Yes,the Senate leader’s “light-skinned” comments about Obama wereuncomfortable. But that’s because he spoke the truth about whiteattitudes—a truth even Colin Powell concedes.
There’s nothing Americans love more than demanding “honest talk”about race and then kicking the teeth out of anyone who engages in it.Thus the tale of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is now inpolitical purgatory because he told authors Mark Halperin and JohnHeilemann that white people were more open to voting for Barack Obamabecause he’s “light-skinned” and has “no Negro dialect.” Reid’s use ofthe word “Negro” was, to be sure, unpleasantly retro. But everythingelse about his statement is undeniably correct. Political scientistshave proved it. Famous African Americans have testified to it. So nowReid must be punished, because he said things about the contours ofwhite racism that you’re not supposed to say, except behind closeddoors, where everyone knows that they’re true.
First, skin color. White people (and perhaps African Americans andother minorities as well) are more likely to vote for lighter-skinnedblacks. In 2007, when Harvard’s Jennifer Hochschild and the Universityof Virginia’s Vesla Weaver surveyed every African-American governor,senator and member of Congress since 1865, they found thatlight-skinned blacks were dramatically overrepresented as a share ofthe black population. Similarly, they found that when light-skinnedblacks run for office, they win at higher rates than theirdarker-skinned brethren.