If you haven't seen the video clip, feast your eyes below. Honestly I found it not so much offensive as just dumb, and fairly standard fare for MSNBC. Oh look, a black face among Republicans. Isn't that funny? It's what passes for humor among people who, as a certain someone might say, really need to flee the bubble in which they live. But aside from being dumb, which is hardly remarkable on this network, what was the big deal?
Whatevs. People who are obsessed with race need an outlet, however lame the content that's fed into that outlet. But apparently Harris-Perry, who thinks nothing of wearing tampons as earrings to make some sort of point, had a serious attack of conscience:
On Sunday’s program, we showed a photo of Governor Romney holding his adopted grandson, who is African-American.
The intent of featuring the photo was to celebrate it— I often speak to the issue of the increasingly diverse American family.
Whatever the intent, the segment proceeded in an unexpected way that was offensive. Without reservation or qualification, I apologize to the Romney family and to all families built on loving transracial adoptions.
A series of tweets follows, including one in which she identifies herself as a black child born into a largely white Mormon family. If that's true, it does make the segment all the more bizarre.
The thing about the segment itself, though, is that if you watch it, Harris-Perry's claim that she didn't intend any mockery might be plausible. Her introduction of it was fairly neutral and maybe even a little on the isn't-this-cute side. Then again, she had to know that this would be like throwing red meat to the MSNBC crew, and her own track record is hardly a fount of virtue when it comes to race issues.
I think what happened to MSNBC here is what you can expect to happen on occasion to a network like this. You get a bunch of snarky liberals together, and they talk one way in the green room, but get the same group of people on camera and they kinda sorta know they have to behave themselves a little. But once in awhile the two settings blur a little bit in their minds, and the next thing you know they're mocking a little kid on the air for being black. Just the sort of thing they surely say every day when the cameras aren't rolling, because it's how they really think.
Put people like that on camera regularly, you can't be that surprised when every once in awhile their real attitudes show through.
