Well said!

Clarence Page had a good piece today about the flack MSNBC's Chris Matthews received for his post-State Of The Union observation that, while Obama was speaking, "(he) forgot he was black."

People on the "right" wanted to jump on that, especially since it came pretty much on the heels of Harry Reid's observation that Obama lacked a "negro dialect", unless he wanted to use one.

This isn't Klan-speak or any kind of hate mongering. I know that a lot of white people cringe when they hear of a black person being described as "well spoken". It's not an insult. It's an observation. I wonder if these offended people have ever actually known any black people who weren't Clarence Page or the president.

I have lived in two southern cities, Memphis and New Orleans, both of which have a majority black population. English, as I speak it, is NOT a first language for most of our black citizens. You may also say that I, having been in the minority in those two cities, never bothered to learn the local language. This is true. I simply couldn't grasp it like I could "white redneck" of which I consider myself quite fluent. It's a cultural thing. If you are Spanish, other Latin based languages are more easily learned like Greek (for example) because they have similar origins. But ebonics is totally lost on me unless it's spoken by someone like Oprah Winfrey who can seamlessly go from speaking english like the queen to ebonics, often in the same sentence.

There was a black guy, James, who drove a truck for one company I worked for in Memphis. I avoided conversation with James like the plague. The cadence of his speech- to me- was like a machine gun. I rarely knew what he was saying to me or anyone so, not wanting to get into conversations I could not get out of, I opted not to converse with him. I'd say "hello" and such but I'd usually get scarce when he was around in case he might talk to me. He probably thought I was a racist, redneck who ignored him I just saw that as an easier way out than standing there not understanding him and maybe agreeing or disagreeing with whatever the heck he was talking about and being way wrong about it. Older and wiser now, I should have explained to him that "my yankee ears" couldn't keep up with him thus putting the blame on me and not Memphis City Schools. I don't know if that would have worked. It might have just led to more futile conversation but, it would have been more polite.

There were thousands of times in Memphis that I felt a stranger in a strange land amongst black folks. In a sense it was like being the Mexican, fresh from the border, hearing English everywhere he went and wondering how he would ever fit in with these people and their crazy language. To hear four black laborers on a job talking away and having NO idea what they were talking about made me feel like that Mexican. Having been the only white guy in the room, I think I know what it feels like to be the only black guy in the room. Or the only Mexican...

Harry Reid was speaking to Barack Obama's electability (my sic) as a black man in a predominantly white country. Black candidates before him were Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Chris Matthews was trying to say that the racial divide was closed- at least politically- with the election of Obama. I got that on both counts. They were being honest was all. Sharpton or Jackson had zero chance of getting elected (though both are "community activists...) because they do not have cross over appeal...to white voters. Harvard educated Barack speaks the language though. The last guy we had was a Yalie. What the fuck was he talking about? I never knew...

It's all about education and environment rather than race. Al and Jesse and Clarence and Barack all came up differently though all are black. Though Al and Jesse have achieved a good deal of success in their fields, they are of THEIR people rather than of THE people like our president is. And by THE people, I mean ALL of us- black, white, brown and etc. That's in case you didn't understand me. You see, I ain't got but a high school edumacation myself...