File this under “if a conservator said it, it would be offensive.” MSNBC’s resident lunatic Chris Matthews questioned California Senator’s “blackness” wondering if is she is perceived as African American. Clearly Matthews, who is the second whitest person next to Bernie Sanders, doesn’t think Harris is quite black enough to represent the pseudo-diverse Democratic Party. Again, if Sean Hannity or Tucker Carlson said this, there would outrage, boycotts, and advertisers dropping out, but Matthews is a liberal kook on a kooky liberal network so it’s okay.
Matthews was talking about Kamala Harris announcing her 2020 presidential candidacy on Martin Luther King Day, when he pivoted to the black guy for some perspective. Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons was hyping up Harris when Matthews interrupted with this bizarre thing:
“Is she seen as African-American? Is she seen as African-American?” Matthews demanded to know.
Simmons looked at Matthews like he’s an idiot (which he is) and replied, “Yes, she’s seen as African-American.”
Kamala Harris is half-Indian half-black and is definitely light-skinned, but nobody until today ever thought she was anything but a woman of color. Matthews insinuation that she’s not black enough isn’t just stupid, it’s racist. Well, it would be if he wasn’t a liberal pundit.
There’s a bunch of different ways to take Matthews question and they’re all bad. He’s saying Harris doesn’t look black enough for people to take her as black. He’s saying she doesn’t act black enough for people to take her as black. He saying she’s an “Aunt Tom” who won’t excite black voters. He’s saying that she lacks enough “blackness” to be a viable minority candidate.
We know that if a conservative said this it would be game over, but imagine if a host on Fox News asked if a white Republican were white enough to win over white voters. This again would be an outrage and that’s what Matthews just did with a black candidate.
This conversation got even weirder and it’s impossible to believe that MSNBC didn’t pull the plug on Matthews. Simmons started talking about NJ Senator Cory Booker, who is also black and rumored to be running for president in 2020. All of sudden Matthews got really excited and blurted this out:
“Is he running, he’s another B. Where is he? One of the Bs, and he’s not in there, when is he coming in?” Matthews asked about Booker.
One of the Bs? Does Chris Matthews refers to black people as “Bs” like an abbreviation for “the blacks”? I guess it’s good that he doesn’t call them the “Ns” but that doesn’t make this any less racist.
If Jamal Simmons thought this was in any way racist, he did a great job of hiding it because he had zero reaction. In fact Simmons quickly shifted to how popular he thinks super-honky Joe Biden is with black people.
With a ton of democrats already tossing their hats in the ring for 2020, Chris Matthews has a lot of investigating to do. Is Is Julian Castro Hispanic enough? Is Tulsi Gabbard Hindu enough? Is Andrew Yang Asian enough? Who the f*ck are John Delaney and Richard Ojeda? Is Kristin Gillibrand really a woman? Is Elizabeth Warren American Indian enough? Actually, he knows the answer to that last one; she’s 1/1024th Indian, which is more than enough for the democrats looking to diversify their normal white-out in the primaries.
