O'Reilly And Sharpton: Perfect Together

Bill O'Reilly has been considerably criticized for the race- related remarks he made on the Radio Factor on September 19, 2007.. As ABC News.com explained the genesis of the controversy, the television and radio host said of his visit at a famous restaurant in Harlem:


"I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City," said O'Reilly on the Sept. 19 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show.

There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who [was] screaming,'M-Fer was, I want more iced tea," he told National Public Radio's Juan Williams. "[It] was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn't any kind of craziness at all.

Some critics remarked that O'Reilly seemed surprised that "blacks eat with knives and forks," or that "we do use table napkins," as a black law professor at the University of Pennsylvania put it.

But there was something that gnawed at me, and apparently few others, about O'Reilly's remarks. CNN.com reports O'Reilly commented "this is what white America doesn't know, particularly people who don't have a lot of interaction with black Americans. They think the culture is dominated by Twista, Ludacris, and Snoop Dogg." The appeal of rap music is probably more age- (and possibly class-)than race-dependent, Twista, Ludacris, and Snoop Dogg, and rap entertainers generally having more appeal to young white people than to middle-aged blacks. And it's condescending- O'Reilly's appointed mission to educate "white America" about "black America" because white people- including his listeners- "don't have a lot of interaction with black Americans." Perhaps we're sheltered, ignorant, or even racist- clearly inadequate in a way that he is not. We know only that he is a conservative, a Republican, and an elitist.


And let us not forget Reverend Sharpton, who at the time of the incident was dining with Mr. O'Reilly for the second time and later said "I'm not defending him. But I'm not going to OD on O'Reilly." Not, say, like he did on Don Imus. Sharpton brings to mind an old line, something like: "We know what you are. Now we're just discussing the price."