The Kind of Racist Remarks You Don’t Expect on the Nightly News


On Hardball on MSNBC they were talking about Barack Obama’s poor bowling performance during his campaigning in Pennsylvania.  One of their political commentators quipped, “Perhaps he should have stuck to shooting hoops.”  I absolutely couldn’t believe they would say something like that on the news.  And it wasn’t some random yahoo, it was someone that I’ve seen on MSNBC making political commentary in the past.  If it matters in how you think of this, this commentator was white.

Now, I have no idea about whether Barack is awesome at basketball; perhaps he is.  However, if I had been working on this piece for MSNBC I would have erred on the side of not appearing racist.  But then again, this entire political season has been one excuse after another to talk about all kinds of borderline racist stuff.  I remember when Barack was dancing on The Ellen Show and CNN had reporter Moost asking people if he was dancing as well as a black guy should.  What kind of a question is that?