In Defense of O'Reilly

Spin Zone Bill haters are having another field day with Bill O'Reilly after his latest shoot from the lip seeming insult of blacks. At first glance O'Reilly's quip on his radio show that he marveled that black diners at Harlem's famed Sylvia's restaurant were "respectful," didn't utter m'f s when they ordered, and acted, well, like white folks, in a suburban Italian restaurant, looked and sounded dumb and racist. O'Reilly haters trotted out a string of other O'Reilly borderline race tinged cracks and gaffes over the past years as proof that O'Reilly is at best racially insensitive and at worst an unreconstructed bigot.

Spin Bill is a jello-soft target for dumping the racist tag on. But aside from his usual acerbic take-no-prisoners, let fly with the cracks style, the talk show host didn't say anything that was earth shatteringly offensive. And he certainly didn't say anything that many whites, non-blacks and a fair number of blacks don't routinely whisper behind closed doors. That is that blacks supposedly act crude and uncouth in public. There's no mystery why so many would think and say that. The nightly newscast's steady diet of crime, drugs, violence, poverty, and dereliction news about life in inner cities reinforces the belief that black neighborhoods are cesspools of neglect, decay, and ill-mannered, bad behaving folk.

Then there's the other stubborn fact of American life, and that's that segregation is still alive and well in parts of America. That makes it even tougher to exorcise the warped racial perceptions. The Sunday church hour is still as the old saying goes one of the most segregated hours in America. In school cafeterias, office lunchrooms, and at countless social events, blacks, Latinos, Asians, and whites more often than not huddle tightly together in their separate racial enclaves. There is no prohibition against them mixing and mingling, but it's simply chalked up to personal and social preference.

Most big city schools are more segregated than a decade ago, and they are also poorer and miserably failing. Residential segregation is still the norm in most of these cities, and even when blacks and Latinos integrate neighborhoods, they often don't stay that way very long, white flight insures that they are soon re-segregated.

That's only the big-ticket stuff of segregation. There are the less visible and less easily provable, annoying race distinctions. The cabs that whiz by black passengers, the police officer that routinely stops and frisks young blacks solely because they are young, black, and the galling indignity of being followed by security guards and ignored by clerks and sales personnel in department stores. They are thorn in the side reminders that race in far too many cases still matters. And an even more offensive reminder that the ancient stereotypes of blacks as crime prone and deviant are still very much alive.

The Academy Award-winning film Crash poked fun at the racial stereotypes and off color attitudes of blacks, whites, Latinos and Asians toward each other. One scene that painfully resonated with many blacks was the fearful murmuring of a white middle-class couple that clutched their belongings as they passed two young blacks on the street. The couple couldn't be blamed for their paranoid fears. They lived in a cloistered world, scared of, and angry with minorities and in perpetual turmoil. Their world was driven by myths, distortions, and half-truths on race.

Even Barack Obama is not totally immune from the occasional veiled racial dig. Talk show guru Rush Limbaugh's stirred a brief dust up with his insulting tag of Obama as the "magic Negro," meaning he's a black that's bland and palatable to whites. Though Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden profusely apologized for his ill-framed quip that Obama had the intelligence, there was the dangling suspicion that Obama was being singled out as smart as contrast to dumb blacks.

While polls show that whites by big margins say that they'd vote for a black presidential candidate, in the next breath by overwhelming margins they also express big doubts about whether Obama possesses the right stuff to be president. This is a legitimate concern given his relative newness and inexperience with national political issues. But it's also code talk on the part of some to question his intelligence.

The racist gaffes, cracks, slips of the tongue from politicians and celebrities about blacks that seem to crop up like clockwork every few months is a bell weather that at least with some racial attitudes are frozen deep in time, and stereotypes are still more the norm than the exception.

It's easy and fun to razz O'Reilly as a loudmouthed racist, turn the tables and give him a dose of his own medicine. But dumping on O'Reilly for giving his honest personal reaction to the scene at Sylvia's is disingenuous and self-serving. It simply puts O'Reilly on the hook while letting far too many others off of it.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book The Latino Challenge to Black America: Towards a Conversation between African-Americans and Hispanics (Middle Passage Press and Hispanic Economics New York) in English and Spanish will be out in October.

Comments

[zaklight]

New Rules? Wht everytime I post a comment it never gets posted? My posts arent abusive or profane, so whats is up with that?

[zaklight]

Mr. Hutchinson seems to be as brainwashed in in his view of black people as O Reilly is. To say blacks whisper in a civil setting [not a hip hop concert] that we "supposedly act crude and uncouth in public" is an indication of his own brainwashing in self disrespect.

A middle class supposed intelligent black man who doesn"t understand [as Hutchinson obviously doesn"t] that there is indeed an underclass of poor black people who are socially challenged because of poverty and the social disease of racism [historical] and [present] and the legacy of slavery, does a disservice to intelligence and the cause of race relations as he peddles through his self hatred the myth of the inferiority of the black race because of this underclass. Indeed Hutchinson, who often is on the O'Reilly show when he wants a calm Negro, is as bad as O"Reilly and the other Naïve Black man Juan Williams who couldn"t even recognize racism before his eyes, as Hutchinson cant either.

Don"t worry Earl you will be back on O'Reilly"s show with an op Ed like that.

You and Juan my friend remind me of the 1999 movie by Stanley Kubrick

"Eyes Wide Shut"

That"s you and Juan Williams!

[JimDandy]

"One scene that painfully resonated with many blacks was the fearful murmuring of a white middle-class couple that clutched their belongings as they passed two young blacks on the street."

Didn't Jesse Jackson say a few years ago that on one night he was apprehensive when he neared some young blacks on a poorly lit street?

[zaklight]

Black people become afraid everytime a policeman drives near them in a white community. People like you dont understand there is an underclass of poor socially challenged blacke people, as there were the Irish Gangsters, the Jewish Gangsters, and the Italian gangsters,[ who still exist by the way] but the fact that they were not black meant that most of thier race got out of poverty, but unfortunately the color of black white people see and still respond to in racial terms.

[nonamelady]

Oh, and I talked to three different black persons who did not see what the big deal is about this. They all said they believe this is being blown out of proportion.

[nonamelady]

If Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson don't have a problem with it, then nobody should. End of story.

[nonamelady]

This is ridiculous. Anyone who listens to the exchange IN CONTEXT would realize that these comments are anything but racist. To rely on an organization with EXTREMELY questionable credibility (Media Matters) and an undeniable hatred of anyone Christian/Republican/conservative is beyond stupid. Take the time to listen to the broadcast before you go off on a rant, otherwise you are just as bad as the conservatives you criticize every single day.

[Nommo]

Excuse me, the comment, whichever way you look at it, is uniformed and stupid. It is way past condescending. Having said that, so is everything else that comes out of his mouth. The ears that receive those utterances are likely as uniformed and stupid. There is no reason to suspect that the earth's axis is anymore the worse for this.

Why Sharpton consorts with that clown I guess is to underpin his own clowning ways. No question he is a media whore, but who ain't?

You can be sure that he will not be seen in Sylvia's again or anyplace similar.

[akoop]

A slip of the tongue? Innocent by ignorance? Is Bill a victim of his own stereotyping? Is this some moment on the way to Damascus that Bill has a revelation that 'they' are just like 'us'?

Forget the accusations and the qualifications/justifications of Bill's comments. The premise is wrong. I would think that the owners/operators and patrons of Silvia's aren't trying to be and don't want Silvia's to be 'just like any other restaurant in New York.'

The concept that Silvia's is either an aberation from or a reflection of black owned restaurant enterprises is in itself an insidious attempt to categorize black owned and operated restaurants into a neatly defined stereotype. If Bill was 'suprised' by the civility of the patrons, would he not have been suprised if he had heard a few m-fers?

I would have been more impressed if Bill found the place to be unlike any other restaurant in New York very much unlike the Italian restaurant in the 'white' neighborhood and found it to be an enjoyable evening outside of his comfort zone.

In the context of the O'Reilly style, this is just another subtlety, seemingly innocuous, that reinforces the stereotypical world Bill chooses to paint.

[rmwyatt]

the problem with billo is that he has a huge following. he serves to reinforce racist idealology and fears. he represents the rascist masses. he should not be defended or let off the hook. everytime he or any of his ilk lets go with such racist, ignorant and insensitive comments, he and they should be verbally slammed and repudiated, not defended. by the end of the week, he will likely march out other african americans to defend him, hopefully not you dr. hutchinson.

[martinchill]

lessee... hutchinson on record as defending michael vick, and now bill o...

got it.

[OtayPanky]

Yeah, it's a sweet gig.

Defend the indefensible, then cry RACIST, so you get a free pass when it comes to having to logically defend what you're saying.

Can I get me one of those?

And I'd like me some fries with it, otay?

[Nommo]

Where did he "defend" Michael Vick?

[martinchill]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/this-time-its-a-legal-ly_b_65901.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/vick-versus-boudreaux-a-_b_61990.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/the-rehabilitation-of-mic_b_61848.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/americas-wildly-overblow_b_61546.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/crucifying-michael-vick_b_61253.html



even a couple for OJ for good measure:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/can-even-oj-be-a-victim_b_64660.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/method-to-the-madness-in-_b_65007.html



rank.

[GenericBlogger]

Earl Hutchinson wrote "But dumping on O'Reilly for giving his honest personal reaction to the scene at Sylvia's is disingenuous and self-serving. It simply puts O'Reilly on the hook while letting far too many others off of it."

Your article offers valuable insight on this issue but in my opinion it misses two points.

First, Bill O'Reilly needs to know that what he said is not appropriate and since he is a popular and influential part of the media, he will get the point more clearly by feedback through the media. It's not just his viewers who opined on this comments this time, it was also his colleagues, cronies, cohorts and contemporaries.

Second, a strong undercurrent of reason and emotion related to racial differences exists in the hearts of minds of most people. Having this happen to a fairly famous person like BOR elevates this issue for discussion by many in the country. By contrast, if a white tourist coming out of Sylvia's was overheard expressing the same comments to a companion, no one outside the neighborhood would have known about it. It's better to keep the focus on BOR to keep the discussion alive as long as possible.

It will be interesting to see if BOR will apologize or offer some indication of contrition.

[mafeoc]

This reminds me of something my father might say: "I couldn't believe that negroes would actually act civilized in a public place!"
The sad part is that some us have a mindset that contracts itself around the most insipid stereotypes.

O'Reilly is someone who clings on by his fingernails to a William Randolph Hearst reality which wild-eyed darkies crazed by cocaine or reefer attack white women.

By saying this, I am not surprised one tiny bit.

[Madampotential]

I love how white bigots try to preach to black peole about our prolems with hip hop culture racial media whores like Sharpton and Jackson ( especially Sharpton) but won't take a look in their backyard.

Three of the most popular talk show hosts in white american culture are Savage, Limbaugh, and Howard Stern ( just as offensive to women as any gangsta rapper). What does this say about a culture? It looks like we all have a lot of cleaning to do!

O"Reilly is white america's Sharpton... he is always boycotting something he finds offensive to his sesitivities but can't take it when it comes back to bite him in the ass.

[Nommo]

Sharpton has been in it far longer than hip hop.

[Average]

Seems that nearly EVERYBODY is LOOKING for something to be upset about. I could not believe that Biden got into trouble. Talk about your innocent complementary remark that had no racist intent, Biden's was it. Of course people can MAKE themselves be offended by anything. Reminds me of an interview with a feminist once. When asked what actions constitute sexual harassment, her reply was any thing a woman feels is harassing is sexual harassment. So in other words, you are guilty because I chose to feel offended even if 99.9% of my gender/race/ethnic/religious group would NOT be offended. Is this what the US has decended into?

[MHainds]

I disagree. I think it puts O'Reilly and his conservative GOP listeners and defenders on the hook. The same party where the four leading contenders for the nomination won't talk to Latinos, Blacks, or Gays.
Exactly who is it letting off the hook? All white people? Bullshit. I'm a white person, and I see the problem with what he said - and the endemic problem with racist attitudes and policies from the GOP. Stick it to O'Reilly, and anybody who defends him.