name!
Asshole!

[Cha]

4. Why the hell should that even enter into

it? Black White..we got ourselves a President, tweety.

[firedupdem]

5. Are you kidding me? He actually sad that?

He needs to turn in his keys and employee badge tonight

what an ignorant comment...dumb ass.

[HopeOverFear]

6. Yep, he said it.

[euphoria12leo]

7. Yes he actually said that.

Then he said something like, "maybe I shouldn't say that but I'm saying it". How do these people get the jobs
they have and we listen to this mess.

[Cha]

9. That's too bad for tweety that he

doesn't have a filter for his bird brain and alligator mouth.

[euphoria12leo]

10. Spitting and slurping

as usual. I was about to leave the room. I had to stop in my tracks when tweety said that.

:wtf: It was that kind of moment.

[greenbird]

8. What. A. Moron.

[sandnsea]

11. I think he meant "transcending race", like MJ

Yes there was Ray Charles and Little Richard and Smokey and Stevie. But MJ was something a little different, he wasn't a black musician, he was a musician who wasn't defined by his race. I think that's what he meant about Obama tonight because this was not the "first black President" giving a speech. This was The President giving the State Of The Union and telling Congress to get in gear and get some work done. He transcended tonight, for real, that's what I think Matthews meant. Or, as a few posts in GD said, "I AM The President".

But "forgot he was black", I think that comes from the idea that we're supposed to be color-blind at some point in time. Where I think we should celebrate the rainbow and see the inside and outside of the package, stereotype free. In fact, I suppose that's what "transcend race" really means, seeing the person without the stereotype.

[SeattleGirl]

12. Matthews gets bad flare-ups of his foot-in-mouth disease.

Sounds like he had a particularly bad one tonight.

[Cha]

14. So tweety was on a show later tonight trying to explain his "comment".

"Essentially said, without reiterating what he was referring to, that he thinks Obama has transcended racialized politics, and that he really felt that coming through tonight.

So it's like I said. What he meant to say, in essence, wasn't bad; he just failed to think through the wording and of course what came out of his mouth sounded stupid and racist as hell."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7590020

[NOLALady]

16. Yeah but,

I have not heard that comment about any other President.

I have yet to hear anyone say "For a minute/hour, I forgot Bush/Clinton/JFK was white. This President has transcended racialized politics".

[Hekate]

15. Tweety has a defective filter mechanism, but perhaps I can explain at least my pov...

At some point (quite awhile ago, actually) I started seeing Barack Obama as looking exactly right for POTUS -- it was all the people around him who looked... pale. Not that there's anything wrong with that; God knows I come from a long line of very pale people myself. (That's an attempt at mild humor.)

I think it's because President Obama inhabits the office as comfortably as he wears a suit of clothes. It looks right on him. And he is African-American as well.

Tweety forgot he was Black tonight -- Tweety, a man with many words in his mouth, not all of them appropriate -- because Barack Obama looked like what he is: President of the US.

Hekate