Thursday, Juan Williams and Warren Ballentine joined Fox News host Bill O'Reilly on the O'Reilly Factor to discuss accusations of so-called racist statements being attributed to conservative talk radio star Rush Limbaugh. Towards the end of the debate, Mr. Ballentine, an African American author and talk radio host told Mr. Williams, who is a African American journalist and news analyst:
"You can go back to the porch, Juan. You can go back. It's OK."
For those who don't understand this particular expression, it refers to a 'Porch Monkey' which is a racial slur dating back to American 17th century colonial times, that originally referred to African American slaves who, when not working, would sit and talk with other slaves on the porch of their plantation homes.
The obvious inference here is that Mr. Ballentine views Mr. Williams as a slave of the Republican Party due to the somewhat Conservative positions he takes on issues.
Mr. Williams apparently drew Mr. Ballentine's egregious statement in this exchange as a result of pointing out that the phrase 'Barack The Magic Negro' was the title of an article written by a black person. Mr. Ballentine seemed to attribute the phrase to Rush Limbaugh stating "He made it a song and played it on his show." and "It is racial to real black people". For the record 'Barack The Magic Negro' is a satirical song written by Paul Shanklin which was played on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Real Black People?
Does that leave out LA Times writer David Ehrenstein who wrote the March 19, 2007 op-ed titled 'Obama the 'Magic Negro'?
Mr. Ballentine, known as truthfighter1 on his Twitter page, later bragged about the incident:
"ok howd i do u hear me tell jaun back to the porch lmao"
"is about to watch me on oreily it starts in 60 sec my popcorn is so buttery lol"
"oh make sure u hear my last shot a jaun williams it was a killer if i say so myself lol"
"just recorded bill oreliy man it was heated they may not invite me back lol iam so the truth lol"
Sometime later Mr. Ballentine said:
"Boy, they're hitting me up on Twitter, boy. These white folks...'call Warren Ballentine out! He told Juan Williams to go back to the porch! They're mad those conservatives. ' How dare you get on our negro who is defending us!' Let me tell everybody who is a conservative who is listening to the show right now. Rush Limbaugh has created a perception of being racially divisive. I have every right to say that. Now if you want to take what I said about Juan Williams as racial, you go right ahead. All I said was he could go back to the porch. I didn't call him a house negro. I said he could go back to the porch. Now if you took it as such, then that means you view him as that."
There seems to be a double standard operating here. It seems it is okay for an African American to refer to another African American as a Porch Monkey, House Negro or Uncle Tom, although being a Democrat or Liberal is a prerequisite. My feeling is that it would not be acceptable in the current Politically Correct paradigm if the referrer were to be a Republican or Conservative.
Those terms have been out of popular usage for quite some time now. How ironic that the professed party of tolerance is promoting and abetting a comeback of such malicious discourse.
Crossposted at True Lies and False Confessions