So Has Anyone Been Fired Yet?

On Wednesday the 6 th of February, MSNBC was doing it's usual professional job of miscasting the statements of conservatives, hosting Niger Innes, a fine fellow by the way, to talk about the Enron idiocy. The name that MSNBC had up on the screen was not, however, Niger Innes. It was "Nigger Innes."

Note the extra "g".

Niger, just to point this out, is black. And a Republican. And just about as conservative as they come. How… fraught.

Strange to say, none of the "usual suspects" is screaming about it. My ears are undeafened by the sound of the Right Reverend Al hollering and rioting over this insult to all African-Americans. I'm totally missing the rhyming cadences of Jesse "It's not my baby could I please have another billion dollars" Jackson castigating MSNBC for this egregious faux pas.

In fact, I'm waiting and waiting and waiting for the front page headline in the NY Times. You know, the sort of headline they had for the "RATS" incident. The accidental bit of editing left in a Republican commercial that if you turn your head on its side and squint could almost be considered an insult to Democrats.

As opposed to, say, calling a black Republican a nigger.

I suppose, in deference to the feelings of blacks, and liberals, I should say "the n word." But why? When it's been blasted to hundreds of thousands (okay, tens of thousands, we're talking MSNBC here) of viewers.

And, in a way, I suppose it's better than the usual "Uncle Tom" or "Oreo". You know, Oreo : Black on the outside but white inside. It's the sort of epithet that is all too often used for conservative African-Americans. Americans who believe in things like education and a work ethic and not blaming others for your own faults. Sorry, Americans who believe in that sort of thing and also happen to be black.

Okay, I'll admit it, the whole double standard thing is starting to get under my skin. If a conservative says something like "Jesse Jackson is an ignorant asshole" he's considered a racist. But if Jesse Jackson says "It's the whiteys who are keeping you down" he's considered "outspoken." If a conservative points out that the killing of a white hitchhiker in Texas was so similar to the Matthew Byrd slayings as to be a copy-cat, he's considered a racist. But if eight black males and females kidnap, rape and murder a white female, all the while screaming racial epithets and are found with various anti-white tracts in their possession, it's referred to as "acting out."

Can you imagine if the roles were reversed? If Fox, say, had on a liberal black who had a similar name and they made the same mistake? They wouldn't be let off the hook for months if ever. It would be brought up as an indication of "sub-conscious racial hatred by a conservative controlled media outlet" for the rest of the year with various liberal psychology professors from Brown and Stanford nattering on to all hours. "This is clear proof of a conservative bias on the part of Fox (WELL, DUH!) and proof that you need balance in your reporting. Like MSNBC, CNN and CBS." (Also known as PMSNBC, the Communist News Network (ALL TALIBAN, ALL THE TIME) and the Clinton Broadfinding Service.)

Well I have to wonder where the subconscious racial hatred lies. It is the Republican Party that has raised blacks to the highest positions in government; blacks who got there because they were the best choice for the job, not because they are blacks. Got a problem with that? Justice Thomas, Secretary of State Powell and National Security Adviser (in a time of friggin WAR no less) Condoleeza ("Hoooowah! What a babe!") Rice.

It is conservative blacks who, for the last three decades, have led the way in the true civil rights war; the right to disagree with the majority of their fellow race members. (A war which has been anything but civil.) It was, not to put too fine a point on it, the Republican Party who: supported the abolition of slavery (against the Democrats), drove for it as a task of the civil war (ditto), supported black legislators in the Reconstruction Period (all of whom were Republican), led the way in the Civil Rights campaign, supported the Civil Rights bill over the objections of the Democratic Party and now are supporting real learning for black children so they can get out of the vicious cesspools the Democrats call "subsidized housing."

I think it's time the liberals (and blacks, most of whom are conservative by nature) took a look at what they are supporting and what they condone. If Republicans can be held up and pilloried over an accident in a commercial, an accident that was almost unnoticeable and only mildly insulting, surely MSNBC should be hammered for a much more grievous insult.

Or is it not an insult if it's directed at an "Oreo?"