Broadcaster retracts 'Aunt Jemima'

John Sylvester, the white talk show host targeted by a 'black' front group run by white conservatives, Project 21, has more to say. He has issued a fuller statement of his views regarding national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. Sylvester was criticized by conservatives, most of them white, for referring to Rice as 'Aunt Jemima.' In his extended remarks, he says he regrets using that term if it offends African-Americans. Sylvester does not retract his criticism of Rice's role in the Bush administration.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

"Every once in a while, the words I use on my radio program seem to create a controversy that take on a life of their own," Sylvester said in a statement issued Monday.

"I'm concerned that I have offended many African-Americans by using a crass term to describe an incompetent, dishonest, political appointee of the Bush administration. I apologize," he said.

. . .In his statement, Sylvester did not, however, apologize for "pointing out that while Condoleezza Rice has clearly enjoyed the American dream, she has allowed herself to be used as a black trophy by an administration who is working so hard to deny that dream to other African-American women."

The statement pointed to what he called Bush's opposition to affirmative action and appointments of "judges who refuse to enforce the civil rights laws."

I said in the previous entry that Sylvester's use of the term was crude, and that better ways of criticizing Bush's African-American appointees existed.

Sylvester criticized two public officials who happen to be African-American for their participation in what he considers wrongheaded foreign policy. One could argue that focusing on how he believes they failed the American people in their roles in the administration would be a better idea than noting their status as tokens.

Now that Sylvester has apologized, the piling on will likely increase. One liberal weblog, Another Liberal Blog, has already referred to him as an 'asshole."

If this Sylvester guy is trying to derail Rice's confirmation, a goal I wholeheartedly support, he's not helping . Her incompetence as NSA has nothing to do with race; it has to do with incompetence. Lack of competence knows no racial boundaries. Likewise, Colin Powell's subservience has nothing to do with race; it's a character flaw. Plenty of 67-year-old career military and government officers swallow their consciences and convictions out of misplaced loyalty to their bosses. If Powell were white, we'd have no term like 'Uncle Tom' to refer to his lack of character. There are plenty of good reasons to hold both Powell and Rice in contempt without bringing race into the picture.

That blogger is wrong. Though race is not the primary issue in the behavior of either Rice or Secretary of State Colin Powell, it is a factor in the role they play for the administration. Their being African-American is used as a form of Teflon to keep the corrupt policies they support from being criticized. Sylvester' error was not in mentioning the role race plays for the pair. It was in using crude terminology. The error is a minor one, in my opinion. Sylvester's two points:

Article Author: Mac Diva

Visit Mac Diva's author page