Fox News personality and radio talk show host Bill O'Reilly got himself into deep doo-doo a few days ago after he had a discussion about race with NPR's Juan Williams on O'Reilly's syndicated radio show. O'Reilly recounted (bragged?) about how he had lunch with the Rev. Al Sharpton at Sylvia's, a black-run restaurant in Harlem.
In discussing his experience, the news personality said,
"I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. It was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks [and has a] primarily black patronship. There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, M-Fer, I want more iced tea! It was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense that people [who] were sitting there and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn't any kind of craziness at all." (If anyone can point me towards a dictionary that defines "patronship", I'd appreciate it).
After O'Reilly made these comments there wasn't a peep out of anyone until the left wing web site, Media Matters for America posted his remarks and accused the Fox News personality of racism. The Media Matters scoop was then picked up by the mainstream media that view Fox News and O'Reilly as an extension of George Bush's White House, complete with charges of racism while CNN referred to Juan Williams, who agreed that O'Reilly hadn't made any improper comments, as a "happy Negro".
According to O'Reilly, his remarks were taken out of context, a position backed up by his black guest. He had been talking about his grandmother and people like her who personally don't know any black people but think that they are all like those that we see on television shooting each other and singing gangsta rap. We should all give a round of applause to Bill's grandma; there aren't many people who are pushing 60 like O'Reilly is who have grandmothers who watch gansta rap on TV.
Let's take O'Reilly at his word; that's he's not a racist and was merely describing the stereotypes that some people have towards blacks. If his remarks were not made in the context of stereotyping blacks, there has to have been some context for O'Reilly to have said what he said. And there is.
Bill O'Reilly is just a typical New York City media elite. If the remarks that he made on his Radio Factor show were not racist and condescending about blacks they certainly were about whites. Sure there are undoubtedly
some white people who think that all black people match the stereotypes that O'Reilly was talking about and are convinced that if they ever enter a black-run restaurant or any other business, they'll never make it out alive. But those people are in the minority. Most non-blacks who at least have enough interest in what is going on in the world to watch and listen to Bill O'Reilly know that most blacks do not fit this stereotype. We all know that in addition to gansta rappers and gangbangers there are black business owners, doctors, judges, university professors and yes, ordinary blacks who attend concerts "well-dressed". Does O'Reilly really think that his inferiors (whites) are so dumb and so out of touch with society that they actually expect that staff and patrons of an upscale black restaurant are any different than those who are found in Italian restaurants? At least we should give Bill O'Reilly credit for not informing the unwashed masses in his audience that they can go into an Italian restaurant without being the subject of a Mafia hit. O'Reilly's comments were nothing more than pure elitism.
Despite his protestations to the contrary, Bill O'Reilly is no different than all of the mainstream media elites that he likes to criticize. He is so ensconced in his Long Island home and his Manhattan studios that he is simply incapable of understanding how most ordinary non-black people view blacks. If he didn't intend to insult and denigrate African Americans by his comments, he sure insulted his non-black audience by feeling it necessary to tell them the difference between a gangbanger and a restaurant owner.
A racist is not the only unfair label that has ever been hung on O'Reilly
