Chris Matthews: Insert Foot in Mouth
Chris Matthews put his foot in his mouth (again) for several moments following President Obama’s State of the Union speech. The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates eloquently responds with I Just Remembered Chris Matthews Was White.
This is why Obama will never be postracial–he can’t make white people face the lie of their ignorance, anymore than Jimmy Baldwin could make black people face the lie of our homophobia. It’s white people’s responsibility to make themselves postracial, not the president’s. Whatever my disagreements with him, the fact is that he is brilliant. That he is black and brilliant is pleasant but unsurprising to me. I’ve known very brilliant, very black people all my life. At some point that number of white people who still can’t get their heads around our humanity will have to accept the truth: the president is black, even if you don’t quite know what that means.
Chris Matthews did “clarify” the remark later on during MSNBC’s coverage of the State of the Union. During the Rachel Maddow Show, he mumbled his explanation as Rachel seemed rather uncomfortable (giving the “what the hell are you talking about” look I love her for). Sigh.
