- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
First of all, I don't find Marcel terribly annoying. Elan's and Betty's comments were much more immature. Second of all, Cliff's behavior was assault, and if I were Marcel, I would have called the police and insisted on a separate hotel room for the remainder of the show. But what really burns me is the veiled suggestion that Cliff being thrown off the show was rascism. Now, we all know that Cliff's behavior was out of line and assault, but HH seems to be saying that black men shouldn't be expected to act any differently than this, that even though the rules are clear about "touching with aggression," Cliff being thrown off was wrong. There are all kinds of rascism. This one is a rascism of diminished expectations: the idea that a black man can't be expected to understand rules and if he is expected to, the rules are somehow "white" and unworthy of following. I think this attitude, obviously, is wrong, not him being thrown off the show.
