You've got to be kidding me

Last night Big J and I were watching the Daily Show and 90 percent of his pre-guest stuff was about Rev. Wright. Fortunately his take on it is the same as mine....Enough already! I saw Rev. Wright on Bill Moyer's Journal and yes he is radical and says things that I vehemently disagree with. But guess what? That's his right as an American. And, as Newt Gingrich said night before last on the Daily Show, "He is a complex American." (As an aside, I can't believe I just quoted Newt Gingrich, but you give credit where credit is due.)

But it is the intense, and ever-petty, coverage of the Rev. Wright that really pissed me off. It was a passing comment that I overheard. I don't know who said it, and I don't know what news organization it was from, but in reference to Rev. Wright one of the comments was, "He is off the reservation." Excuse me? There is a conversation about how Rev. Wright's comments are inappropriate and borderline racist and someone says, "He is off the reservation"? If that isn't a racist comment, then I don't know what is.

I should say that, quite frankly, what made it even more of an outrage was the fact that it was a Black man that said it (apparently anyone can make racist remarks about other groups while at the same time denouncing racist remarks that might offend them). When I expressed my outrage Big J said, "Well, Native Americans are the bottom of the bottom so it's easy." How true is that? In the hierarchy of race and racism in the United States, Native Americans really are at the bottom.

It hits just a little too close to home because Big J is an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Tribe and we fully intend for little j to be as well. little j's Native American heritage is something that I want her to be conscious and proud of. But hearing the persistent and pervasive racist comments like the one we heard last night is going to make it difficult.