It's a light news day for a blogger like myself. Sure, there were those Congressional Hearings on Rap Music yesterday on the Hill, but after watching the proceedings on CSpan, there wasn't much blog-worthy, and besides, What About Our Daughters already did a great job of recapping this. Boy, is that David Banner a screwed up and delusional young man or what? Pray for Mr. Crump.
So, while I wouldn't usually bother posting something so trivial, I had to share this recent nugget on our favorite black culture nemesis, Bill O'Reilly.
During the September 19 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program, discussing his recent trip to have dinner with Rev. Al Sharpton at Sylvia's, a famous restaurant in Harlem, Bill O'Reilly reported that he "had a great time, and all the people up there are tremendously respectful," adding: "I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship."Desperate for another race-related story for their 24 hour news cycles, some media outlets are attempting to compare O'Reilly's latest case of brainfreeze to the Don Imus 'Nappy Headed Hoes' incident of earlier this year. And on the surface, without hearing the entire conversation in context, it's easy to see where they're coming from.
Later, during a discussion with National Public Radio senior correspondent and Fox News contributor Juan Williams about the effect of rap on culture, O'Reilly asserted: "There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, 'M-Fer, I want more iced tea.' You know, I mean, everybody was -- it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn't any kind of craziness at all."
However, after listening to the audio of the exchange between O'Reilly and Juan Williams (who didn't bother correcting O'Reilly), I can only really get so upset about this. To me, maybe, just maybe O'Reilly's cultural expedition into black America just might have enlightened him that we do have some semblance of culture beyond Cam'ron and Ludacris. On the other hand, I've been to Sylvia's, and to put it nicely, the food there tastes like shit (sorry, I tried to be nice). If Sharpton wanted to give O'Reilly a better dose of soul food, he could have taken him to any baptist church and just thrown down after service in the basement.
Maybe this sort of Cultural Anthropology is something that can similarly enlighten other whites. If O'Reilly is amazed that black people can actually sit in a family restaurant and eat bad artery clogging food without saying "M.F. I want more iced tea", then perhaps the legions of Americans (his show is still the top rated cable news show, so somebody's watching) who subscribe to similar trains of thought can also be saved.
You Too, Can Help Improve Race Relations in America: Invite Bob from Accounting to lunch with you today.
Just don't take him to Sylvia's, cause, you know, diarrhea isn't really part of black culture either.
O'Reilly surprised "there was no difference" between Harlem restaurant and other New York restaurants [MediaMatters]
