Harry Reid may be an old, rich white man who once called a then Presidential candidate Obama, "light-skinned” with an advantage as a candidate because of “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”Can someone explain to me what part of that was inflammatory. Barack Obama is clearly a light-skinned, biracial African-American man. Reid never said that as a derogatory phrase, so why any controversy at all? Is it the context, or somehow going against freedom of speech? Seems perfectly ok to say in a society so very accepting. I am a darker skinned, Caucasian man, and that is just stating a fact. No controversy there.
However, the next part about Obama lacking a "negro dialect" is the phrase that seems to have many conservatives furious. Perhaps they need to step back and realize that Negro Dialect is perfectly acceptable as it is an internationally recognized aspect of American English.
Coined in 1973 by Robert Williams of the Oakland School Board (Oakland, CA) as Ebonics; the concept of African-Americans having their own patterned and unique dialect has been well documented since. You can take Ebonics, or Negro Dialect, courses at many public and private universities world wide. The fact the Harry Reid stated that Obama did not use such a dialect in his own speech, was both a statement of fact, and an arguable advantage. By not having the dialect of a small percentage of Americans who speak it, Obama had an advantage for appealing to the masses.
This is a genuine opinion, and if Conservatives want to cry foul, maybe they should first figure out why we are still advancing Ebonics as a teachable dialect in America.
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