Racial Preferences

Whoopi Dismisses Elisabeth's Views as 'Very White'

By Justin McCarthy | April 24, 2008 - 14:35 ET

Voting for someone based on qualifications or ideology rather than race is very "white" according to "View" co-host Whoopi Goldberg. Also, according to Joy Behar, only white males like tax cuts.

Discussing Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s concern that women are voting for Hillary Clinton because she’s a woman and black voting for Barack Obama because he’s black, Whoopi Goldberg dismissed Hasselbeck’s concerns and proclaimed "that’s a very white way to look at it." Of course Whoopi said it "with a huge amount of love." Hasselbeck sarcastically responded "let me take off my white goggles." Sherri Shepherd and Whoopi Goldberg agreed Hasselbeck can not suggesting the white people will never understand.

Earlier in the discussion, Behar added that voting for someone with the same gender or race may be in a person’s interest. She hypothesized that a woman over 50 who may face age discrimination may vote for Hillary as a way to combat that. She also suggested that white men vote Republican because "the white male loves his tax cuts." In Behar’s world, only white men like tax cuts.

The entire transcript is below.

Olbermann: Ferraro Statement 'Clearly Racist: Are We in South Africa?'

By Mark Finkelstein | March 11, 2008 - 21:40 ET

Forget the popcorn: it could take a case of Cognac and a humidor of good cigars to fully savor the warfare that's breaking out in Dem ranks. Who could have predicted that Keith Olbermann would be accusing a prominent Clinton team member and former Dem VP candidate of making a "clearly racist" statement evoking the apartheid era in South Africa? And yet . . .

On this evening's Countdown, Olbermann and Newsweek's Howard Fineman were discussing Geraldine Ferraro's remarks about Obama and the way the Clinton campaign, far from denouncing them, sent out campaign manager Maggie Williams to try to turn the tables, accusing Obama of "false, personal and politically calculated attacks" for having the audacity to complain.

View video here.

CBS Finds Unique Culprit in Subprime Hardship Story – Race

By Jeff Poor | March 10, 2008 - 13:22 ET

Fall behind on your mortgage? These days it's anyone's fault but your own according to the mainstream media.

The March 9 "CBS Evening News" found another way to fault home lenders instead of one borrower who took on an ill-planned mortgage that was more than he could pay: the race card.

"[Michael] Wiggins, a city bus driver, was one of millions of Americans caught in the subprime mortgage crisis," CBS correspondent Randall Pinkston said. "His mortgage lenders' network loan gave him an 11-percent interest rate with a payment of $3,900 a month. But that jumped to $4,200 a month because of delinquency fees and penalties. Knowing he was sinking fast, Wiggins looked for refinancing at commercial banks."

CBS’s Schieffer on Obama: A ‘Black American’ Who ‘Makes People Feel Good’

By Kyle Drennen | January 8, 2008 - 16:16 ET

Following an interview with Hillary Clinton on Tuesday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Harry Smith talked to "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer, who said of Barack Obama: "It makes people feel good to see someone who has managed to get where he has, a black American who won out in Iowa..."

The segment began with analysis of Clinton’s "display of emotion," which Schieffer thought was "rather touching." Schieffer even referenced former Democratic Senator and presidential candidate, Bill Bradley, who cried on camera, and declared "So at least, I guess we've come to accept that people can cry on camera and that's not a sign of weakness." Smith concluded: "It certainly got her back on the front page."

Following this discussion of Clinton, Smith went on to ask about Barack Obama:

'Conservatives Have Long Opposed Black Progress'?

By Tim Graham | November 19, 2007 - 12:41 ET

In the free-for-all that followed Tavis Smiley’s hostile GOP presidential debate in August, Michael Fauntroy was featured by Smiley’s show and several other liberal media outlets as an instant pundit on the subject, author of the book plainly titled Republicans and the Black Vote. But Sunday night on the Huffington Post, Fauntroy slammed a not-so-new documentary on blacks and the GOP as pathetic propaganda:

In arguing that the Dems were racist and that the GOP has been miscast by the liberal media as the enemy of Black people, Emancipation, Revelation, and Revolution completely overlooks the role of ideology in policymaking. Conservatives have long opposed Black progress. Conservatives opposed Reconstruction and civil rights. Conservatives pushed the "Lily-White" movement that purged Blacks from leadership of state Republican parties throughout the South. Conservatives have pushed for the maintenance of a racial status quo that held down Blacks and then blamed them for the lots in life.

Virginia Store Calls Whites 'Gringos', Media Yawns

By Richard Newcomb | November 16, 2007 - 13:22 ET

Is it acceptable for stores catering to Hispanics to use racial epithets when referring to Caucasian residents of the United States? Apparently so. According to the Washington Times online edition, a furniture store located in Alexandria, Va., has posted a sign calling Americans 'gringos'. The Times reports that,

A sign outside the store at the intersection of North Beauregard and King streets reads, “Credito sin papeles de gringo.” In English, that could be translated to say “Credit without gringo papers.” Blanca Granados, the store's assistant manager, translated the message to mean “just 'without white papers,' like Social Security or like that.”

Bill Cosby: 'Brother Lite' Clarence Thomas 'Doesn't Want to Help Anybody'

By Brad Wilmouth | November 5, 2007 - 00:55 ET

On Saturday, CNN ran an interview with Bill Cosby on "Larry King Live," which originally ran on Thursday October 18, in which the entertainer plugged his new book "Come on People: On the Path from Victims to Victors," about problems faced by America's black population. While Cosby talked about such conservative themes as personal responsibility, which in recent years he has been famous for discussing, the entertainer also demonstrated that he has not entirely made the trip over to the conservative side as he derided  Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as "brother lite," repeatedly charging that Thomas "doesn't want to help anybody." Cosby also proclaimed that he "loves" far-left Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich. (Transcript follows)