As if she half-expected conformity, the Grio's managing editor Joy-Ann Reid expressed doubt on MSNBC's Now with Alex Wagner that conservatives will ever be enlightened enough to move enough towards the center to win an election.
Diversifying the messengers beyond white men and women simply isn't good enough to Reid, who condescendingly described Black and Hispanic Republicans as "window dressing" and "decoration": [video below, MP3 audio here ]
JOY-ANN REID: You know Alex, I have to say, I think that I'm not that hopeful that there's going to be a lot of change here. I'll just channel Ari Melber for a minute since he's not here. I think John Boehner's still got 99 problems right, well at least 80 of them. While the GOP has sort of removed some of the toxic assets like Joe Walsh and probably Alan West, they are in states like Illinois and Florida. In the deep South where the Tea Party is the strongest. Those people aren't going anywhere. I've just been reading almost nothing but conservative media just for the last 24 hours, to see what people are saying...
Just to see what they're saying. And I don't sense one iota of belief that their core values, that their core belief system needs to change. They just think they need to put more window dressing on it, and find some more black and brown people to say the exact same things they believe. They don't believe they need to change their positions on issues. They just believe they need to change the decoration.
By referring to conservatives of color in this way, Reid is underestimating their numbers and insulting their intelligence -- hinting that being liberal is almost essential to being a racial or ethnic minority.
Her sentiments are patently offensive and warrant an apology.
