Letters to the Editor
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Hooray -- Finally, the Person Who Could Shut Dickerson Up!!!
Colbert proves why he's a hero to anyone who doesn't like hypocrisy...including the kind spouted by Dickerson...
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Irony??
I'm confused--not by Dickerson's convuluted arguments, but by Colbert's brilliant blurring of the lines of satire and real argument. He knows very well in inhabits a sort of safe space though, doesn't he.
I think we should all pretend to be the opposite of who we are and then argue from this opposite side, build up confidence in people's perceptions of ourselves, and then start mixing it up a bit. Colbert Nation!
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Kenya
BTW, Kenya was colonized by the British, and what the British did there, what happened to African slaves in America, and today's international apathy towards Africa today are all part of the same thing. Nitpick all you want.
Also, are recent British immigrants to America not white? I mean, if you define 'blacks' by their historical American oppression, then it follows that you should define 'whites' by their role as the historical oppressor.
Anyway, I still haven't seen an article in Salon that talks about Barack Obama's policies. Or much else in the way of policy analysis of any candidates. Isn't that all that matters?
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Enough with the video
Don't have time to watch it. This is supposed to be a magazine - stop being lazy and write a goddamn story if there's one to write. Sheesh.
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With all due respect to Mr. Twain
Colbert is perhaps the single greatest satirist the United States has ever produced.
Of course twain was a one man band, and Colbert has a team of writers, but still Colbert has that certain sixth sense for how to dance on the line without falling into burlesque.
That being said, I would have liked him to be a little harder on Dickerson, since she is such nit wit deserving of his best barbs, but all in all her smoldering silence was a fitting tribute to the man who speaks thruthiness to power.
I wonder what his show will be like in 2009 when Democrats hold congress and the Whitehouse. I can't imagine him staying a right wing talking head, giving the new order a free pass, but that 180 will be a tuff turn to execute without breaking charecter.
Though perhaps, his charecter will simply endores the future misdeads of a Democratic power structure and damn them with his own association.
It will be a wonder.
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This Again?
Dickerson does not fess up to the insufficiency of "black" as a term for descendants of West Indian slaves brought to America, or African Americans as any American who descended from an African or emigrated from Africa.
After all, what do you call an American who moved from the Caribbean or a person with dark skin who moved from France? Neither black nor African American, by her rules.
In the academic setting, studying these issues, we have reach something close to consensus that "black" is a nearly sufficient term for a person with dark skin. Of course this is insufficient itself, in that "black" people range from Wesley Snipes' complexion to that one grandpa from The Cosby Show (or all those characters in the passing novels from the early 20th century).
And to fuddle it up even further, biologists say there is much more genetic variation within a single "race" (itself a purely sociological construct without scientific basis) than between two races.
Therefore, we need new, completely arbitrary, utterly ridiculous, wholly inoffensive categorical names to call each other based on appearance. Honkies can be DRAGONSLAYERS; darkies can be WOLFSBANE; asians can be THE ILLUSTRIOUS ONES, and anyone else can just make up a name as long as it's cool and appears somewhere in Dungeons & Dragons literature.
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Debra Dickerson is an embarrassment.
Exactly who died and left her in charge of whether Barack Obama is "black enough" or has "the right kind of black history" for the rest of black America? Self-appointed gatekeepers like her are in direct opposition to everything that is right about the idea that Dr. King espoused, that it's the nature of someone's character that matters.
This simplistic racist has no place in a publication like Salon. Let her spout her arrogant, nonsensical diatribes elsewhere.
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Colbert vs. Dickerson
Colbert did a fine job of illuminating the absurdity of Dickerson's position.
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How inane
African African American?
You've got to be kidding me. This has to be one of the most asinine interviews on Colbert I have ever seen. (And that is saying A LOT.)Of course, Colbert was genius as usual.
I can't believe that Debra would hold herself above Obama because she is the "right" kind of African American, the better kind, apparently. His father is from Kenya, she is a descendant of African slaves, but who cares? What does this have to do with his qualifications as a Presidential candidate? You've sure got me baffled Debra.
I agree, Salon should be embarrassed to have such a person represent them.
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Elissa
I disagree strongly with Ms. Dickerson's opinion, but she was very clear that she doesn't hold herself above him. She's merely trying (pointlessly and too hard, in my opinion) to create a distinct classification system for African-Americans.
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Dickerson
Dickerson is the reason I stopped subscribing to Salon. Her low-level, ridiculous diatribes on race are infuriating. That she is the only columnist that talks about the "black experience" on Salon is even more offensive. I wish Colbert had been a little meaner, though I'm not sure he would have come out looking quite as good.
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Yeah
I did see the interview (I wasn't even aware going into the show that she was going to be on, so it was a pleasant surprise), and you're right that she did attempt to make it clear she didn't consider herself, or "African-Americans" generally, as somehow superior to Obama.
That said, why bother creating the distinction? What does she gain, or hope to gain, through all this? Would Obama be less attentive to the needs of "African-American" community than, say, Hillary or Edwards or Jeb? Somehow I doubt it. What is the endgame? Is she holding out for the genuine article? If so, and if the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are the most viable candidates her "people" can produce, well, she's going to be in for a pretty damn long wait because those guys wouldn't beat Admiral Stockdale. It's kind of hard to win a national vote when you're busy demonizing 3/4 of the country's population.
I just don't get her tack or what she's trying to prove. I have no idea what she hopes to gain by her continuous efforts to divide and polarize people and groups. It's so frustrating and stupid. As I've posted before, all this slavish dedication to nitpicking and classifying people based on hereditary traits (after all, Obama grew up here) smacks of neo-phrenology to me. Dickerson should pick up some books about the lives and philosophies of D.F. Malan or J.G. Strijdom, it'll provide a handy roadmap for her ideal paradise of a society neatly compartmentalized by race.