Clean And Bright

by digby

The other day I wrote about Marty Peretz’s not so unconscious racism toward African Americans. And lo and behold along comes Joe Biden and he sticks his big white foot in the same stupid mouth. Apparently, a lot of privileged white people really believe they aren’t racist when they separate “the blacks” between the “articulate, bright, clean” kind and “the others.” (Peretz calls the others four-flushers and race hustlers. A member of my family used to call them “The Ubangis.” You get the drift.)

The funny thing is that in a private conversation with Glenn Greenwald on the subject I said I thought it would take Obama or Deval Patrick to step in and show some solidarity with his fellow African American politicians for it to sink in.

Obama did just that, today:

I didn’t take Senator Biden’s comments personally, but obviously they are historically inaccurate. After all, we’ve had presidential candidates like Jesse jackson, Shirley Chisholm, Carol Mosely Braun and Al Sharpton. They gave a voice to many important issues through their campaigns and no one would call them inarticulate.

Thank you. Maybe at least the people who are as clueless as Biden about their reflexive assumptions will think about it when they hold Obama up as a “different kind of negro.”

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